Showing posts with label Thomas More Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas More Society. Show all posts

Friday, January 4, 2013

Lawmakers review plan to declare voters 'bigots' - Legal team says same-sex 'marriage' plan isn't all 'fairness'





http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/lawmakers-review-plan-to-declare-voters-bigots/

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A legal team specializing in civil rights, faith and freedom issues has written a letter to members of the Illinois legislature, warning them that the new “Illinois Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act” isn’t all about “freedom” and “fairness.”
It’s about labeling constituents bigots, according to a statement from the attorneys at the Thomas More Society.

The letter, from Thomas Brejcha, chief counsel for the Thomas More Society, is going to every member of the state General Assembly to encourage them to oppose the plan.
He advises lawmakers that voting for the proposed same-sex “marriage” bill will hurt constituents.
That’s because the “discriminatory act will declare Illinois residents who support traditional marriage to be bigoted and prejudicial.”
“You will declare your constituents who believe that marriage is a union of one man and one woman to be bigots and discriminators,” the letter explains. “You will further ensure that this declaration is reinforced through official government policy.
“For instance, as in other states, you may see public schools in your district instruct children, beginning in kindergarten, that (a) same-sex couples and same-sex sexual activity are the same as opposite-sex married couples and opposite-sex marital sexual activity or that (b) kids do not need both a mom and a dad – two moms or two dads are just as good. Parents in your district who disagree have no right under law to opt their young children out of this kind of instruction,” the letter said.
The communiqué notes that the “fairness” proposal “will actually strip away the meager religious liberty protections of the 2010 civil union law.”
While the current law allows faith-based adoption agencies, hospitals, and schools to follow their deeply held convictions in regard to employment, facilities rental, and other decisions, the new plan would coerce acceptance of same-sex unions under the threat of being charged with Illinois Human Rights Act violations.
Said the letter, “What benefit would a ‘yes’ vote provide to same-sex couples? The mere changing of a title of a license – such that the license for most same-sex unions would now read ‘marriage license’ instead of ‘civil union license.’ And, if the example of other states holds true here, the words ‘Husband’ and ‘Wife’ would be stricken from marriage licenses in favor of ‘Party A’ and ‘Party B.’ Again, a ‘yes’ vote on same sex marriage would not grant a single additional substantive legal right to any homosexual couple in Illinois.”
But the harms will target “faithful Catholics, evangelical Christians, Missouri Synod Lutherans, Muslims, Mormons, and Orthodox Jews,” the letter said.
Those would include “small bed & breakfast owners who would be forced to rent out their home for same-sex wedding weekends; solo photographers who would be forced to spend hours photographing and designing albums for same-sex wedding ceremonies that they believe to be sinful; family catering company owners being forced to prepare, feed, serve, and support same-sex wedding receptions, even though the family members oppose those receptions with every fiber of their being.”
The warning continued, “Only time will tell whether organizations would be forced to shut down or significantly reduce their ministries in order to avoid the reach of the ‘Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.’”
The legitimacy of same-sex “marriage” actually is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court now, in two cases. In one, Californians voted to insert in their state constitution a definition that marriage is between one man and one woman, but a federal court said they weren’t allowed to do that.
In the second, Barack Obama simply decided that the federal government would not defend against lawsuits over the Defense of Marriage Act, which is federal law now.
During the 2012 election, voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington state approved the concept of same-sex “marriages” being recognized by the state. That follows more than a decade of votes across nearly three dozen states uniformly banning such recognition.
Same-sex marriage opponents note that what is developing now in the U.S. already is advanced in Canada, which approved same-sex marriage in 2005.
There, according to a report by National Review, there have been hundreds of formal complaints pursued against people who hold to the biblical instruction that marriage is between a man and a woman. They include a well-known television anchor on a major sports show who was fired only hours after he tweeted his support for “the traditional and TRUE meaning of marriage.”
The report said he had only been defending a hockey player’s agent who was getting death threats for refusing to support a “gay” marriage campaign.
In the case, Fred Henry, the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary, was threatened with litigation and charged with a human-rights violation after he wrote a letter to local churches on the church’s teaching on marriage, the report said.
The report noted there have been an estimated 200 to 300 proceedings against those people who defend traditional marriage.
“A considered and empathetic opposition to same-sex marriage has nothing to do with phobia or hatred, but that doesn’t stop Christians, conservatives, and anybody else who doesn’t take the fashionable line from being condemned as Neanderthals and bigots,” the report said.
Threats also develop. In California, when voters approved the definition of marriage as one man and one woman, a series of statements were delivered to traditional marraige supporters.
Threats that were documented included:
  • “I’m going to kill the pastor.”
  • “If I had a gun I would have gunned you down along with each and every other supporter”
  • “We’re going to kill you.”
  • “You’re dead. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon … you’re dead.”
  • “I’m a gay guy who owns guns, and he’s my next target.”
  • “I warn you, I know how to kill, I’m an ex-special forces person.”
  • “Get ready for retribution all you bigots.”
  • Burn their f—ing churches to the ground and then tax the charred timbers.”
Also, churches were marred by graffiti, swastikas were put on lawns and walls, bricks thrown through windows and doors, adhesive poured into locks, suspicious packages of white powder sent in the mail – “all for nothing more than supporting traditional marriage.”
 

