Freedom Of Speech, Religion And Chicken Sandwiches: Respecting Differences Of Opinion

Mediaite.com:

Chick-fil-A is in the middle of a media firestorm after its president, Dan Cathy, told the Baptist Press his company was “guilty as charged” for supporting the traditional family last week. Cathy was labeled a bigot by some, but reading Cathy’s quotes reveals there was nothing hateful in what he said.

“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit,” he said. “We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

Cathy is president of a company that believe “in the importance of loving your neighbor as yourself.” “While my family and I believe in the Biblical definition of marriage, we love and respect anyone who disagrees,” he said. In light of these statements, the loaded term “bigot” seems a bit harsh. Of course, you can easily argue the term “supportive of the family” is a coded phrase that implicates that Cathy is not supportive of gay marriage. But it raises the question of whether someone can be pro-traditional marriage without being anti-gay.

Despite not supporting gay marriage, former Republican presidential candidate and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman will be honord by the LGBT rights group Equality Utah in September at their annual Allies Dinner. While governor, Huntsman did say he supported civil unions for same-sex couples and legislation that protected gays and lesbians from discrimination in the workplace, however. But Brandie Balken, executive director of Equality Utah, told the Salt Lake Tribune honoring Huntsman wasn’t about a particular position he took.

“It’s much more about a person’s presence in the community and ability to create cultural and attitudinal change and truly their presence and their outward demonstration of Equality Utah’s values,” Balken said.

So both Chick-fil-A and Huntsman support traditional marriage, but the former is facing boycotts and the latter is being honored by an LGBT rights group. Everyone is allowed to their own opinion and freedom of speech, and Chick-fil-A hasn’t done anything illegal. There haven’t been any instances of the company discriminating against its employment or customers because of their sexuality at this time. But while we’re afforded freedom of speech, we don’t have the freedom from the consequences of our speech as illustrated by individuals boycotting Chick-fil-A.

The issue of people of faith not supporting gay marriage for religious reasons is reminiscent in some ways to the argument over contraception earlier this year. The ultimate compromise in a debate over a contraceptive coverage policy allowed religious hospitals and universities the freedom to not offer contraception if it violated their religious beliefs. Polls showed a majority of Catholics supported the compromise.

In dealing with issues many feel are moral issues, seeking a compromise and respecting those with differing views is more helpful than throwing around the word “bigot.” Nevada’s Sen. Harry Reid, who converted to Mormonism while in college, offered a solution when he first voiced his support of gay marriage.

“My personal belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman. But in a civil society, I believe that people should be able to marry whomever they want, and it’s no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married,” Reid said.

Like the debate over contraceptive coverage, gay marriage is a theological issue for some. But as Reid said, living in a civil society means that sometimes people will chose to do things with their lives that you wouldn’t chose to do with yours. Whether that means supporting traditional marriage or supporting gay marriage, respecting people of differing opinons and seeking solutions is more helpful than fighting hate with hate.

Really now, the anti-Christian, no-morals-to-speak-of, radical Left is mad that the owner of a privately run, Christian, chicken joint supports traditional marriage...yunno, like most Americans do. Therefore, taking a page from the Saul Alinsky playbook and of course, using the race card, they're even calling those who still believe in the historical definition of marriage being between a man and woman "bigots" while threatening Chick-fil-A with gay "kiss-in"'s and boycotts. Right, and so self-righteous these loons are they actually believe that that kind of stuff will get Christians to finally put down their bibles and listen to the creeds from hypocritical, smug, anti-God, white social liberals instead.

RELATED: Rahm backs down: We never said we’d block Chick-fil-A from Chicago, says spokesman

Selective Outrage: How The U.K. Press Reacted To Obama’s Numerous Anti-British Gaffes

Mediaite.com:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s “gaffe” in Great Britain on Thursday, in which he called into question London’s security preparations ahead of the Olympics, has been greeted with a mix of scorn and glee in both the British and American press. Hours after the Telegraph reported that a rogue Romney advisor said that his presidency would usher in a return to America’s traditional respect for the United States’ “Anglo-Saxon heritage,” a phrase which has been willfully misconstrued to mean the Romney camp’s support for racially discriminatory and white supremacist policies, Romney stepped in it yet again. Now the British press is having some fun with Romney’s slap at London’s Olympic preparedness, but the Forth Estate in England has been far from neutral towards President Barack Obama’s numerous anti-British gaffes. Indeed, they have been rather forgiving. In light of this most recent misstep by Romney, it’s worth a look back at how the British press treated some of the President’s famous misstatements.


In 2009, when President Obama presented Queen Elizabeth II with a gift of an iPod populated with a variety of pictures and songs tailored to the Queen’s liking, the Guardian gushed. “Clearly a lot of thought went into this gift, as President Obama made no secret of his excitement at the prospect of meeting the Queen,” wrote The Guardian’s Rosie Swash. The President’s gift to then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown was a series of DVDs. Most of the British press was “appalled,” but the Guardian noted in the headline “it’s the thought that counts.”

When Michelle Obama met Queen Elizabeth for the first time, she broke with accepted decorum by wrapping a friendly arm around her back. The Telegraph’s headline? “Renewing a very Touching Relationship.”

