Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) has a strong pro-homosexual voting record, and voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion, among other anti-life votes.

By Laurie Higgins

With all the recent bad press about Mark Kirk’s prevaricating about his military record and his weaselly responses when confronted by the media about his prevarications, multiple people have made the argument that as bad as he is, it’s better to have a Republican elected than a Democrat. In the past I shared that view.  I have never voted for a third-party candidate or refused to vote—until now.  I have always been firmly committed to voting for the Republican candidate even if I had to hold my nose while voting—until now. Is there a limit to how bad a Republican candidate can get before Republicans will stand on principle? I’m beginning to think that Republicans have a limitless capacity for capitulation.

This is my thinking:

I think that it will be easier for a good Republican candidate to unseat Alexi Giannoulias in six years than it will be for a good Republican to unseat a semi-skillful incumbent like Mark Kirk. If Kirk gets in office, I fear we’ll have him for decades. I don’t think that’s the case with Giannoulias. The loss of the Senate seat to Giannoulias would provide Illinois Republicans six years to find a truly worthy Republican candidate. No matter which position Republicans take, it’s a crapshoot. We’re all speculating. Giannoulias could be an effective senator and, therefore, very difficult to unseat. Or he could be incompetent and, therefore, easy to unseat. With Kirk, we know we’re getting a skillful and experienced legislator who will be difficult to unseat.

Marc Ambinder, political editor of The Atlantic, writes this about the prospect of a Kirk win:

If Kirk wins the seat, he’s instantaneously the biggest name in the GOP.  The seat, you’ll remember, was Barack Obama’s seat. Kirk would be bigger than Massachusetts’ lion killer Scott Brown, bigger than the presidential candidates for a while, and he can be a kingmaker.

He’ll have a huge donor list, he’ll own Obama’s seat, and then he’s faced with a choice. Does he moderate himself truly, work in a bipartisan way and be a leader in the Senate.  Or, does he go with immediate ego gratification and position himself to be on the vice presidential short list for 2012? If Kirk doesn’t want to run again in 2016, he can bank on the fact that he’ll either be on the veep short-list then, or he’ll be a bona fide presidential contender in his own right.(http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/mark-kirk-the-next-scott-brown/56598/)

There is too much at stake to risk letting Kirk get into the Senate. I’m willing to pay a relatively small price now by letting Giannoulias get elected rather than pay a huge price in a few years by letting Kirk get his nose in the Senate tent.

In addition to Kirk’s wholly indefensible embellishment of his military record, there is the significant matter of his sexual predilections, about which, thanks to homosexual activist, blogger, and “outer” extraordinaire Mike Rogers, there is less doubt. Behind the scenes, many people on both sides of the political aisle have long claimed that Kirk is homosexual, but it took Rogers to give wider exposure and greater credibility to those rumors.

Rogers, who “outed” Kirk last week, has the dubious honor of being reliable when it comes to “outing” politicians. For those unfamiliar with Rogers, click here to see him when he appeared on the View a year ago to promote the “outing” documentary Outrage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOJwVmFozs&feature=player_embedded .

Why did he “out” Kirk now? Rogers “outed” him now because Kirk did not vote with the “gay” lobby on the recent vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” As long as Kirk toed the “gay” line—which he has consistently done—his secret was safe with political lefties. A thrill goes up the legs of homosexualists whenever the “Republican” Kirk endorses yet one more assault on sexual norms and families. They will tolerate many things, including both open and secret sexual deviance, as long as they get the votes they need. According to that paradigm of virtue, Mike Rogers, there is one thing they will not, however, tolerate, and that is “hypocrisy.”

Here’s yet more skin-crawling information on Kirk’s voting record:

Kirk voted against the ban on the barbaric procedure euphemistically called “partial birth” abortion; he voted against restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions; he voted against making it a crime to harm a fetus during the commission of another a crime; but he voted in favor of embryonic stem cell research.

For those Republicans who foolishly dismiss the “social” issues and character, there’s always Kirks infamous defense and fiscal votes. Kirk stunned his constituents by first voting against the troop surge in Iraq and then voting for cap and trade, which Indiana Republican Congressman Mike Pence describes as “the largest tax increase in American history under the guise of climate change.”

