A week has gone by and my mood and frustration has passed (http://scenesfromaslowmovingtrain.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-slowmoving-train-has-made.html) and now we are embattled with scandal upon scandal in our government. The hurricane has done its damage and is gone leaving heroic people in its wake. When I watch the liars and word manipulators act out their various parts in D.C. and then watch and listen to the people of Moore, OK, it is clear to me who the real Americans are in this country. I don't know who the posers are in D.C. and I don't think they know who they are anymore either.
Julian Bond (73), leader of the NAACP, just called the Tea Party the Taliban arm of American Conservatives. He also called us a bunch of self-admitted racists. I wonder what he would have to say to the Rev. Jesse Peterson, founder and leader of a 200 active members strong Tea Party group in South Central L.A. made up of blacks and Hispanics and whites and Asians. Here's a link to learn more about this admirable man. http://www.bondinfo.org/content/revpeterson I used to think, when I was much younger and by extension so was he, that Mr. Bond was a man of courage and great leadership. Now he is nothing more than a mean-spirited, name-calling, throw the baby out with the bath water generalist. Oh how far he has fallen.
The jury in the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell returned a verdict and found him guilty on three of the four first-degree murder charges he faced.
Gosnell was found guilty of killing Baby A, Baby C and Baby D and found not guilty of killing Baby E. He was also convicted on hundreds of lesser charges ranging from infanticide to running a corrupt organization.
The guilty verdict on these three counts subjects the abortion “doctor” to the potential he will face the death penalty when a second jury considers his sentencing on the convictions.
Gonell was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of patient Karnamaya Mongar, who died after a botched abortion. And he was found guilty on most of the more than 200 counts of violating Pennsylvania’s informed consent law.
One local reporter covering the trial indicated Gosnell “heard verdict passively, with small bitter faced smiles.” A Fox news reporter added, “Our Fox producer in the courtroom says Gosnell looked mad when the verdicts were read.”
Multiple reports indicate an assistant prosecutor sobbed as the verdict was read.
Below are the details related to the four babies Gosnell was charged with killing:
Baby Boy A was the biggest baby that Kareema Cross had ever seen delivered at Gosnell’s abortion “House of Horrors” clinic in the four years she worked there. He was delivered to 17-year old Shaquana Abrams at 29.4 weeks gestation, according to an ultrasound record. Baby Boy A was so large, he did not fit into the plastic shoe box that Gosnell tossed him in. Cross said she saw the baby pull in his arms and legs while Gosnell explained the movements as “reflexes” telling her the baby really didn’t move prior to cutting the baby’s neck. Baby Boy A was so large, Gosnell joked that “this baby is big enough to walk around with me or walk me to the bus stop.” Cross and fellow employees Adrienne Moton and 15-year old Ashley Baldwin were all so “startled” by the size of the baby that they all took photos of the baby with their cell phones.
Baby C was an intact baby of over 25-weeks gestation. Kareema Cross testified that she saw Baby C breathing and described the up and down chest movements she observed for 20 minutes. She told the court she saw Lynda Williams lift the baby’s arm and watched as the newborn drew it back on its own power. Afterwards, Williams inserted surgical scissors into the baby’s neck and “snipped” the spinal cord. Gosnell was said to be in the room at the time. This baby’s murder charges were unintentionally dismissed in the place of Baby F, but were reinstated after Judge Minehart discovered his error.
Baby D was described by witnesses as 12-15 inches long with the head the size of a “big pancake” when he was delivered into a toilet. Kareema Cross testified that she saw the baby struggling, using swimming motions in an attempt to get out of the toilet bowl. Adrienne Moton pulled the baby out and “snipped” the neck, as Gosnell had taught her to do, while the mother watched. Gosnell has also been charged with Criminal Solicitation of Moton to commit murder of Baby D.
Baby E was estimated to be at least 23 weeks gestation and maybe more. After Baby E was delivered, teen Ashley Baldwin heard the baby cry and called Kareema Cross for help. Cross described the baby’s cry as a “whine.” Baldwin said that Gosnell when into the room then came out with the baby — which now had an incision in its neck — and tossed it into the waste bin.
Gosnell is charged with four counts of first-degree murder for killing babies following delivery in an abortion process that involved “snipping” their necks and spinal cords. He also faces a third-degree murder charge related to the death of a woman, Karnamaya Mongar, 41, of Virginia, from a botched legal abortion. Gosnell, who has been in jail since his January 2011 arrest.
