Feminist Professor Says Polygamy is the Next Marriage ‘Civil Right’

Just what America needs (not).

A college professor in Vermont has released a book in support of polygamy, explaining why she believes it is the next civil right in America.

Janet Bennion is a professor of anthropology and sociology at Lyndon State College in Lyndonville. Earlier this year, she released a book entitled Polygamy in Primetime: Media, Gender and Politics in Mormon Fundamentalism, outlining her research on the topic and why she supports the idea of a woman or man having two or more spouses.

Recently, Bennion sat down with the Vermont publication Seven Days to further explain her views on polygamy, as she has been studying the lifestyle for over 20 years, and even spent time herself among a polygamist group. Bennion, who said that she does not wish to be a polygamist as she is happily married to one man, outlined that much of her book is based on talks with Mormon women or those involved with the Apostolic United Brethren.

“The groups vary, and some women find that working with other women in the home is beneficial to them,” she told the publication. “One woman described her co-wives as ‘second mothers’ [who do the childcare], so she can go find a job in the community. They have this economical and social network that provides a little bit more freedom than you might see in a monogamous pair bond.”

Bennion said that while most modern Mormons no longer follow polygamist doctrine, there are a number of them who still do.

“[T]he mainstream is made up of people with ancestors who were polygamists,” she added. “You can see that there are some sensitivities there, especially in an election year. Half of my family was for Romney, the other half for Obama. The Romney half was saying, ‘You shouldn’t have that book out there.’”

The professor advised that lesbianism even exists within polygamist relationships. She said that she received “love letters” once from a married woman, and was also invited to dinner by another who wanted to see if she was marriage material.

“There are women in the Utah pioneer days who formed a sisterhood network and allowed for lesbian connections,” Bennion stated. “I talked to at least three women who had formed sexual connections to their sister wives or to another woman in the community.”

She said that she feels that those who oppose polygamous marriages are bigots.

“We need to just step back, get off our high horse, and look at this from a civil liberties perspective. If we’re going to pave the way for alternative sexuality, why not provide liberties for those who choose the polygamy form?” Bennion asked. “As a feminist, I say, ‘Bring it on; let’s legalize it.’”

Intensely Political Mennonites Should Pay for Their Free Speech

Damn straight; free speech doesn’t require government subsidy…

You can write pretty much whatever you want, but if you do so you cannot hide behind the financial largesse of the taxpayer.

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s; or, don’t be hypocrites! Leading to various fellow travellers and tiresome anti-Tory types to moan on about censorship and free speech.

In fact, the Mennonites themselves can be a little fuzzy about free speech, as I found out when I was lecturer-in-residence at the Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.

For a week I delivered a number of speeches on various theological and social issues, and was stunned how secular and even mocking of Christianity some of the students and especially staff were.

Many were also outraged and wanted me silenced for daring to say at a Christian college that Jesus was God, marriage was the union of a man and a woman, and life begins at conception. Perhaps I should have asked for a tax-break.

You see, while the Mennonites are divided and do contain many fine people, their left wing is powerful and, if you’ll forgive the phrase, aggressively pacifist.

This alleged pacifism — itself a misunderstanding of Christ’s teaching — translates less to deploring violence than to opposing the United States, capitalism, the West, and more recently Israel.

They’re intensely political and they detest the Conservative government.

And all that is being said here by the authorities is that nobody is above the law or the tax code, and that while you have a right to speak your mind, you need to do so with an honest heart and clean hands.

White Evangelical Asks Black Evangelicals Why They Re-Elected Obama

Because most blacks are beholden to the Democrats.  Duh.

In an open letter to black evangelicals, Michael Brown candidly  asks whether they compromised their beliefs by voting for the re-election of  President Barack Obama.

“Are you guilty, on any level, of blind allegiance to the Democratic party?  And, on Election Day, did any of you compromise your convictions out of racial  solidarity?” the radio show host and author of A Queer Thing Happened to  America wrote Tuesday on Townhall.com.

“I simply do not understand how my black evangelical friends who so staunchly  oppose same-sex marriage and who stand against abortion could cast their vote  for the most radically pro-abortion, pro-gay-activist president in our history,”  he said as a fellow evangelical.

According to exit polls from last Tuesday’s presidential election, 93 percent  of African-American voters backed Obama, a slight drop from 95 percent in 2008.  Still, an analysis by The New Republic concludes that black turnout or support  for Obama “might have exceeded ’08 levels.”

Stupid or Evil, Not Sure Which

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now, and say stupid.