Some Illinois Republicans have described my decision not to vote for Kirk as “misguided,” arguing that with Giannoulias’ youth, we risk having him in the Senate for decades. Well, Kirk too could serve for decades. While my Republican compatriots think even six years of Giannoulias is too high a price to pay, it’s a price I am willing to pay in the hope of preventing a two or three-decade reign by a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, and deceitful “Republican.” It’s a price I am willing to pay to prevent Kirk from getting a shot at the White House.

These same Republicans argue that the Republican Party desperately needs Kirk’s vote, but what are the crucial upcoming legislative issues for which we desperately need a win and for which we can rely on Kirk for the right vote? We know we won’t get the right votes on any legislation pertaining to the rights of the unborn or the family. Yes, Kirk threw conservatives a bone on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but as we all know that vote was an anomaly, perhaps motivated by his need to appease social conservatives. And as his vote for cap and trade and against the troop surge prove, we can’t rely on his votes on fiscal or defense issues.

These same Republicans reveal their own deformed moral sensibility when they express more moral outrage about my refusal to nose-hold than they do about Kirk’s support for the slaughter of the unborn. They argue that the battleground was the primary, and now it’s time to rally around the Republican candidate. Some say that in six years, we can try to field a better candidate to run against Kirk in the primary. Really? Do they actually believe that in six years any Republican challenger to an incumbent Senator Kirk would have a shot? Do they actually think the Republican Party would support a challenge to an incumbent Republican senator?

For years I’ve heard Republican strategists and party operatives tell voters that it’s imperative that we do what we’re told, that for the good of the party and the state and the nation, we must vote for the Republican candidate no matter how offensive his positions and no matter how unethical his personal life. And we do. Like obsequious little minions, shamed by being labeled “naïve” “ignorant” or “misguided,” we support with our money and our votes any lousy candidate the Republican establishment parades before us. What have we gotten in the bargain? Mark Kirk.

The IL Republican party and the national Republican Party keep telling us to be good little team players and go along. Not me—not any longer. It strikes me that there is an important difference between justifiable political compromises and wholesale selling out. Voting for Kirk represents the latter. I think that if all the disgruntled IL Republicans would band together and say with their votes “no more. We’re mad as h*** and we’re not gonna take it any more”—even if that means we’re stuck with Giannoulias for six years—the powers-that-be might finally get the message. They might then busy themselves with the important task of finding good candidates.

The right to vote is a precious right, and I’m not willing to squander it on someone who refuses to protect the unborn, who refuses to defend sexual morality, and who, in his desperate and unholy quest to advance those views, lies to Illinoisans. For once, I’m following my moral principles rather than the political dictates of those who have given us Mark Kirk.

Laurie Higgins is a writer based in Deerfield, Illinois.

Mark Kirk has a radical pro-abortion and pro-homosexual-agenda voting record, so most conservatives are not enthused about him becoming the next U.S. Senator from Illinois.

Dear RFFV Readers,

We’re back! With this post by my friend Laurie Higgins, Republicans for Family Values (www.rffv.org) is reactivating after a long silence — just in time for primary elections. The case of Congressman Mark Kirk running as a Republican for U.S. Senate in Illinois is a troubling one: here’s a fellow who voted AGAINST banning partial-birth abortion — and then rationalized the vote to party VIPs and activists as one necessitated by his liberal district (suburbs north of Chicago).

I don’t know which is more pathetic: Kirk’s pandering to pro-abortion feminists, leading him to miss an opportunity to criminalize de facto infanticide; or his sorry attempt to justify it politically. I realize most pseudo-compassionate left-wingers are heartless when it comes to the defenseless unborn, but is there really any congressional district so liberal that it necessitates protecting the gruesome practice of piercing the skull of a late-term unborn baby fully capable of living outside the womb so as to end its (inconvenient) life? Shame on you, Mark!

On the “gay” front, Mr. “Real Integrity” (a Kirk radio ad extols him as a “leader with real integrity”) is one of the most pro-homosexual-agenda of all the Republican legislators on Capitol Hill. According to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s most powerful homosexual lobby group, Kirk has the following rankings for the last three Congresses (voting with HRC’s misguided agenda) : 85%, 575 and 88% in the 110th, 109th and 108th Congresses, respectively.