The abortionist faces 258 counts total and other charges against him include one count of infanticide and one of racketeering, 24 counts of performing third-trimester abortions and 227 counts of failing to follow the 24-hour waiting period law before an abortion so women can consider its risks and alternatives.
Last week, the wanted to re-hear testimony from Adrienne Moton, a medical assistant who told the court in March that she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies during unorthodox abortions. And she said Dr. Kermit Gosnell and another employee did the same sipping technique.
Moton, the first employee to testify, sobbed as she recalled taking a cellphone photograph of one baby left in her work area. She thought he could have survived, given his size and pinkish color. She had measured him at nearly 30 weeks.
“The aunt felt it was just best for her (the mother’s) future,” Moton testified.
Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop, she said.
Jurors saw Moton’s photograph on a large screen in the courtroom, which took on a bizarre look Tuesday as she testified near a hospital bed with stirrups and other aging obstetric equipment. Denied the chance to bring jurors to the shuttered inner-city clinic, prosecutors are instead recreating a patient room in court.
Moton, 35, sobbed as she described her work at the clinic. Because of problems at home, she had moved in with Gosnell and his third wife during high school, and she went to work for him from 2005 to 2008. She earned about $10 an hour, off the books, to administer drugs, perform sonograms, help with abortions and dispose of fetal remains. Workers got $20 bonuses for second-term abortions on Saturdays, when a half-dozen were sometimes performed.
She once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, “At first I didn’t.”
If sentenced for the convictions, Gosnell could face the death penalty following the convictions by the jury in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia.
Under Pennsylvania law, all 12 of the jurors must reach a unanimous verdict on any of the murder counts Gosnell faces for him to be convicted on any of them. Each of the elements of a charged crime must be proven to each juror beyond reasonable doubt for that juror to vote to convict on that count and one reluctant juror could lead to a mistrial on any of the first-degree murder charges.
Since prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty in the case, the jury will only be deciding whether Gosnell is guilty related to the charges. If convicted, a second jury will be impaneled to determine sentencing under the penalty phase of the trial. During this phase, the judge has already instructed jurors to only consider guilt or innocence.
Given the number of charges Gosnell faces, and the fact that Gosnell has a co-defendant the jury is considering for conviction as well, the jury make take a longer period of time to arrive at a verdict on each of the 250-plus charges.
Most of the focus in the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell is on the murder charges he faces for killing babies in abortion-infanticides and for killing a woman in a botched abortion.
But Gosnell faces more than 200 charges related to violating Pennsylvania state law that requires him to provide women with informed consent 24 hours prior to the abortion. Gosnell is charged with breaking that law by not giving women information about abortion risks and alternatives 24 hours prior to the abortion.
Eight other defendants who are former staffers of Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges and are awaiting sentencing.
Previously, the judge in the case reinstated one of the murder charges and dropped another. Gosnell’s defense attorney asked the judge to drop three of the charges for killing the babies and the judge agreed with the contention there was not enough evidence to convict Gosnell on those charges. Another charge of infanticide was also dropped.
Common pleas court Judge Jeffrey Minehart also dropped five counts of corpse abuse at the request of his defense attorney and did not explain his ruling dropping any of the charges.
The defense had argued that there were no live births at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Center abortion clinic and contends the babies died during abortions and their necks were snipped afterwards. But former Gosnell staffers testified they saw signs of life even after the abortion had been completed — saying the babies “jumped” and “screamed” and tried to escape.
Gosnell, whose squalid “house of horrors” abortion clinic has surprised even investigative officials, has had almost flippant attitude toward his macabre abortion practices shocked the nation.
“The Gosnell case is a watershed moment for the issue of abortion,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states.”
Previously, Gosnell’s wife Pearl pleaded guilty to assisting her husband at his Philadelphia abortion center where he killed a woman in a botched abortion and has killed hundreds of babies in abortion-infanticides. Pearl Gosnell was considering a plea deal similar to the one several of Gosnell’s former abortion center employees have made where they have pleaded guilty to receive a lesser sentence in exchange for testifying against Gosnell.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Today the IRS admitted that during the 2012 election, any group that had Tea Party or Patriot in the name was targeted for auditing. This should make everyone nervous. These acts are unconscionable. They are illegal. It's profiling. It should take a lot more than an apology from the IRS to get away with this. Of course, the level of mockery that was leveled at the charges and complaints while it was happen was high; high enough to suggest that the targeting was true. As far as I'm concerned, where you find high levels of mockery, you find high levels of guilt.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Archbishop Cordileone states case against gay marriage
'To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant.'
