pjohanna

Ah, a faithful mormon preaching what his God teaches him to preach. 

And what was the response of this mormon?
Buttars declined to comment to The Associated Press, but said Friday he would not be issuing an apology.
In a statement released on the Senate Republicans’ blog, Buttars wrote that he will continue to defend traditional marriage.
“I was disappointed to learn of the Utah State Senates censure on February 20, 2009. However, this action will not discourage me from defending marriage from an increasingly vocal and radical segment of the homosexual community.
In recent years, registering opposition to the homosexual agenda has become almost impossible. Political correctness has replaced open and energetic debate. Those who dare to disagree with the homosexual agenda are labeled “haters” and “bigots,” and are censured by their peers.
The media contributes to the problem. Increasingly, individuals with conservative beliefs are targeted by a left leaning media that uses their position of public trust as a bully pulpit. This pattern of intimidation suppresses free speech.
For the record, I do not agree with the censure. I see it as an attempt to shy away from controversy. In particular, I disagree with my removal as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, since my work there is entirely unrelated to my opposition to the homosexual agenda.
Still, I’m a grown man and I can take my knocks. When it comes right down to it, I would rather be censured for doing what I think is right, than be honored by my colleagues for bowing to the pressure of a special interest group that has been allowed to act with impunity.
Thanks to the many citizens who have written and called to express their support. Please know that I’ll live through this to fight another day. In years to come, we’ll all look back at this point in history and see it as a crossroads. I have no intention of resigning.”

What an appropriate way to demonstrate what your God teaches you, righ..

A 40-day fast. 
I want to know who are the tens of thousands of people that follow this man? Seriously, look at his body language, something is mentally wrong with this man. Lou Engle.
Fasting means starvation which equals HALLUCINATIONS…not God talking to you.

76 year old church volunteer was explaining the church’s suicide hotline with six people, including a tourist group from Canada. “We were talking actually about the suicide prevention hotline that we have here at our church and telling them it’s open 24 hours, seven days a week, and then just then, I heard this pop”.
Meanwhile, an 84 year old church volunteer welcomes this man that hands her a note and his driver’s license. The note stated his pick-up was in the parking lot. He walked up to a gold cross and knelt as if to pray and shot himself. What did the pastor have to say?
“He did not give any sign that he was going to do that. He just came, like any other tourist, to pray,” said pastor Juan Carlos Ortiz. “I think God will have mercy on him, because he must have been very desperate to do what he did.” 
The Orange County coroner’s office identified the man as Steve Smick, 48.  
“I think God will have mercy on him”? Seriously? To make a statement like that for his family to read is just callous, but what else do you expect from some “Christians”. I just can’t help but wonder, going to the house of God, wouldn’t something happen from God Himself to let others know that His house was going to be used for that?
The Crystal Cathedral had been a witness to another tragedy:

How ironic. The wife was decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes. This type of “honor killing” is native in their land of Pakistan. What animals.
He did the honerable thing and turned himself in.
How disgusting.

According to Christian Today, Jade Goody has revealed she wants to christen her sons Bobby, five, and Freddy, four, so that they know their mummy is looking down on them from Heaven and wants this done before she dies after receiving the devastating news last week that her cancer is terminal. 
They also report her saying the following:
I want to ask God why he couldn’t have given me more time with my boys. Just a bit—just enough to hear them laugh a few more times, to see that they’re happy, to write them long letters so I can tell them who I was and how much I loved them and remind them about all the things we did together. Because they might forget me. And I can’t bear the thought of that.
Sometimes that is a question many face when they are soon near the end: Why God?  
Very sad situation.

Apprently the “gay agenda” is to silence the christians. Why am I always the last to find out what the agenda is? Someone needs to stay ontop of letting all the homosexuals know what the movement is, seriously. The one-hour  ’special report’ starts as a look at how a group of Christian demonstrators were arrested for, as they tell it, trying to “share the Gospel,” but almost immediately focuses on gay and lesbian Americans’ struggle for equality under the law.
“Special classes of people get special protections”
Here we go, trying to scare the heteros against the homos. Very Christ like, right?  This ’special report’ is based on the same book that Sally Kern declared helped her find out what the “gay agenda” is. It’s a 1989 book called “After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s,” by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. The video was produced by the American Family Association, and includes testimony from individuals who claim that they were once homosexual but were “cured” through prayer.
Who pushes this “gay agenda” more, the Christians or the ‘homosexuals’? The way the Christians go around bringing light to this agenda makes them the ones that push the issue. The “gay agenda” is nothing more than a scary term started by the religious zealots to scare their flock into hating a minor class of citizens.  
Homosexuals are not asking for “special” treatment, they are asking for equality. Special treatment would be: no paying of taxes, not going to work and collecting disability, etc. 
I think I am going to have to read that book, and maybe let my other “homosexual” friends know what the book is about, see? Thanks to the religious people, I myself am going to find out what this “gay agenda” is…
The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family claim that,
It is an agenda that they basically se...