Poll workers in Boca Raton, Florida, tried to bar a woman from voting in the Nov. 6 election because she was wearing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology T-shirt. Officials apparently believed MIT was the Republican presidential candidate. Local media report they eventually figured out what it does stand for. Meanwhile, a poll worker in Denver called a supervisor when she spotted a voter wearing an MIT sweatshirt. The supervisor assured her that voter was not violating a state law against electioneering near a polling place.

Professor Equates Obama to Jesus in ‘Gospel According to Apostle Barack’

The Obamessiah hath come!

Reports are circulating about a book written by a Florida professor that was released prior to the election, which equates Barack Obama to Jesus and declares that his God-given mission is to bring “heaven on earth.”

The Gospel According to Apostle Barack was written by Florida A&M professor Barbara A. Thompson, who states that she was given a series of dreams by God in which she was able to realize Obama’s purpose as the leader of the free world. She says that after God answered her prayers to heal her son Gibran, who was badly injured in an accident, God told her to “go on a journey with Apostle Barack.”

“His followers needed to re-elect him to a second term so that he could continue to accomplish the promises he made, thus, realizing his vision of America as a more perfect political union or ‘heaven here on earth,’” she writes in her book description on Amazon. “[A]s I began to contemplate ways to assist Barack in his 2012 re-election bid, something miraculous happened. I felt God’s Spirit beckoning me in my dreams at night.”

“Listening, cautiously, I learned that Jesus walked the earth to create a more civilized society; Martin (Luther King) walked the earth to create a more justified society, but, Apostle Barack, the name he was called in my dreams, would walk the earth to create a more equalized society for the middle class and working poor,” she continued. “Apostle Barack, the next young leader with a new cause, had been taken to the mountaintop and allowed to see over the other side. He had the answers to unlock the kingdom of ‘heaven here on earth’ for his followers.”

She said that Obama had provided all of the solutions to the nation’s problems during speeches made from 2007-2009.

“Those speeches or his teachings contained the answers to the middle class and working poor people living in a ‘heaven here on earth,’” she claimed. “For when the answers were unlocked and enacted, Apostle Barack’s vision of America would be realized.”

The 220-page book also outlines the various accomplishments of Obama during his first term in office, calling them the “good news.”

According to the student newspaper at Florida A&M University, just days before the election, Thompson hosted a book signing at the university’s Southside Arts Complex, where she was greeted by an estimated 100 supporters.

“I know this book will be inspiring,” Jeema Richardson, a senior English student from Jacksonville, Florida told The Famuan at the signing. “I picked up my copy today and I’m eager to start reading about her revelations.”

LA City Council Declares “Meatless Mondays”

Stupid progressive Californians.

The Los Angeles City Council has declared every Monday to be a so-called ‘meatless Monday,’ and is urging all residents to participate in the weekly day of vegetarianism.

NBC Los Angeles reports that with the vote Los Angeles has become the largest city to embrace the Meatless Monday campaign, a nonprofit with the goal of cutting down on meat consumption for health and environmental reasons.

H/T Res Publica Americana

Source: Fox News. Read full article. (link)

So, Angelenos who obey their city council, and presumably the city councillors themselves, won’t get to enjoy this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

Tonight.

And if you’re vegetarian, never again.

No more bacon.

Mmm, bacon.

Hey, vegetarians, remember that?  Remember the smell of it frying in the morning, waking you up better than any alarm clock, making you want to jump out of bed and devour some?

You know you miss it, and you want it, so bad…

Go ahead; sneak some.  I won’t tell!

Thought Crimes

The Red Chinese war on Christianity outside of government-sanctioned churches proceeds apace…

The Chinese government forced some 160 Catholic priests and nuns in the Shanghai diocese to attend three days of classes on socialism, the Communist Party, and their duty to China. The move came after priest Thaddeus Ma Daqin left the Communist Party-run Patriotic Catholic Association as was ordained as a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. The government has confined Ma to a seminary since his ordination.

Sweden ‘Self-Sufficient’ on Marijuana: Police

Great!  Now they should legalize it, and reap the benefits in decreased criminal activity and lower law-enforcement budgets; win-win!

Reports of home-grown marijuana in Sweden have quadrupled in the last decade, according to police, who claim there is now enough domestically-grown weed to supply the needs of Sweden’s pot-smokers.

The Swedish National Bureau of Investigation (Rikskriminalpolisen) has said police currently receive more than 600 reports annually about illegal pot growing operations.