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone chairs the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage. Here are his views on the subject in response to questions from USA TODAY:
Q: What is the greatest threat posed by allowing gays and lesbians to marry? A:The better question is: What is the great good in protecting the public understanding that to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife? I can illustrate my point with a personal example. When I was Bishop of Oakland, I lived at a residence at the Cathedral, overlooking Lake Merritt. It's very beautiful. But across the lake, as the streets go from 1st Avenue to the city limits at 100th Avenue, those 100 blocks consist entirely of inner city neighborhoods plagued by fatherlessness and all the suffering it produces: youth violence, poverty, drugs, crime, gangs, school dropouts, and incredibly high murder rates. Walk those blocks and you can see with your own eyes: A society that is careless about getting fathers and mothers together to raise their children in one loving family is causing enormous heartache. To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant, and that marriage is essentially an institution about adults, not children; marriage would mean nothing more than giving adults recognition and benefits in their most significant relationship. How can we do this to our children?
Q: If the Supreme Court opens the floodgates to gay marriage in California (or beyond), what will be the result? A: If the Supreme Court overturns Prop 8, this will not go down in history as the Loving v. Virginia but as the Roe v. Wade decision of our generation. No matter what the Supreme Court rules, this debate is not over. Marriage is too important and the issues raised by treating same-gender unions as marriages are too fundamental to just go away. Just as Roe v. Wade did not end the conversation about abortion, so a ruling that tries to import same-sex marriage into our Constitution is not going to end the marriage debate, but intensify it. We will have a bitterly polarized country divided on the marriage issue for years if not generations to come.
Q: Why is this of such importance to children? A: Why has virtually every known civilization across time and history recognized the need to bring together men and women to make and raise the next generation together? Clearly something important is at stake, or human beings of such different cultures, histories and religions would not come up with the basic idea of marriage as a male-female union over and over again. ... When we as a culture abandon that idea and ideal, children suffer, communities suffer, women suffer, and men are dehumanized by being told they aren't important to the project of family life. Modern social science evidence generally supports the idea that the ideal for a child is a married mother and father. The scientific study of children raised by two men or two women is in its infancy ... several recent studies ... are painting a less sanguine portrait that some professional organizations have yet acknowledged about whether two dads can make up for the absence of a mom, or vice versa. We all know heroic single mothers who do a great job raising their kids (just as there are gay people who take good care of their children). But the question of the definition of marriage is not about success or failure in parenting in any particular case. The job of single mothers is hard precisely because we aren't as a society raising boys to believe they need to become faithful husbands and fathers, men who care for and protect their children, and the mother of their children, in marriage. And we aren't raising girls to be the kind of young women with the high standards and the self-worth to expect and appreciate such men, and not to settle for less.
Q: How would the allegation that opponents are bigoted lead to their rights being abridged? A: Notice the first right being taken away: the right of 7 million Californians who devoted time and treasure to the democratic process, to vote for our shared vision of marriage. Taking away people's right to vote on marriage is not in itself a small thing. But the larger picture that's becoming increasingly clear is that this is not just a debate about what two people do in their private life, it's a debate about a new public norm: Either you support redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex or you stand accused by law and culture of bigotry and discrimination. If you want to know what this new public legal and social norm stigmatizing traditional believers will mean for real people, ask David and Tanya Parker, who objected to their kindergarten son being taught about same sex marriage after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized it in that state and wanted to pull him out of class for that lesson. He was arrested and handcuffed for trying to protect his son's education, and they were told they had no right to do so. Ask the good people of Ocean Grove Methodist camp in New Jersey that had part of its tax-exempt status rescinded because they don't allow same-sex civil union ceremonies on their grounds. Ask Tammy Schulz of Illinois, who adopted four children (including a sibling group) through Evangelical Child Family Services — which was shut down because it refuses to place children with same-sex couples. (The same thing has happened in Illinois, Boston and Washington, D.C., to Catholic Charities adoption services). ... Ask the doctor in San Diego County who did not want to personally create a fatherless child through artificial insemination, and was punished by the courts.... Ask Amy Rudnicki who testified in the Colorado Legislature recently that if Catholic Charities is shut out of the adoption business by new legislation, her family will lose the child they expected to adopt this year. ... Nobody is better off if religious adoption agencies are excluded from helping find good homes for abused and neglected children, but governments are doing this because the principle of "anti-discrimination" is trumping liberty and compassion. ... When people say that opposition to gay marriage is discriminatory, like opposition to interracial marriage, they cannot also say their views won't hurt anybody else. They seek to create and enforce a new moral and legal norm that stigmatizes those who view marriage as the union of husband and wife. ... It's not kind, and it doesn't seem to lead to a "live and let live" pluralism.