In contrast, fellow Illinois Congressman Peter Roskam, also a Republican, has an HRC ranking of zero percent in the 110th Congress (his debut term).

This may explain why radical homosexual “outers” like Mike Rogers are in no hurry to talk about Kirk’s sexual proclivities, since they focus more on secretly homosexual Republicans who have a strong “pro-family” voting record. Of course, as Higgins writes, this would influence a “Senator Kirk” to continue voting pro-homosexual while the “gay” pressure ratchets up for him to reverse his few pro-family votes on the issue as his profile grows in Washington.

Anyway, with Republicans like Kirk in the nation’s capital, who needs Democrats? And Higgins is correct: if Kirk has a personal homosexual issue in his life — I would call it a problem — don’t the voters have a right to know given his radically pro-homosexual voting record ? You bet they do. – Peter LaBarbera, www.RepublicansForFamilyValues.com

_______________________________________________

Mark Kirk’s weaselly denial is very Clintonesque

Posted: January 08, 2010

By Laurie Higgins

I taped the Channel 5 news last night [Jan 7], and was mesmerized by Mark Kirk’s performance in the brief excerpt Channel 5 aired in which he decidedly did not deny that he’s homosexual. He used quintessential weasel words in his non-denial, which should infuriate all Illinoisans who believe that engaging in volitional homosexual acts constitutes a character issue and one which very likely influences the policy decisions of legislators.

Here’s Kirk’s exact statement: “It’s ironic that I was there fighting for his rights while he was using his free speech rights to say things which were untrue.”

This is a clever (or not so clever) way of appearing to deny the claim that he is homosexual while never actually denying the claim. He simply referred to “things that were untrue,” which could be any number of things that Andy Martin said.

It’s the same kind of weaselly non-denial as the one issued by Kirk’s campaign in which they said Andy Martin’s ad was untrue, which, of course, is entirely different from saying that Kirk is not homosexual. If at some later time, Kirk and his disciples are compelled to acknowledge that he is, indeed, homosexual, this squishy, expansive marshmallow rhetoric provides the cover they need. It allows Kirk and company to say, for example, that the” untrue things” were Martin’s claim that Raymond True says Kirk has surrounded himself with homosexuals. Kirk seems to be cut from the same weasel cloth as the weasel who infamously said, “I did not have sex with that woman,” and “that depends on what the definition of the word ‘is’ is.”

The indignant huffing and puffing of pundits and politicians on both the left and the right about Martin’s public question strikes me as both amusing and utterly hypocritical. Many of these self-same arbiters of social decorum have been talking about Kirk’s alleged homosexuality for years, and then in high dudgeon they moralistically condemn Martin for publicly discussing the same topic. Granted, due to a history of unsavory actions, Martin makes an easy target, but how about a modicum of truth from the press and our elected officials.

I first heard the Kirk rumor over a year ago from a good friend who worked closely with a current U.S. congresswoman. I was told that it is “well-known secret that Mark Kirk is gay.” It seems that the only people who haven’t heard this well-known secret are those who are asked to vote for him.

The “sexual orientation” of our legislators is relevant for it tells us precisely what they hold to be true about the nature and morality of homosexuality which will likely shape their policy decisions. Those who claim “sexual orientation” is irrelevant are usually those who hold the arguable theories that homosexuality is ontologically equivalent to race and morally equivalent to heterosexuality. Kirk’s distinctly un-Republican voting record on issues related to homosexuality could be explained by his philosophical views and sexual proclivities.

And concealed homosexuality is relevant because it opens up legislators to blackmail: vote a certain way or be outed.

I have heard that Kirk was asked directly by reporters if he is “gay” to which he said “no.” Due, however to some of his and his campaign’s equivocal answers, and the pervasiveness and longevity of the rumors, and the overwhelming disincentives Kirk has to an admission that he is homosexual, the wannabe lawyer in me would be more reassured if Kirk were to say in a written statement “I have never engaged in homosexual activity.” I know, I know, very McCarthy-esque. But after Bill Clinton’s deceit and Mark Foley’s deceit and Larry Craig’s deceit, we can never be too circumspect or precise. One thing the Republican Party does not need is another sex scandal-or another vote that affirms the social and political goals of homosexuals.