The U.K. Daily Mail even opted to rewrite the history of that occasion, suggesting that it was the Queen who opted to put her arm around the First Lady first and thus inviting Mrs. Obama to reciprocate:

She is not renowned for public displays of affection. Which made the Queen’s decision to put a friendly arm around Michelle Obama’s waist at a Buckingham Palace G20 reception – prompting the U.S. President’s wife to return the gesture – so utterly astonishing.

When President Barack Obama committed a slight faux pas by toasting the Queen during a state dinner, he spoke over the playing of God Save the Queen amid embarrassing silence. The Daily Mail helpfully noted that the band “accidently” started playing the national anthem over Obama’s speech. While that may be true, the news organization had no such interest in covering for his predecessor when “the blundering Bush” made “another gaffe by winking at the Queen.”

The Guardian’s columnist Victoria Coren gushed sympathy for the relatable moment of fallible humanity the President stumbled into:

Now, it couldn’t matter less. If Obama had stumbled over the table and emptied a soup tureen into the Queen’s lap, it wouldn’t actually have mattered (except to the advertisers on YouTube), never mind speaking a few accidental words over a tune. Nobody was hurt, nothing was damaged, the whole thing was an utter irrelevance. And yet it’s impossible to watch the footage without crawling around and whispering: “Make it STOP!”

When President Obama referred to the Falkland Islands as the Maldives (a chain of islands quite literally located on the other side of the globe), the Telegraph said the gaffe was an “uncharacteristic error” which was “more akin more akin to those of his predecessor George W Bush.” 

The President was attempting to use the Spanish word for the island, the Malvinas, which in itself is a snub to the British – a reality that was noted by The Daily Mail’s conservative columnist Toby Harden. But you’ll be hard pressed to find any mention of the incident outside of the occasionally irate British conservative opinion maker. 

But what Obama’s predecessor was quite unlikely to do would be to side with the Great Britain’s adversary in the still-simmering dispute over those South American islands. The United States did not back Britain’s claim to sovereignty over those islands when their possession was in dispute, and ultimately sided with a group of nations backing Argentina’s claim to possession – a claim settled by force in the 1982 Falklands War. The Telegraph‘s conservative columnist Nile Gardiner was quite upset by the measure, but the British press was largely silent on the move. 

While Romney’s inartful criticism of a fiercely proud people on their soil ahead of an event synonymous with national pride was a bad move, the outrage over Romney’s gaffe is quite selective since the same measure of indignation is never reserved for President Obama.

RELATED: London Mayor Boris Johnson Slams Romney’s Comments Before Cheering Olympic Crowd

Barack Obama Thanks Gay Porn Boss For Campaign Support

NYPost.com:

ONE of the "bundlers" who has raised $50,000 to $100,000 for the Barack Obama presidential campaign is Terrence Bean, who once controlled the biggest producer of gay porn in America. 

Bean, the first gay on Sen. Obama's National Finance Committee, is the sole trustee of the Charles M. Holmes Foundation, which owned Falcon Studios, Jock Studios and Mustang Studios, the producers of about $10 million worth of all-male pornography a year. 

Chuck Holmes, who founded Falcon in 1972, died of AIDS in 2000. San Francisco's new gay and lesbian community center was named after Holmes two years later, thanks to a $1 million donation from his estate. 

The naming of the building for Holmes was controversial because Falcon Studios profits from the sale of "barebacking" videos, featuring anal sex without condoms. Falcon insists that the videos were made before AIDS hit in the early 1980s and that the studio is in the forefront of promoting safe sex. 

Bean, a real-estate developer based in Oregon, was the CEO of Conwest Resources, the holding company that owned Falcon, before Holmes died. The company was sold in 2004 but, now called 3 Media, continues to pay off a note to the foundation. 

In 2002, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongowski returned a $15,000 contribution from Conwest to avoid the "taint" of the porn connection. Bean told Page Six yesterday, "I asked the company to donate, and they did. To avoid the appearance of anything, he [Kulongowski] returned it." 

Bean also said, "I never had anything to do with running the company . . . Chuck became a friend of mine, and I got him interested in philanthropy." 

An Obama spokesman told Page Six: "Mr. Bean does not own the company [Falcon]. He is a regular contributor to state and federal candidates, including Republican Senator Gordon Smith and Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe, and has even donated to the Log Cabin Republicans - who endorsed John McCain."

RELATED: Why has Democratic enthusiasm dropped since February?

Michael Moore Asks President Obama: What If It Were Your Daughters Killed Last Week In Aurora?

Leave it to an obnoxious, smug, white liberal to go there (and get away with it)....but this time he's right on the money:

Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore will appear Tuesday night on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight to discuss gun control and last week’s Aurora, Colo. shooting that left 12 dead and dozens of other people injured. In a preview clip of the interview, Moore attacked President Barack Obama for his refusal to push for stricter gun control immediately after the massacre.

Moore noted that during the post-shooting address in Ft. Myers, Florida, President Obama mentioned his daughters Sasha and Malia as a way to show empathy with the victims’ loved ones, asking: “What if it were them?” And then implied that if the Obama daughters actually were killed in the shooting spree, the president would be more aggressive for gun control. 