Q: You have spoken of gay marriage as a "natural impossibility." But in terms of procreation, how does it differ from opposite-sex couples who are elderly or infertile? A: Our bodies have meaning. The conjugal union of a man and a woman is not a factory to produce babies; marriage seeks to create a total community of love, a "one flesh" union of mind, heart and body that includes a willingness to care for any children their bodily union makes together. Two men and two women can certainly have a close loving committed emotional relationship, but they can never ever join as one flesh in the unique way a husband and wife do. Infertility is, as you point out, part of the natural life cycle of marriage (people age!), as well as a challenge and disappointment some husbands and wives have to go through. People who have been married for 50 years are no less married because they can no longer have children. Adoption can be a wonderful happy ending for children who lack even one parent able or willing to care for them. But notice, when a man and woman cannot have children together, that's an accident of circumstances, the exception to the rule. When a husband and wife adopt, they are mirroring the pattern set in nature itself. ... Treating same-sex relationships as marriage is the final severing by government of the natural link between marriage and the great task of bringing together male and female to make and raise the next generation together in love.
Q: Is it particularly difficult for you to play a leading role against gay marriage in a place like San Francisco? Does it change your relationship with gay congregants? A: Truthfully, I am really excited to be in San Francisco. I remember the first time I saw the city as a boy when our family drove up from San Diego to meet my father who was unloading his tuna boat here. ... To me San Francisco was and is The City! It represents vibrant, pulsating, creative, cosmopolitan life and I love it. Of course I realize many people in San Francisco disagree with the church's teachings on marriage and sex, but there is also a very deeply embedded Catholic culture here with many people who understand and cherish the church's teachings. My job as an archbishop is to teach the truths of our faith and the truths of the natural moral law, and whatever challenges that entails I embrace with enthusiasm. We can learn to respect each other across differences and even to love one another. That's my hope anyway. And my job description.
Q: Has it become more difficult to oppose gay marriage over the years? Does it seem the tide is turning against you? A:There is a problem here – an injustice, really – in the way that some people are so often identified by what they are against. Opposition to same-sex marriage is a natural consequence of what we are for, i.e., preserving the traditional, natural understanding of marriage in the culture and in the law. But of course people who are for the redefinition of marriage to include two men or two women are also against something: They are against protecting the social and legal understanding that marriage is the union of a husband and wife who can give children a mother and father. So there are really two different ideas of marriage being debated in our society right now, and they cannot coexist: Marriage is either a conjugal union of a man and a woman designed to unite husband and wife to each other and to any children who may come from their union, or it is a relationship for the mutual benefit of adults which the state recognizes and to which it grants certain benefits. Whoever is for one, is opposed to the other. ... Those of us who favor preserving the traditional understanding of marriage do not do so because we want people who experience attraction to their same sex to suffer. We recognize and respect the equal human dignity of everyone. Everyone should be treated equally, but it is not discrimination to treat differently things that are different. Marriage really is unique for a reason.
Q: Do you have friends or family members who are gay? How do you balance your public policy positions with those relationships? A: Of course! I am a Baby Boomer, and I grew up in Southern California. The larger question you raise about my relationships with people I care about is: How can we love each other across deep differences in moral views? The answer I have found is that when we want to stay in relationship, we can and do. Love finds a way. When we want to exclude or hate, we find each other's views literally intolerable. Of course, it helps that my friends know me, directly and unfiltered through any other source. When you know someone personally, it's much harder to rely on stereotyped or media-created images. It's a lot harder to be hateful or prejudiced against a person, or group of people, that one knows personally. When there is personal knowledge and human interaction, the barriers of prejudice and pre-conceived ideas come down.