Some of Kirk’s evasive, obfuscatory statements have not only intensified questions about his sexual proclivities, but left me with serious doubts about his capacity for unequivocal, unambiguous truth-telling.

Laurie Higgins is the Director of the Division of School Advocacy at the Illinois Family Institute. This article represents her views as an individual and not necessarily those of IFI.

Republicans For Family Values  — News Release
www.rffv.org

November 3, 2008; contact: Peter LaBarbera: rffv@comcast.net

CHICAGO – Peter LaBarbera, founder of Republicans For Family Values (RFFV), said Barack Obama’s ideological devotion to both the homosexual and abortion agendas should weigh more heavily than non-moral issues as committed Christians weigh their vote tomorrow.

RFFV has published an essay, “Obama is FOR Gay Marriage even as He’s Against it,” to illustrate the Democratic candidate’s double-speak on “same-sex marriage.” Obama has promised homosexual activists that he would work to fully repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996. This issue has been largely ignored by the media, and John McCain has given Obama a pass on it.

“The Obama spin machine has done a con job on evangelicals and Catholics,” LaBarbera said. “Obama courts Christians by saying he supports traditional marriage. Meanwhile, he does everything he can to support the homosexual ‘marriage’ agenda – including his promise to “gay” activists to repeal DOMA.

“Similarly, Obama courts people of faith by pledging to ‘reduce the number of abortions.’ Yet he opposed an Illinois bill to give human rights to babies ‘born alive’ through botched abortions. And he blasted a Supreme Court ruling upholding a law banning heinous partial-birth abortions (infanticide).

“Talk about ‘audacity’: here’s a politician who lectures America about reducing abortions — when he promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would eviscerate pro-life laws across the country, thus increasing the number of abortions.

“I don’t know what’s worse – palling around with an unrepentant American terrorist or palling around with Planned Parenthood,” LaBarbera said, urging pro-life voters to watch the YouTube video of Obama’s friendly 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUl99id2SvM.

Regarding Obama’s pro-homosexual agenda, RFFV reveals that:

• Obama congratulated homosexual activists for “getting married” at a San Francisco Democratic gay event;
• Though Obama says he “personally” opposes “gay marriage,” he supports identical federal “civil unions,” saying, “I believe civil unions should include the same legal rights that accompany a marriage license.” This has led Obama to support a bill to allow homosexual partners to immigrate to the United States just like married spouses;
• Obama promises homosexual activists that he will use the bully pulpit to advocate for homosexual adoptions – which would place children in homes that are motherless or fatherless by design.

Where were the media when Obama and his cronies viciously, and most often falsely, attacked everyone from John McCain and Sarah Palin to an abortion survivor who only asked that Barack Obama consider her plight in his abortion position? Complicit, and AWOL.

How do the Republicans win the White House when nearly everything they say goes through the liberal filters in the media?

Bob Holmes
Michigan

News Release; October 13, 2008

CONTACT/INTERVIEWS: Print, Radio, Web: Lynne Campbell or Shauna Whitlock 630-848-0750
office@specialguests.com

Television: Todd Bauman 512-868-8395; todd@specialguests.com  OR
Jerry McGlothlin 212-699-2518; jerry@specialguests.com

Over 325,000 USA churches, synagogues get new publication, ‘The Judeo-Christian View’

Vista, CA (Monday, October 13) – Over 325,000 rabbis, priests and pastors in every Jewish and Christian congregation in America have received the inaugural issue of The Judeo-Christian View by U.S. mail, according to the publisher of the new periodical. The launch edition deals with the volatile issues of religion, presidential politics, same-sex unions and “child sacrifice.” Signed by dozens of clerics who concur that homosexuality and partial birth abortion – plus related policies of U.S. Senator Barack Obama – are at odds with the ancient Biblical faiths, the first edition also went online during Yom Kippur (www.thejudeo-christianview.com) and is heading to another 5 million U.S. clerics, theologians and religious laity via e-mail as part of an ambitious subscription strategy.