”We’re finding medium sized cultivations scattered across the country,” said Andreas Gårdlund, an analyst at the agency, to the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

In 2000, the most common type of marijuana farm was a large-scale operation in an isolated house tucked away in the heart of the countryside, but now police find and expose mainly mid-sized marijuana farms.

And according to police intelligence, the operations are generally well-organized, though not in the traditional way, where a drug lord makes investments and lets his underlings do the cultivation of the plants, which was the norm some ten years ago.

Today it is more often a case of individuals growing their own weed from imported seeds in any spare area such as a cellar or in their flat, which have been fitted with good ventilation so that unsuspecting neighbours won’t catch a whiff of anything.

“And what they don’t need for themselves they sell on to organized criminal gangs that have already established distribution channels to the street,” said Gårdlund to the paper.

And according to Swedish Customs (Tullverket) the illegal smuggling of marijuana into Sweden has diminished drastically, especially in Skåne County where it is suspected that the domestic production of the illegal plants is particularly strong.

Police in Skåne say that they seize very little marijuana smuggled in from countries from where the smugglers are otherwise very active.

“And that is another indication that Sweden is self-sufficient when it comes to marijuana,” said Gårdlund to Sydsvenskan.

A Wildrose Party Coup D’Etat?

Unlike these whining HuffPo progressives, if what they report on here is real, I think it’s good news, and I say, bring it on.

Albertans need real choices, rather than the non-choice they had last time around.

Let them have two socially ‘progressive’ parties with two slightly different economic platforms, and a real conservative party with socially conservative and fiscally conservative principles, rather than three different socially ‘progressive’ parties with slightly different economic platforms, which isn’t a choice at all.

Vatican Says It Will Never Condone Gay Marriage

Same-sex marriage gains abroad strengthen Catholic church’s opposition.

The Vatican says it will never stop insisting that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, after gay marriage initiatives scored big wins this week in the U.S. and Europe.

In a front-page article in Saturday’s Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the Holy See sought to frame itself as the lone voice of courage in opposing initiatives to give same-sex couples legal recognition.

Catholic teaching holds that homosexuals should be respected and treated with dignity but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” The Vatican also opposes same-sex marriage, insisting on the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman as the foundation for society.

The Vatican’s anti-gay marriage media blitz came after three U.S. states approved same-sex marriage by popular vote in the election that returned Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency, Spain upheld its gay marriage law and France pushed ahead with legislation that could see gay marriage legalized early next year.

“One might say the church, at least on this front, has been defeated,” L’Osservatore Romano wrote. “But that’s not the case.”

The article insisted that Catholics were putting up a valiant fight to uphold church teaching in the face of “politically correct ideologies invading every culture of the world” that are backed by institutions like the United Nations, which last year passed a non-binding resolution condemning anti-gay discrimination.

“The church is called to present itself as the lone critic of modernity, the only check … to the breakup of the anthropological structures on which human society was founded,” it said.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi, for his part, said gays can have their rights protected by means other than through legal marital recognition.

He stressed that children should have a right to say they have a father and a mother.

“If not, then why not contemplate freely chosen polygamy, and naturally so as to not discriminate, polyandry?” he asked sarcastically. Polyandry is when a woman has two or more husbands.

The Papists are not the sole critics of modernity, much as they may wish to ‘present’ themselves as such (according to this); we confessional Protestants also are there, too, as are evangelicals, and Eastern Orthodox, too; and outside of orthodox Christianity, there are others such as Mormons and Muslims who also are alongside in terms of being critics of modernity.

France to Become 12th Country to Legalize Gay Marriage

I’m only surprised they hadn’t already…

France is next in line to legalize same-sex marriage, according  to a disputed bill pushed by President Francois Hollande on Wednesday, which  would defy opposition from the country’s Roman Catholic and conservative  leadership.

Currently, less than a dozen countries in the world have legalized gay  marriage, although most of them are in Europe. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain,  Portugal, Netherlands, Iceland and Belgium have all moved away from the  traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman, and with  Hollande’s bill, France is set to join them early next year.

The top ministers in France have already approved the measure, marking  another successful agenda for Hollande’s liberal campaign, The New York Times reported. The president has called  the bill “progress for all society.” The new law will redefine marriage as  “contracted between two persons of different sex or of the same sex,” while the  words for “father” and “mother” in French will be replaced by “parents” – allowing them also to start adopting children.

Christiane Taubira, France’s justice minister, has also described the bill as  “marriage for all” and has said that it comes as response to a “demand for  equality.”