From Politico:  
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned supporters Tuesday that the $828 billion stimulus package is “anti-religious.” 
In an e-mail that was also posted on his blog ahead of the Senate’s passage, Huckabee wrote: “The dust is settling on the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus bill and one thing is clear: It is anti-religious.” 
Ok, let’s talk about the past 8 years that were VERY religious:
1. Unlimited government spending for war. (killing people, very Christ like)
2. Unlimited tax breaks for the rich.
3. Deregulation: turning the financial system into a Ponzi scheme.
Our national debt doubled and now we are living, not in a recession, but a depression.  
Why is it that every time a Christian Right Winger feels that their religious views are being infringed upon, in what is called “separation of church & state” they go calling someone “anti-religious” or liberal? It isn’t about religion, get that through your thick head.
Our Bill of Rights was established to keep Congress from establishing a religion, basically we have freedom from religion. Heck, isn’t that the reason that the Pilgrims left Europe in the first place? Look at the taliban and their religious fist, is that what the Christian Right Wingers want for our Nation?
Rumor has it that Huckabee wants to run in 2012. I hope that people have sense enough to realize that a religious person has no place in the White House, look at the past 8 years. There is no balance with a religious zealot. 
Freedom means everyone has a right to make a choice of what they believe in. Without this choice, without this freedom, then it goes against our forefathers ideals.
Obviously, Huckabee hasn’t been following President Obama closely. President Obama is making every effort in being inclusive towards everyone, in regards to religion. 
How about trying to stop making this Nation a Theocratic one?

Utah has a constitutional ban on gay marriage and domestic unions that was approved by voters in 2004. At the time, Jon Huntsman said he supported Amendment 3.  Now, Huntsman, who governs one of the country’s most conservative states, said Tuesday he supports civil unions for gay people that would give them many of the same legal rights as married couples. Huntsman isn’t new to gay rights issues. Soon after taking office in 2005, he backed a failed bill that would have granted mutually dependent couples certain health care and property rights.
I believe in the traditional definition of marriage, but I also believe that we can do a better job in enhancing equal rights for more of our citizens.
What is interesting about this is that Hunstman is in fact a practicing LDS, or Mormon. The Associated Press reports that  80 percent to 90 percent of Utah lawmakers belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Following the November election, especially the Proposition 8 fiasco in California, the church issued a statement that Equality Utah has made the focus of its campaign for gay rights in Utah.
“The Church does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches,” the church said at the time.
Huntsman’s critics are opposing his views. ”I’m very disappointed in the governor’s stance. Civil union is really tantamount to marriage,” said Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights. “It’s gay-marriage light.”
Huntsman is not running for a third term, so perhaps this is why he is making some changes without any fear. Either way, it is about time that someone is concerned with “equal rights” for its citizens then some antiquated way of thinking, especially with the Mormon’s religious track record.

When asked (6.00) by Katie if he prayed, his response, “I’m sure someone else was”. I don’t know what his beliefs are, but I found this response very interesting. 
His expertise and the way that he was calm and was rationalizing the whole situation saved 155 lives. He is humble and I seriously do think, a Hero.

Tony Perkins recently gave an interview with God & Country. The person that interviewed him made this statement: 
I was surprised by how critical he has become of the Republican Party and that he extended qualified compliments to the Obama administration. I’m used to hearing such talk from moderate evangelicals like Rev. Joel Hunter, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference’s Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, or former National Association of Evangelicals lobbyist Richard Cizik, but not from a proud right winger like Perkins.
When asked what he believed was the change in the GOP this was Perkins answer:
 