Signatories of the ecumenical epistle — rabbis, pastors and theologians themselves — urge congregational leaders to boldly pray, preach and teach “the Judeo-Christian view” on same-sex intercourse while conveying to their flocks where Senators Obama and John McCain stand on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law that shields states from forced legal recognition of gay unions from other states, such as Massachusetts and California. The “multimedia journal of opinion”– including a graphic DVD “video sermon” for congregations which cites both Jewish and Christian Bible translations — reports that Obama favors full repeal of DOMA and supports same-sex unions, while McCain takes the opposite stand.

The clerical signers come from Jewish, Roman Catholic, evangelical and “mainline” Protestant denominations, including the United Methodist, Anglican, African Methodist Episcopal, Brethren, Baptist and Congregational traditions. Among them: Rabbi Herzel Kranz from The Jewish Center of Silver Spring, Maryland; Rev. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Father Frank Pavone, Roman Catholic head of Priests for Life; Rev. Rosemary Schindler, San Francisco Board of the Anti-Defamation League and member of the Oscar Schindler family (of Schindler’s List); Dr. James M. Hutchens, Brigadier General and Deputy Chief of US Army Chaplains (Ret.); Rev. Ben Kinchlow, former co-host of The 700 Club; Dr. Bruce Fong, president, Michigan Theological Seminary; Dr. Kenneth L. Hutcherson, Antioch Bible Church, Kirkland, Washington; Dr. Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of Moody Memorial Church, Chicago; and Rabbi Yehuda Levin of the Rabbinical Alliance of America of Torah Loyal Jews and The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada.

On the issue of “child sacrifice,” The Judeo-Christian View springboards from Jewish Scriptures (eg., Leviticus 18:21, Jeremiah 32:35) into graphic verbal and video descriptions of partial birth abortion — a late-term procedure that involves piercing the skull and vacuuming the brain of the fetus, something McCain would ban, but Obama would allow. The rabbis and pastors contend that Obama’s policy to liberalize the practice, “combined with his effort to kill a bill that would protect babies who survive abortions, tends to gut the USA’s moral standing to condemn jihadic use of Muslim children as suicide bombers; both are horrific cases of child sacrifice that support a Culture of Death and demonstrate utter contempt for the Judeo-Christian Culture of Life.”

“We don’t advise political endorsements from pulpits, but we certainly do urge leaders to teach Jewish and Christian ethics while naming names of politicians who reject aspects of that foundation,” said Dr. O’Neal Dozier, General Publisher of the journal and pastor of the Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, Florida. “It is a simple matter of full disclosure and informed consent. Shepherds must lead their sheep.” Dozier, an African American and former NFL linebacker for the Chicago Bears and New York Jets, said the new publication is unrelated to the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal aid group that recently encouraged some pastors to make express political endorsements from their pulpits.

“We think our readers will appreciate the eloquence and courage of the interfaith signatories who say what so many others fear to say,” said Dozier. “Our model is predicated on free, opt-in online subscriptions and eventual advertising support. We hope to hook both the shepherds and their flocks on bold content that emphasizes the common values of Jews and Christians in the USA and globally. Threats to religious liberty and civil freedom here and around the world make it essential that we ‘People of the Book’ work closely together.” Dozier said the next issue will be The Judeo-Christian View on “The Free Exercise of Islamic Violence.”

Although juxtaposing Scripture with the two senators’ policies, the multiracial signers reject “any kind of hatred, mean-spiritedness or gay-bashing”, “bigotry against peaceful Muslims”, racism, or mistreatment of “young mothers pressured by boyfriends, parents or society to abort their pre-born infants.” Urging “love the sinner, hate the sin”, the signers encourage the same “attitude toward erring politicians as well.” The publication also reports that the two senators differ on integrating open gays into U.S. military barracks, and urges prayer for ballot measures in California, Florida and Arizona designed to uphold traditional monogamy.

The publication’s mission statement says it “is a multimedia journal of opinion for rabbis, priests pastors and religious lay leaders of Jewish, Christian or mixed heritage which seeks to research, report on and uphold the Abrahamic, Mosaic and Judeo-Christian foundations for Creator-endowed human rights, religious liberty, civil freedom and tolerance, respect for women, family structure, American exceptionalism and Western Civilization. We do not endorse, oppose, coordinate with or advocate on behalf of any politician or party; rather, we seek to uphold the Judeo-Christian View.”