While supported by the majority of the French population, it stands in stark  contrast to the wishes of the conservative opposition in France, who have warned  that such a breakaway from traditional values will signal the end of the  traditional family unit.

“It’s the end of the family, the end of children’s development, the end of  education. It’s an enormous danger to the nation,” said UMP Senator Serge  Dassault on the radio show “France Culture.”

Puerto Rico Votes for Statehood

Now that’s interesting!

A slim majority of Puerto Ricans sought to change their ties with the United States and become the 51st U.S. state in a non-binding referendum that would require final approval from Congress.

The two-part referendum asked whether the island wanted to change its 114-year relationship with the United States. Nearly 54 percent, or 922,374 people, sought to change it, while 46 percent, or 786,749 people, favored the status quo. Ninety-six percent of 1,643 precincts were reporting as of early Wednesday.

The second question asked voters to choose from three options, with statehood by far the favorite, garnering 61 percent. Sovereign free association, which would have allowed for more autonomy, received 33 percent, while independence got 5 percent.

Source: Fox News. Read full article. (link)

Your Election Picture of the Day From the City of Brotherly Love

A clear violation.

Shown here is a polling site in Philadelphia with a mural of President Obama.

Shown here is a mural of President Obama at a Philadelphia polling site before and after it was partially covered up following a judge’s order.

At a polling location in Philadelphia, where Republican election officials were reinstated by a judge earlier today, via Fox News:

Quote:

Workers at a Philadelphia polling place, after being ordered by a judge to  cover up a mural of President Obama “in its entirety,” slapped up a few pieces  of paper that only partially covered his image — while leaving the Obama  campaign logo and a quote from the current president in full view for  voters.

The judge’s order followed a wave of complaints from Republican officials  concerned the giant image of the president could influence voters at the site, a  school in Ward 35.

The mural, positioned behind the voting machines, contains the words  “change!” and “hope,” along with a quote from the president and painting of  him. Poll workers only covered up part of the mural, though, leaving the  Obama campaign logo and other parts of the image visible, as well as the Obama  quote.

Poll workers claimed only the face had to be covered.

Republicans quickly drew attention to the image Tuesday morning, with one  Mitt Romney spokesman tweeting: “Voters in Philly’s Ward 35 are being forced to  cast their ballots next to this.”

“It is an absolute disgrace,” said Shannon Royer, deputy secretary for  external affairs and elections in Pennsylvania. “Election materials and  electioneering inside the polling place are prohibited by state law. This can be  interpreted as trying to influence voters inside the polling place. I am told  discussions are going on now about covering the mural.”

Pennsylvania election law states “no person within a polling place may  electioneer or solicit votes for any political party, political body, or  candidate, nor may any unauthorized written or  printed materials be posted  within the polling place.”

School district spokesman Fernando Gallard told FoxNews.com the mural was  “inspirational” and one of two that went up in 2009 following a student vote.  “Not our call,” he said.

Also from Philly:

A Pennsylvania judge issued an order Tuesday to reinstate Republican election officials across Philadelphia who allegedly were ejected or refused entry by on-site Democratic voting chief judges.

One Republican official claimed that “just under 70″ Republican election officials were blocked from Philadelphia polling sites Tuesday morning by Democrats on site. One of them, the official claimed, “was shoved out of the polling place.”

Source: Fox News. Read full article. (link)

NAACP Takes Over Houston Polling Station, Advocates for President Obama

Not surprising.

HOUSTON, TX -Friday afternoon at an early polling place located at 6719 W. Montgomery Road in Houston, NAACP members were seen advocating for President Barack Obama according to volunteer poll watchers on location at the time.

According to Eve Rockford, a poll watcher trained by voter integrity group True the Vote, three NAACP members showed up to the 139 precinct location with 50 cases of bottled water and began handing bottles out to people standing in line. While wearing NAACP labeled clothing, members were “stirring the crowd” and talking to voters about flying to Ohio to promote President Barack Obama.

After watching what was occurring, Rockford approached Polling Supervisor Rose Cochran about what she was seeing.

“I went to the polling supervisor and let her know that it was not appropriate that they were in the building handing out water. She ignored me. I repeated my statement. She told me that she would handle it. She did nothing. I then went to the assistant supervisor and he stood up, walked over to another table and then sat down. I then walked into the waiting room and they were reloading another dolly with more cases of water,” Rockford said in a True the Vote incident report.