Q: What are your main goals: Supreme Court, lower courts, state legislatures, public opinion, religious liberty? A: My main goal is none of these. I'm a faith leader, and my main goal is to seek to create a Catholic community in San Francisco where people know what the church teaches and uses this knowledge to guide their own lives and get to heaven. I want to help people understand the truth of natural marriage and, for people of my own faith, the deeper, theological, even mystical meaning of marriage as designed by God. Using words, though, is only one way of teaching. Usually one's actions speak louder than words. So there is a place for public manifestations of principle. The civil rights marches of the '60s are a good example of that. Yes, they were a way to agitate for long overdue political change, but they also had a teaching effect in that they got people to think about the injustices of racism. Engaging with the broader culture is also part of my teaching role as an archbishop, and of course my right as U.S. citizen.
Q: Are you worried about the recent trend in courts and states going against you? How best to stop that trend? A: The natural law has a power written on the human heart that doesn't go away. Notice how there is no controversy in this country now over the evil of Jim Crow laws. Shortly after the Civil Rights Act the cultural change was complete. This is because it was the right thing to do. The truth cannot be suppressed indefinitely. Draw a contrast here with the pro-life movement: After the Roe decision, it was commonly thought that our society would soon easily accept the legitimacy of abortion. But what has happened? The pro-life movement is stronger now, 40 years later, than it ever has been. This is because of the truth: Abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. That is not a matter of opinion or religious belief; it is a simple fact that cannot be denied. The same principle applies with marriage: It is simply a natural fact that you need a man and a woman to make a marriage and that a child's heart longs for the love of both his or her mother and father. Even if the Supreme Court rules against this truth, the controversy will not die out, as it hasn't on the abortion issue. The problem is, the longer a society operates in denial of the truth, the greater is the harm that will be done. The examples of the racist policies and practices of the past in our own country make this clear, as does all the harm that abortion has done to women and all those in her network of relationships. With marriage, we have to consider the harm that will be caused by enshrining in the law the principle that children do not need a mother and a father. The circumstances of our struggles change but the truth does not.
COLUMBUS, OH, May 3, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell has weighed in publicly on the firing of a lesbian teacher from a diocesan high school, telling The Columbus Dispatch that Catholic schools have a “fundamental responsibility” to make sure their teachers uphold the teachings of the faith.
Bishop Frederick Campbell
Gym instructor Carla Hale was fired from Bishop Watterson High School last month after an anonymous parent wrote to the Diocese of Columbus to complain that in an obituary for Hale’s mother, Hale was listed as a surviving family member together with her longtime lesbian partner, Julie. Hale signed a morality clause as part of her contract, affirming that “Catholic school personnel are expected to be examples of moral behavior and professionalism,” and acknowledging her employment could be terminated for “immorality” or “serious unethical conduct.” Because the Roman Catholic Church holds homosexual behavior to be gravely immoral, the Diocese of Columbus found her to be in violation of her contract, and fired her. In an exclusive interview with The Dispatch, Bishop Campbell said that while diocesan officials “don’t necessarily go looking for things like that,” Hale’s choice to publicly reveal her homosexual relationship left the diocese no choice but to terminate her employment. Hale wants her job back and has filed a grievance with the teachers union, along with a formal complaint with the Columbus Community Relations Commission accusing the school of violating Columbus’s anti-discrimination ordinance. City law deems it is a misdemeanor for an employer to discriminate against an employee based on sexual preference, or to have policies which do so. There is no exemption for religious organizations or other employers who object to homosexuality on religious grounds. A guilty verdict carries penalties of up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. The Community Relations Commission will evaluate Hale’s claim and decide whether to pass it on to the city prosecutor’s office. Bishop Campbell told The Dispatch that the Church, the diocese and the school have been the targets of multiple threats since Hale’s firing. “It can be very intimidating,” Campbell said. “We are very concerned about that, but we have to remain steadfast in the teaching of the church.” A diocesan spokesman told The Dispatch that the diocese is paying for a Columbus police officer to be present on campus during school hours, and that local police have stepped up their patrols in the neighborhood.
