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06/11/2009
LiMandri as objective voice? We object!
Attorney Charles LiMandri is going all over the media telling people that Carrie Prejean was unjustly fired. So let us now remind you (as Miss California pageant official Keith Lewis just did on the "Today" show): Charles LiMandri is also general counsel for the National Organization For Marriage. The same NOM that saw an interest in immediately issuing a press release that blames everyone but Carrie for the termination.
Let us also remind you that this is the same Charles LiMandri who, in the days leading up to Prop 8, placed editorials warning of all the "evils" that would befall California if locals allowed equality to go unchecked. And in the days post-Prop 8, he went to the uber-conservative Washington Times (where his legal connection to the anti-gay side was unacknowledged) with claims that he was being "harassed" for merely donating to the campaign.
So when you hear Chuck saying things like...
“She was denied the Miss USA title because she gave an honest answer to the marriage question,” ... “and now they've deposed her from the Miss California USA title — all because she gave an honest answer to that question.”
Miss California USA stripped of crown [Union-Tribune]
...first ask yourself if you really want to trust someone who has publicly sided with NOM/Prop 8, America's most dishonest answers to the marriage question.
**MORE INSIGHT INTO HOW CHUCK SEES US: Check out this "Satanic" snippet from a piece that Mr. LiMandri penned for Catholic Exchange:
Can we stop this societal suicide - possibly, but not if we can't stop same-sex "marriage" in California in November 2008, and not without supernatural help. Without the foundation of Religion and Morality that George Washington and the other founding fathers provided for us, there is simply no real hope for the future of this country.
Finally, since it is only in our maleness and femaleness that we are made in the image and likeness of God, the destruction of the concept of gender is perhaps Satan's greatest accomplishment. Moreover, since the sacramental marriage of a husband and wife is used to image the relationship of Christ and His Church, even the idea of same-sex "marriage" is a sacrilege. Therefore, separate and apart from the seemingly accurate prognastications of Professor Unwin, I just don't see how a God of Justice can tolerate such a diabolical mockery of His divinely ordained institution of marriage for very long. Indeed, the same man to whom our Lord entrusted the Keys to the Kingdom warned us that: "...in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts... " (2 Peter 3:3). In conclusion, I informed my friend that although we have had the privilege of living in the greatest nation in the history of the world, based on the foregoing, we may very well be seeing it in its waning years. May the God of our fathers have mercy on us and our beloved country.
Your thoughts
Considering Jesus never got married (or at least that's what Christianity officially believes), it makes his entire obsession with marriage bunk.
Posted by: ---- | Jun 11, 2009 11:09:09 AM
Since God made gay men and women just as He made straight ones, this religious argument doesn't hold up. Like all such "moral" arguments against gay people, it presupposes that gays have a choice in their sexual orientation. Why not just rejoice in the fact that God has blessed us with a world of such beauty and diversity?
Posted by: tasiv | Jun 11, 2009 11:40:37 AM
Dear NOM et al,
Carrie Prejean is a snarling, vicious, viper-tongued narcissist who does not serve your purposes too well, as she'll drop her drawers for a buck. This fake martyrdom will be yet another in a long line of missteps that will backfire mercilessly on your organization.
Sincerely,
The Truth
Posted by: Bruno | Jun 11, 2009 1:06:55 PM
"Without the foundation of Religion and Morality that George Washington and the other founding fathers provided for us"
I really wish these idiots would stop assuming that what they've been told by their mommies and daddies about the Founding Fathers being Like So Totally Christian You Guys is automatically true. Patrick Henry was a devout Christian, if I recall correctly (which I might not be, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), but several other lauded members of the Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson were quite heavily anti-religion (or at least anti established/established state religion). Jefferson in particular even REEDITED the New Testament (in his spare time) to include only Jesus' teachings and exclude all the alleged miracles, even going so far as to write notes in the margins... in some of which he noted that he disagreed with Jesus on certain points (including a reliance on the supernatural!). Google "Jefferson Bible" if you don't believe me.
Jefferson is generally considered to have been an atheist by historians who actually bother to look at well, history. So much of the right wing bizarrely likes to adore him as a historical figure, at the same time as they construct a false image of him as a highly religious Christian. They do it with all the Founding Fathers, and it's really disconcerting to see it, because it means that they probably have little to no idea where the actual reasoning came from for the First Amendment - in particular, the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. It came from people who had experienced some level of theocracy and despised it!
I also think it to be so obnoxious that people who claim to Respect the Constitution, ignore the actual implications if not outright statements of it, whenever it suits them. The First Amendment's Establishment Clause means I don't have to follow someone else's religion just because they're in power; likewise, the Free Exercise Clause means I can peacefully practice my own religion without interference. My religion does not disallow gay marriage. Gay marriage being legal in the civil arena would never, in a million billion years, mean that churches that did not approve of gay marriage as part of their doctrine, would be "forced" to perform them - this is a common fallacy, I keep hearing it repeated, and it drives me nuts, because even the briefest reading of the Constitution's perspective on religious freedom should make it abundantly clear that it's false.
The First Amendment is clear. The Founding Fathers were clear. Religion is a personal matter, not something to be used to interfere with private lives. I get my religion, you get yours; I can gay marry in my church if it allows it, but your church doesn't have to marry me if it doesn't want to. The fact that they not only fail to acknowledge this but instead jump straight to, "but it's a sacred bond between men and women and therefore gays shouldn't be able to marry in civil courts!" means that either they don't understand the Constitution that they claim to revere... or worse, that they would rather subvert its very core values simply because they want to build a theocracy in its place. Working towards a theocracy is NOT patriotic for an American; quite the opposite, it undermines the very foundations and values of our Founding Fathers' government.
Luckily not every Republican or "conservative" is this ignorant of the law though; after all, Bush's old lawyer has since come out in favor of allowing gay marriage and even in opposition to Prop 8... for Constitutional reasons.
All I can hope for is that more people come to their senses in the future and realize this is entirely a question of the Constitution... and shouldn't even be a question in the first place.
Posted by: JW | Jun 11, 2009 11:44:19 PM
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