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

SAFE AND LEGAL? ABORTION KILLS WOMAN


An autopsy report on a woman who died after an abortion at a Chicago-area Planned Parenthood business confirms that she was bleeding uncontrollably and never awoke from an emergency surgery to try to save her life.
Officials with the Thomas More Society and the Pro-Life Action League reported today they had obtained a copy of the autopsy report from Tonya Reaves.
The case generated horror when it happened, and pro-life organizations have been investigating the public records for a confirmation of early reports that Reaves went in for an abortion and bled to death.
The controversial manner of Reaves’ death on July 20 triggered a hailstorm of calls for abortion provider regulation in Illinois, which currently has almost no oversight of the abortion businesses.
According to a report today from the Pro-Life Action League, the second trimester abortion was done on Reaves about 11 a.m., even though the Planned Parenthood website for that particular Chicago area location said it provides only birth control, the morning after pill and chemical abortions.
The autopsy report reveals that Reaves had “an intrauterine pregnancy of 16 weeks estimated gestational age.”
The medical examiner’s report said Planned Parenthood performed an incomplete abortion and she complained of pain and was noticed to be swelling after the procedure.
Five and a half hours after the abortion, she was taken to a hospital, where a second abortion was performed because of remaining “conception products.” She continued to deteriorate and was taken into surgery for a hysterectomy.
An “uncontrollable bleed” was found and she died without waking up, some 12 hours after the initial abortion, the report said.
The Pro-Life Action League said the report “indicates that her left uterine artery-vein was possibly transected, which caused the uncontrollable bleeding.”
The report, which the Pro-Life Action League provided to WND, also noted that “discrete defects” in the tissue were “difficult to ascertain” because of the bleeding.
The league report said Freedom of Information Act requests after the death “did not reveal a call from Planned Parenthood to 911, although the medical examiner’s report states that Reaves was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital by Chicago Fire Department ambulance at 4:30 p.m.”
Officials previously had tried to prevent access to the document that in the state is a public record.
Allison K. Aranda, a senior staff counsel for the California-based Life Legal Defense Foundation, had reported that a formal public records request for Reaves’ autopsy report was made in writing July 23 by a staff member for Operation Rescue.
The attorney said a caller from the medical examiner’s office told Operation Rescue the request was being rejected because OR did not have family authorization or a subpoena.
However, according to Life Legal, “Illinois law specifically states that all records in the custody or possession of a public body are presumed to be open to inspection or copying, and nowhere does the state exempt autopsy reports from compliance.”
The legal team confirmed that the Freedom of Information Act Guide for Law Enforcement published July 12, 2012, by the Illinois office of the attorney general “specifically states that autopsy reports are public records and should be released.”
Likewise, the legal team reported a 2010 Illinois Public Access Counselor review also stated clearly that autopsy reports in the files of the medical examiner are within the provenance of the FOIA and concluded that, “the reports are public records and should be released.”
WND also reported earlier that the Planned Parenthood abortion business had been told on a separate issue to call 911 for help in an emergency – the same day Reaves died.
Operation Rescue reported it got a copy of a telephone call placed at 12:43 p.m. on July 20 from the Loop Health Center Planned Parenthood in Chicago regarding a fracas that developed with a mother and daughter who were at the abortion business.
That situation was unrelated to that of Reaves, who had her fatal abortion at about 11 a.m. at that location on that day, Operation Rescue said.
But the 911 dispatcher on the call is heard admonishing the Planned Parenthood worker for calling 311, a number used primarily to provide information regarding city events and programs, during an emergency.
The mother-and-daughter issue developed when a 16-year-old patient was “physically assaulted” by her mother, and Operation Rescue said the caller indicated abortion business staff members pulled the two apart after they saw the mother kick her daughter and pull her hair.
Part of the conversation, which can be heard at the Operation Rescue website, is as follows:
Dispatcher: OK, and once you called – you see, next time you need a police car to come out for any reason whatsoever, you need to call 911.
Caller: Right. OK. I just –
Dispatcher: That way you don’t waste time with 311.
Caller: I know, I know, I just (laugh) I just hate to use services to make, you know –
Dispatcher: I know. Well, they don’t dispatch police cars. All they do is transfer you to 911.
Caller: Gotcha.
Dispatcher: So you’re waiting in that queue and then they flip you over to our office.
Caller: Right.
Dispatcher: Now I don’t have any of your information. So, what is your telephone number?
OR reported the dispatcher “is heard admonishing the Planned Parenthood worker for calling 311, which caused a delay in dispatching aid to the scene.” That means the facility “ignored instructions from an emergency dispatcher to directly call 911 in the event of an emergency in order to prevent wasting precious time,” OR said.
WND also reported earlier when pro-life leader Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics called on state attorney Anita Alvarez of Cook County, Ill., for an immediate investigation of Planned Parenthood for what he alleged was the murder of Reaves.
Crutcher cited the Illinois “depraved indifference murder” statute as being more than enough to warrant a thorough inspection of the death of the African-American woman – to determine if criminal charges can be pressed against Planned Parenthood.
“If it can be shown that this young woman might have survived if emergency treatment had not been withheld from her for more than five hours, then this was not an accident and it was not medical malpractice,” Crutcher contends. “It was a homicide, and those responsible should be on the evening news wearing handcuffs and leg irons.”
The National Black Pro-life Coalition also is seeking to hold Planned Parenthood accountable for Reave’s death.
“At a minimum, Planned Parenthood was criminally negligent when they left Tonya bleeding in their facility for more than five hours,” said Walter B. Hoye, who serves as president and founder of the Issues4Life Foundation. ” Planned Parenthood’s lack of action demonstrates a depraved indifference for the life of this young woman. Planned Parenthood must be held accountable for the death of Tonya Reaves.”
King for America founder Alveda King said, “We demand the unjust targeting of the black community by abortionists be investigated and immediately ended.”