It is something that happened after 2004, when there was a great emphasis by the Republicans and the president on the need to protect marriage. It was used to secure a second term for President Bush and to expand Republican control of Congress. And after the election, the issue was basically dropped.
That, combined with corruption that distracted the Republican Party, Mark Foley—it all added up to where people began to scratch their heads and say, “This is not the party that is really reflecting our values.”
Within the same site, Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics sums up the reasons for doubt: 
I wouldn’t rush to take this at face value. It’s pretty much SOP for religious right leaders to rattle the Republican cage whenever they’re feeling a bit unloved, and with the election of Michael Steele as head of the RNC, that’s just how they’re feeling. I’ll believe there’s something going on when I see signs of it on the relevant websites. And if you take a look at the FRC’s, all you’ll find is anti-Obamaism, not a peep of anti-Republicanism.
I’m just wondering if this doesn’t have to do with something else? Like maybe the color of Michael Steele? Let’s see:
In 1996, Perkins paid the Grand Wizard of the KKK $82,000 for use of his mailing list. 
In 2001, Perkins addressed the Council of Conservative Citizens (s...

Per CNN Bishop Richard Williamson has been removed from his position as head of a seminary in Argentina. ”Mr. Williamson is impossible and irresponsible,” Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, said Saturday, according to Spiegel Online. “I now see no room for him in the Catholic church.” This after the report that Williamson saying he will not recant and that he would need more evidence to believe the Holocaust really happened. 
In his blog Saturday, Williamson, referring to himself, posted a note, saying, “His Excellency is neither dead, dying, nor retired.”
Oh the drama. Il Pappa put his foot in his mouth, asked this guy to recant and this guy is showing his boss that he has balls, he refuses to take his statement back. Who is at fault? Il Pappa. He should have done his homework. Now he has all the Jewish leaders pissed off at him, and with reason.
What is very interesting to me is that this Bishop is known to criticize the Holy See, not only of deceit, but of being under the power of Satan. He believes the Society of St. Pius X is composed of true Catholics who are keeping the “complete Roman Catholic apostolic faith”. He disagrees with the Roman Catholic church trying to be open and ‘tolerant’ to other religions. 
He denis being anti-semetic, although he called jews “enemies of Christ”. In regards to the attacks of 9/11 he believes that our very own government (the U.S.) committed the horrific crime.
I just wonder, if I can find all this information, how did Il Pappa miss it?

It all started with the atheists starting a campaign on the side of the buses with the message:
THERE’S PROBABLY NO GOD. NOW STOP WORRYING ABOUT IT AND ENJOY LIFE.
The Trinitarian Bible Society has paid $50,000 to display posters on 125 of London’s red double-decker buses that quote Psalm 53: “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” The Christian Party, a right-wing political party whose policies mostly focus on moral issues, is joining the advert battle by displaying posters on at least 50 buses, though they are not working directly with Larlham’s group. “There definitely is a God,” their message reads. “So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life.”
Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox Church is going to place the message “There is God. Don’t Worry. Enjoy your life!” on at least 25 buses from March. “We’re living in a difficult time, when crisis is being extensively promoted, and people need some life-asserting message,” he told London’s Daily Telegraph.
Since its January 6 launch, the London scheme has been credited with inspiring atheist bus campaigns in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany and Italy, where next month posters in Genoa will read: “The bad news is that God does not exist. The good news is that we do not need him.” 
British advertising authority responsible for screening ads, received more than 150 complaints about the atheist campaign during January, and at least one bus driver walked off the job. “This is a public attack on people’s faiths,” Ron Heather, a 62-year old bus driver and evangelical Christian said. “I have a lot of passengers who are over 90 or are seriously ill, and to tell them there is no God seems a bit insensitive, when God is probably all they have left in the world.”
The atheist bus organizers say that they are regrouping and will launch another campaign in April, knowing that Christian groups are likely to respond in tur...

Author Randall Balmer sees a White House that is more moral than under former president Bush. I found this about his book:
How did we go from John F. Kennedy declaring that religion should play no role in the elections to Bush saying, “I believe that God wants me to be president”?
Historian Randall Balmer takes us on a tour of presidential religiosity in the last half of the twentieth century—from Kennedy’s 1960 speech that proposed an almost absolute wall between American political and religious life to the soft religiosity of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society; from Richard Nixon’s manipulation of religion to fit his own needs to Gerald Ford’s quiet stoicism; from Jimmy Carter’s introduction of evangelicalism into the mainstream to Ronald Reagan’s co-option of the same group; from Bill Clinton’s covert way of turning religion into a non-issue to George W. Bush’s overt Christian messages, Balmer reveals the role religion has played in the personal and political lives of these American presidents.
Americans were once content to disregard religion as a criterion for voting, as in most of the modern presidential elections before Jimmy Carter.But today’s voters have come to expect candidates to fully disclose their religious views and to deeply illustrate their personal relationship to the Almighty. God in the White House explores the paradox of Americans’ expectation that presidents should simultaneously trumpet their religious views and relationship to God while supporting the separation of church and state. Balmer tells the story of the politicization of religion in the last half of the twentieth century, as well as the “religionization” of our politics. He reflects on the implications of this shift, which have reverberated in both our religious and political worlds, and offers a new lens through which to see not only these extraordinary individuals, but also our current political situation.
The religious right gain a lo...