“Well… what if it were them?” Moore asked. “What if were them last Thursday night? Would you stand at the microphone the next day and say, ‘I feel your pain, and’ — this is what he said — ‘the existing gun laws are enough.’ Is that really what you’d say, Mr. President? I don’t think so.”

“We have to see these young people who were killed as our children,” Moore continued before going into a rant about how the United Kingdom and Canada have universal healthcare because their mentality is that “we have to take care of each other.” If legislators actually viewed the victims as their own children, Moore said, then “we would have some change in this country and politicians would respond quickly.”

“I am not going to come on another damn TV show after the next one of these shootings,” Moore told Morgan, as his voice began to rise. “I haven’t done it for ten years… but I’m sick of this. 

“I refuse to live in a country like this,” he concluded, “[but] I’m not leaving.”

RELATED: Brother Of Aurora Victim Rebuts MSNBC Host: Media Shouldn’t Be Trying To ‘Politicize’ Shooting

New Poll Shows Obama's Bain Attacks Failing Miserably

Townhall.com:

As Katie notes below, two new polls contain exceedingly worrisome news for Team Obama.  The first survey shows that voters are now assigning significantly more economic blame to President Obama (34 percent) than to President Bush (18 percent).  Congress -- control of which is split -- and Wall Street also shoulder some blame, at 23 and 20 percent, respectively.  Most troubling for Obama is Americans' general assessment of his economic policies:
 

The poll, conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, found 53 percent of voters say Obama has taken the wrong actions and has slowed the economy down. Forty-two percent said he has taken the right actions to revive the economy, while six percent said they were not sure.  While 64 percent of voters consider this downturn to be “much more severe” than previous contractions, barely one quarter (26 percent) say the agonizingly slow pace of the recovery was unavoidable.

In other words, twice as many people believe Obama has impeded our recovery than say its historically sluggish pace was inevitable.  The silver lining for Obama is that many voters also express discontent with Congressional Republicans on these matters, but as the "blame" numbers indicate, the buck is finally beginning to stop on the president's desk.  The other bombshell poll comes from USA Today/Gallup.  It shows conclusively that Obama's scorched-earth and factually inaccurate campaign of vilifying Romney's leadership at Bain Capital has been a flop of epic proportions (bear in mind that this is a survey of adults; not likely, or even registered, voters):
 

By more than 2-1, 63%-29%, those surveyed say Romney's background in business, including his tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, would cause him to make good decisions, not bad ones, in dealing with the nation's economic problems over the next four years. The findings raise questions about Obama's strategy of targeting Bain's record in outsourcing jobs and hammering Romney for refusing to commit to releasing more than two years of his tax returns. Instead, Americans seem focused on the economy, where disappointment with the fragile recovery and the 8.2% unemployment rate are costing the president.

Indeed, this data certainly does "raise questions" about Obama's slash-and-burn strategy, to put it very kindly.  Team Obama has spent $100 million on television ads in recent months (76 percent negative), hoping to exploit their closing window of advantage when it comes to primary cash on hand.  They've dipped into the red for two consecutive months in order to maintain this huge spending edge.  In the process, they've outspent Romney 3-to-1 on swing state ads.  Why?  They are determined to define Mitt Romney is a secretive, dishonest, greedy, outsourcing vulture capitalist.  The NYT/CBS News poll last week indicated that Obama's standing on both job approval and favorability have actually eroded over this period, despite (or perhaps because of) the relentless, inaccurate attacks.  Today's poll shows another disastrous return on investment for Chicago.  After tens of millions in ads firing directly at Romney's business background and wealth, Americans view Romney's resume as a positive by a two-to-one 34-point margin.  And there's this:

The Democratic attacks on Romney seem to have had limited effect on voters' assessments of him. In February, 53% said the former Massachusetts governor had the personality and leadership qualities a president should have; now 54% do.

The public's estimation of Romney's "personality and leadership qualities" has gone up as he's been pounded mercilessly by Obama's attacks.  Obama supporters will hang their hats on findings that Obama still bests his opponent on likeability and empathy questions, but I suspect they're not going to like too much else.

RELATED: Gallup: Despite Bain attacks, Romney more trusted than Obama on the economy

Politiks As Usual: In The News 7/23/12

Community Remembers The Victims Of The Colorado Movie Massacre

Christian Movie Critic: Massacre Is Simply 'Evil' At Work

Why Is Brian Ross Still Working for ABC News?

Obama Donor: Stimulus Was Like a Hooker in Prison

Statue of Famed Penn St. Coach Paterno Taken Down

Chick-Fil-A Publicly Acknowledges It’s Conservative, Media Upset

George Will and Jennifer Rubin Demolish Time's Joe Klein on Gun Control Laws

Murdoch Quits British Newspaper Boards

(Homosexual) Misperception Clouds The Truth

Bloomberg: Obama ‘Has Spent The Last Three Years Trying To Avoid The Issue’ Of Gun Control

Romney To Walk Into The Lion’s Den; Plans Trip, Speeches Abroad