LINKS: www.TheJudeo-ChristianView.com

Republicans For Family Values
www.rffv.org

September 2, 2008

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-457-0178; rffv@comcast.net

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion and pro-homosexual candidate ever to receive a major party’s nomination, Republicans For Family Values (www.rffv.org) founder Peter LaBarbera said today.

RFFV will be at the GOP convention to educate Republicans and the media on Obama’s extreme record on the two most important moral crises facing our nation: the killing of millions of innocent, unborn babies; and the campaign to use government to force Americans to support (and subsidize) homosexual behavior against their conscience.

“While pro-life advocates have done an outstanding job alerting the nation to Obama’s radical abortion record — he opposes banning heinous partial-birth abortions and opposed an Illinois bill recognizing human rights for babies “born alive” after botched abortions — Obama’s extreme pro-homosexual record remains largely hidden from the public.

The following are some examples of Obama’s pro-homosexual advocacy:

• Despite repeatedly professing his belief in traditional marriage, Obama’s stated public policies invariably promote the Homosexual Lobby’s “gay marriage” agenda. In other words, he claims to support marriage while simultaneously undermining it;
• For example, Obama promises to completely repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed into law by fellow Democrat Bill Clinton. If DOMA were to be repealed, states could be forced to recognize out-of-state “same-sex marriages” against their will. (Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to repeal only part of DOMA.);
• Obama opposes the California marriage protection amendment (Prop 8), which would simply reinstate marriage as solely between a man and a woman – the very thing that the Illinois Senator SAYS he supports;
• Obama congratulated San Francisco Democratic homosexual activists on “getting married” – again showing his hypocrisy on marriage, and his old-politics habit of trying to appeal to both sides of this and other controversial issues at the same time;
• Obama pledged to homosexual activists to use the White House bully pulpit to advocate for homosexual adoption of children – thus creating the potentially absurd spectacle of a U.S. President using the moral authority, power and prestige of the office to push for placing children in same-sex households that are motherless or fatherless by design;
• Obama distorts the Bible to justify his support of homosexuality and even used Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount to support same-sex unions.

www.rffv.org

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; rffv@comcast.net

Peter LaBarbera, founder of the website Republicans For Family Values (http://www.rffv.org/), issued the following statement today:

We who know his real record celebrate the news that the media’s favorite fake “conservative,” Mitt Romney, has abandoned his GOP presidential bid.  Congratulations to Mass Resistance’s Brian Camenker and all those who worked so hard to expose the truth about this man who, frankly, deceived many. Camenker’s report, “The Mitt Romney Deception,” was the linchpin of our campaign to expose Romney’s incredible string of flip-flops, anti-family sellouts and conveniently-timed conversions to the pro-family cause.

Said Camenker: “It’s quite astonishing that a rag-tag army of truth-tellers was able to take down the most well-funded and best organized political campaign in modern times — which was also in collusion with the “mainstream” conservative movement.”

Sadly, Brian is correct: the facts about Romney’s record that should have been reported by major “conservative” and pro-family leaders – such as his continued embrace of homosexual “special rights” laws and the $50 co-pay for abortion as a “benefit” resulting from his state health insurance plan — were left untold. Curiously, major conservative opinion-leaders like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin and Hugh Hewitt – who readily bashed Mike Huckabee and John McCain for being too liberal — couldn’t bring themselves to expose the Real Romney.

Worse yet, some major Christian pro-family leaders failed in their role to inform the public about Romney’s social liberalism. Curiously, some embraced Romney even though his (post-pro-life-conversion) record on abortion paled in comparison to Mike Huckabee’s 100% pro-life record — and despite the fact that Romney’s (current) pro-homosexual-special-rights advocacy broke with decades of pro-family tradition. We know that some of these groups accepted large donations from Romney.

Right up to Super Tuesday, millions of Christians and conservatives – relying on talk radio and not hearing the truth from some major Christian organizations – were ignorant of Romney’s pro-homosexual, liberal record, demonstrating the lack of fair play of key conservative and pro-family leaders who — at the very least – should have exposed equally the warts of all the GOP contenders.