“I was not raised in a particularly religious household,” the president said. “I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion.”
“But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Christian Post is reporting that the christian right is challenging his pick for top justice positions. One critic, Patrick Trueman, had this to say:
David Ogden has been an activist in the support of a right to pornography, a right of abortion and the rights of homosexuals
Meanwhile, Tom Minnery, a vice president at Focus on the Family, says, ”This is left-wing politicization of the Justice Department. This is not a Justice Department that looks like America.” Looks, like which America? The theocratic America? 
The challenge to Obama’s Justice picks come as conservative evangelicals seek to limit the power of the new Democratic administration and maintain their own within the Republican Party. They are looking for their best interest and want the government to keep footing the bill on ideals that they promote. The article itself stated this: 
Some Republicans believe a tight embrace of social conservative values turns off independents and moderates, but many Christian right leaders resist compromise and contend that, if anything, the GOP has strayed too far from its principles.
President Obama’s message is loud and clear. He doesn’t believe one view is better than the other. He is willing to work with everyone, no matter what the ideal is, but if he wants this to work then the christian leaders are going to have to teach their flock what tolerance is. For eight years our government was ran like a theocratic government. He professed to follow Christ, yet we went to war, murdering and torturing people and the christian right supported him. 
It is amazi

Jim D. Adkisson,  an out-of-work truck driver accused of opening fire on July 27, 2008, at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee will plead guilty to killing two people and wounding six others, his attorney said Wednesday. Police say Adkisson targeted the church because of its liberal open-door policies, including acceptance of gays, and fully expected to keep shooting until responding officers killed him. The Unitarian Universalist church promotes progressive social work, including advocacy of women and gay rights. A four-page letter found in Adkisson’s small SUV suggested he targeted the church, which his former wife once attended, because he hated liberals and gays.
Looking for a video about this, I found this from Fox news:

I guess to Fox news gays and liberals are ok to go after and even kill, because it is not considered a ‘hate crime’.

It seems like Sally didn’t catch any flack from what she said last year. The Okgazette.com is reporting that Sally found the GAY AGENDA!
She said that she found the GAY AGENDA in a book, “After the Ball”, by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. Apparently, according to the article, the GAY AGENDA is that gays would like to be accepted by society to the point of becoming a superior lifestyle. She then called for a “Great Awkening”, a spirtual revival. 
I was wondering why this woman is so ANTI-homosexuals and this “gay agenda” she keeps referring to. So, looking around the internet I found this: Jesse Kern is her son that attended Oklahoma Baptist University, rumor is, he is gay. I also found this: Jesse Kern denise he is gay, but states he is celibate. He kinda sounds like Ted Haggard.
Well, there is something that is pushing this woman to really hate the gays, and I don’t think it is the bible that she is hiding behind.
What I find ironic is that this morning, someone left me a comment: “Christians are not your enemy. Heterosexuals are not your enemy”, in another post. Now, I have never stated the case for either, but don’t you find it hard to believe the opposite when rehtoric like this is spewed?