Politics is a tough business, but is it wrong to expect conservatives – and especially Christian leaders – to conduct it with more integrity?

This was a David vs. Goliath battle, and shows that truth is more powerful than fiction.  Now we must be vigilant as many of the same opinion-leaders will try to perpetuate their own myth by selling Romney as the “conservative” standard bearer waiting in the wings.

“I cannot support Mitt Romney.  His conversion to the pro-life position is suspect and his ongoing support of homosexual rights is not. His position on the deity of Christ does not align with orthodox Christianity and his positions on abortion and Gay rights does not align with orthodox Mormonism. He flip flops on the core values which drive Christian conservatives.”

Scarborough is supporting Mike Huckabee for president.

Republicans For Family Values
www.rffv.org

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; rffv@comcast.net

Super Tuesday Exposes Folly of Pundits Proclaiming Pro-Gay Romney as ‘Conservative’

Peter LaBarbera of the Republicans For Family Values website (www.rffv.org) offered the following lessons and observations from Super Tuesday’s surprising Huckabee performance:

• Perhaps Mitt Romney should pull out of the race: he cost the more conservative Huckabee a victory in both Missouri and Oklahoma; says Texas pro-family leader Kelly Shackelford: “You’re not a conservative if you can’t win the south.  The south has spoken clearly- Huckabee is the conservative. … Losing in third place across the south, Romney needs to leave the race so true conservatives can coalesce around Gov. Huckabee.” 
• Factoring the anti-Huckabee bias of both the liberal media and pro-Romney conservative pundits like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh (which should be worth at least 10 percentage points) – plus Romney’s huge personal spending advantage — and it is clear that the real “two-man race” in the GOP is between McCain and Huckabee;
• The voters rejected the pundits’ and broadcast reporters’ promotion of Romney as “the conservative” candidate – since on social issues, which matter most to the GOP’s loyal grassroots base of religious, pro-life voters, Huckabee is the true conservative (e.g., he opposes “gay rights” laws, in contrast to Romney, who said state gay rights laws “make sense”);
• Evidence of conservative pundit bias: Ann Coulter’s trashed Mike Huckabee’s alleged past liberalism while she ignored Mitt Romney’s longtime pro-abortion-on-demand, pro-gay record and his current liberalism – including Romney’s public support for state homosexual “special rights” laws and his creation of a state health insurance plan in Massachusetts that ended up including a $50 co-pay for abortion as “benefit.”  Later, after McCain moved ahead in the race, Coulter made a fool of herself by asserting that she would vote for Hillary Clinton — who is competing with Barack Obama over which Democrat is more pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality — rather than John McCain;
• FOX News’ Sean Hannity and other conservatives should stop blatantly promoting Mitt Romney and belittling Mike Huckabee as a candidate; Hannity reached a new low when he led his viewers to believe (erroneously) that Huckabee had quit the race in Florida;
• Evidence of the liberal media bias: the reporting on Huckabee’s speech urging a Human Life Amendment and Marriage Protection Amendment – making the Constitution more in line with “God’s standards.” News media like MSNBC (Joe Scarborough; see broadcast HERE) bristled at Huckabee’s religious reference while NOT reporting that the former Arkansas governor was merely offering rhetorical support for two planks that enjoy deep support among the GOP’s social conservative grassroots;
• How much of the above bias and distortions surrounding anti-Huckabee/pro-Romney coverage result from standard anti-evangelical-Christian bigotry?
• If Romney had been “Huckabee’d” by the conservative pundits – i.e., had they fully exposed the former Massachusetts governor’s extremely liberal past social record, unprecedented flip-flops, and current liberal positions – Romney likely never would have emerged as the purported “conservative” alternative to McCain; 
• Some social conservative leaders are clearly putting politics over principle by opting for a candidate – Mitt Romney – who fails in two critically important areas for religious conservative voters: opposing all aspects of the homosexual activist agenda and being consistently pro-life (we applaud Romney’s pro-life conversion, but since that conversion he has supported or enabled some anti-life policies such as subsidizing abortions as a health insurance “benefit“). We understand why the Club for Growth chose Romney (although Romney is not a genuine economic conservative), but for key evangelical leaders to downplay Romney’s liberal policies – especially his current and novel pro-homosexual positioning as a Republican FAVORING passage of state homosexual “special rights” laws  – has damaged these leaders’ credibility;
• There appears to be strong bias among conservatives in general that economic issues are more important than social issues (which is not to imply that Romney has a true conservative economic record); pro-life and pro-family voters should reject this.
• Many pro-lifer and pro-family Republicans remain ignorant of Romney’s pro-homosexual-agenda record and his dubious pro-life record, including his support for stem cell research using excess embryos created during fertility treatments. Conservative media and some pro-life/pro-family leaders are complicit in not reporting or even covering up these crucial facts exposing Romney’s liberalism.

Says Rick Scarborough, founder and president of Vision America and a national leader among pro-life and pro-marriage advocates:

“I cannot support Mitt Romney.  His conversion to the pro-life position is suspect and his ongoing support of homosexual rights is not. His position on the deity of Christ does not align with orthodox Christianity and his positions on abortion and Gay rights does not align with orthodox Mormonism. He flip flops on the core values which drive Christian conservatives.”

www.rffv.org

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; rffv@comcast.net

Peter LaBarbera, founder of Republicans For Family Values (www.rffv.org), today criticized GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his “novel pro-homosexual positioning in the GOP.” On Dec. 16, Romney (the alleged “conservative” in the race) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “it makes sense at the state level” to enact pro-homosexual “sexual orientation” laws.  Last week, CNN’s Roland Martin reported that Romney told him that he opposes “gay marriage,” but supports “gay rights.”

LaBarbera issued the following statement:

Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it on the homosexual agenda, and if he doesn’t get at after serving as governor of liberal Massachusetts — where “gay marriage,” homosexual adoption and pro-homosexuality indoctrination in schools ALL were advanced by the sort of pro-gay “sexual orientation” laws he’s now espousing — then he’s not going to get it at the federal level.

Romney is already using his bully pulpit as a candidate to affirm “gay rights”– even AFTER he’s earned the backing of pro-family leaders who seemingly would have much to teach him about the danger and misuse of pro-homosexual laws. (Note that Romney uses gay-affirming “discrimination” rhetoric even with regard to the Boy Scouts’ ban on homosexuals.) 

I don’t know any serious pro-lifers who are pro-homosexuality. We all have compassion for homosexual strugglers, but we draw the line at laws that would distort “civil rights” to include sinful and changeable homosexual behavior — because these laws will be used to compel individuals, business and even ministries to violate their beliefs and support homosexual relationships (see the Weekly Standard article, “Banned in Boston,” about Boston Catholic Charities electing to close down its historic adoption agency rather than place kids in homosexual households.

Romney is trying to shift the GOP’s pro-family paradigm on homosexuality, and it’s an unwise shift — much like retreating from a principled position on pro-life (e.g., “I’m pro-choice but not pro-partial-birth abortion”). Due to Romney’s potential for being the “Nixon-goes-to-China” president who advances pro-homosexuality agendas in the GOP — I cannot support him.

Why do the same conservative pundits who have assailed Mick Huckabee and John McCain as too liberal, promote the fiction that Mitt Romney – who strongly defended abortion-on-demand and who remains in favor of anti-Christian homosexual special rights laws as a Mormon – is a “conservative”?

 Abortion is listed as a $50 or $100 co-pay under “Benefit” in the “Commonwealth Care” plan touted by Gov. Romney. Click HERE for the Commonwealth Health Insurance Program benefit cost sheet PDF from which this is taken. (Emphasis added above.)

Hmmm. Abortion as a covered “benefit” under Gov. Romney’s vaunted health care insurance plan (the Commonwealth Health Insurance Program).  How did “CEO Romney,” a pro-life convert, let this get through?

The co-pay charge for this “benefit” is $50 for premium members or $100 for regular members. See the upper left side of page 2 of the PDF link. I wonder if Ann Coulter saw this before endorsing Romney…. – Peter LaBarbera

See page 2 of this:
 
http://www.mahealthconnector.org/portal/binary/com.epicentric.contentmanagement.servlet.ContentDeliveryServlet/About%2520Us/Connector%2520Programs/Additional%2520Resources/cc_benefits1220_pt234.pdf