Is it ironic that, according to the Christian Post, a new gallup poll found Oklahoma one of the top ten religious states in the U.S.? The site that I found this video had this comment posted:
It happens everywhere to a degree, but it is worse in Oklahoma than almost anywhere else. 
Douglas will be by here in a bit to tell you how much better things are, how life in Oklahoma is improving. It’s not. It’s getting worse.
And from experience, I expect it’s going to get a whole lot worse because economic turmoil generally tends to increase hatred and intolerance of difference. 
What just shocks me though, and I’ve lived here much of my life, is that this is one of the poorest states, with one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates, one of the highest rates of domestic violence. We have more women incarcerated than any other state, we’ve got more alcoholism, more drug addiction, more divorce and more Bibles per capita than any other state in the lower 48. 
So this is benefiting us how? All of this hate and judgment and Bible thumping is improving life here HOW????
It frustrates me to death. Oklahoma had a good, solid progressive history with the Wobblies and the radical farmers of the plains side of the state (where Enid, a cesspool, sits). Woody Guthrie is our favorite son. So what happened to us? 
I don’t remember it being this way when I was a kid. I think it got worse with the whole evangelical craziness that took hold in the late ’70s and ’80s. Or maybe it did start earlier. Maybe it started with desegregation, it’s just that I don’t remember attitudes being anywhere near so harsh or divisive when I was younger. 
Bottom line: For a lot of reasons, Oklahoma sucks. Unfortunately, Oklahoma’s proud of that and it’s unlikely there will be any changes for the better in the future. 
For the record, I didn’t get that this man was necessarily focused on gays, as much as he was calling little punk pierced tattooed kids faggots. That he&#...

Johanna Sigurdardottir, has been named as Iceland’s prime minister, and is the first openly lesbian head of government in Europe, if not the world - at least in modern times. The BBC is reporting that her sexuality is not important in Iceland as it is around the world. 
What is really historic about this new cabinet, says Skuli Helgeson, the general secretary of Ms Sigurardottir’s Social Democratic Alliance, is not the fact that its leader is a lesbian, but that for the first time in Icelandic history it boasts an equal number of men and women.”I don’t think her sexual orientation matters. Our voters are pretty liberal, they don’t care about any of that.” 
Her appointment is as an interim leader, until elections in May. Their previous cabinet had to resign due to Iceland’s financial system collapse in October under the weight of debt, leading to a currency crisis, rising unemployment and daily protests.
I just can’t help but imagine how the religious right would react to something like that here in the U.S.A. 
I am also wondering, why hasn’t Iceland blown up in a combustion of hell fire?

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!
The grandmother of the octuplets born in Southern California says her daughter conceived all 14 of her children in vitro, is not married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager. Angela Suleman told The Associated Press she is taking care of her daughter’s first six children, ages 2 through 7, while her 33-year-old daughter recovers from giving birth on Monday in nearby Bellflower.
8+6=14, 14! Can you imagine the expense this is? The economy is down the tubes and this woman has 8 children that are under a month old and then 6 children from 2 years through 7. Now, think about it, the dad is saying she wanted 1 more and her current “baby” was about a year old, does anyone else agree with me that something is wrong with this woman? At what point do the parents put the SMACK down?
The worst part is that as tax payers here in California, we are the ones footing with her expense. She won’t have to work and the state will have to “help” her.
Listening to that Dr. I didn’t realize how easy it is to get pregnant now-a-days without a male. I wonder why organizations like Focus on the Family aren’t crying about this mess?

The Christian Post is promoting a national televised program that airs today to “expose how God and religion” are missing from the Capitol Visitor Center. The program, which will air on “The Coral Ridge Hour,” takes viewers on a tour of the CVC as it argues how important religious references – such as the nation’s motto “In God We Trust” – had been omitted in a deliberate cover up of America’s Christian history and “censorship” of God.

Senator Jim DeMint the first critic to notice ‘God’ missing,  received his education from Christ Church Episcopal School, of course he is going to think that our nation was founded on christianity. He has been very critical and changes have been made, based on his persistance, but he is still not happy. Perhaps he thinks our nation is a theocracy? Haven’t we learned by now that those that have had religious schooling tend to get their facts mixed? They tend to be biased. Richard Dawkins has good footage on just that.
“We have built no NATIONAL temples but the Capitol; 
we consult no common oracle but the Constitution.” 
—Rufus Choate, R/Whig- MA (Rep. and Sen.)
The point being made was that our government is intended neither to be, nor to replace, a religion. It’s a good thing to emphasize to visitors the fact that the Capitol Building is not a church, and Members of Congress are neither preachers nor prophets no matter how badly some of them long to be or actually think they are.
Senator Jim DeMint apparently just doesn’t know U.S. history very well. “E Pluribus Unum” was the original Motto of the United States. It was included on the Great Seal of the United States. It was adopted by congress in 1782, and included an eagle with a heart-shaped shield, holding arrows and an olive branch in its claws. The motto “E Pluribus Unum” appeared on a scroll held in its beak. The seal was first used on 1782-SEP-16. It was first used on some federal coins in 1795.
The Motto was ...