After handing out water and advocating for President Obama, the NAACP members started handpicking and moving people to the front of a long voting line inside the polling place according to the incident report. After multiple complaints from voters about the line cutting, Rockford received a phone call from downtown telling her to “stand down.”

“All of the sudden one of the clerks, Dayan Cohen, said that someone wanted to speak to me on the phone. It was someone from downtown. I got on the phone and she said she was from downtown and that I needed to stand down and that it was okay for the NAACP to be within 100 ft. and they could hand out water. I told her that the NAACP was inside the building, wearing the NAACP clothing and caps and were handing out water and moving people from the back of the lines to the front of the lines,” Rockford said.

At this point, NAACP members were instructed to turn their clothing inside out, which they refused to do and said they weren’t going to stop their actions inside the polling place. Their behavior and actions to move people to the front of the line continued for the rest of the evening. Texas State Representative Sylvester Turner, a former Texas NAACP leader, was also seen outside the building talking with voters.

“The NAACP basically ran this poll location and the judges did nothing about it,” Rockford said.

Texas Woman Forced To Cover Up ‘Vote The Bible’ Shirt In Order To Cast Ballot

Since when was proclaiming Christian faith explicitly partisanly political?

Kay Hill wearing the “Vote the Bible” shirt. (credit: Texas Values)

A Texas woman claims that a polling place forced her to cover up her “Vote the Bible” shirt she was wearing or she would not be allowed to vote.

Texas Values is representing Kay Hill after Williamson County election workers told her that her shirt was deemed “offensive” and that she either needed to change her shirt or cover the words up in order to vote at Taylor City Hall on Oct. 24.

“This is obviously a religious free expression and no one should be put in a position having to choose religious freedom over deciding to vote,” Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, told KTBC-TV.

Hill eventually complied with election workers and covered-up the words in order to vote.

Williamson County officials say Hill’s shirt violated electioneering laws.

“Electioneering or loitering within 100 feet of the entrance to the polling place or inside the polling place is not allowed,” Connie Watson, public affairs director for Williamson County, told KTBC. “Electioneering would cover wearing a hat, a pen, a T-shirt or a sign that would indicate a position for a political party, candidate or a proposition.”

Saenz disagrees that Hill violated any sort of electioneering law.

“Electioneering only prohibits supporting or opposing a candidate, measure or political party,” Saenz told the Austin American-Statesman. “The Bible is not candidate or a ballot measure.”

Saenz is calling on the county to apologize to Hill, but officials say they won’t because what they did was right.

“We back the actions of our appointed elections workers at the county and precinct level,” Williamson County Judge Dan Gattis told the American-Statesman. “If a citizen does not agree, they need to follow the proper channels to complain.”

Hill is expected to file a complaint Friday with the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

Obama: ‘Voting Is The Best Revenge’

Against whom?  Who did what to merit revenge?

The Mormon Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

A history of Mormonism and its relationship with America.

College Protects ‘Civil Right’ of Male Crossdresser to Strip Naked in Girl’s Locker Room

Don’t let your kids go to Evergreen State College, parents.

Parents whose swim team daughters use the locker room at a Washington college are expressing concern following the continued refusal of school officials to stop a crossdressing man from stripping naked along with the girls — many of whom are young children.

According to reports, because of the non-discrimination policy of Evergreen State College, the educational institution feels that it must protect the “civil rights” of the man to use the female locker room. Children from a variety of schools and swim teams are said to use the facility, such as the Aquatics Academy, the Evergreen Swim Club, and the Capital High School and Olympia High School swim teams. The youth range from ages 6-18.

The 45-year-old man, who goes by the name “Colleen Francis,” was recently reported to the police following complaints from parents whose daughters have witnessed the man exposing his body parts by sitting naked in the sauna. One report states that police were contacted by a mother whose 17-year-old daughter was “upset because she observed a person in the women’s locker room naked and displaying male genitalia.”

“[She] felt that her daughter shouldn’t have been a victim to this type of situation and wanted something done about it,” the report, written by Chief Ed Sorger, stated.

Sorger then continued to explain that the previous day, another complaint had been lodged by swim team officials.

“Officers Brewster and Koppenhaver responded to the Campus Recreation Center on a report of a man in the women’s locker room,” he wrote. “Apparently Colleen Francis’ friend … had a conversation with someone at the CRC and was upset that Colleen’s identity was being questioned.”

Sorger outlined that after a teenage girl told her instructors that she had seen a man in the girl’s sauna, the coach for the Evergreen Swim Club confronted the naked man.

“[S]he observed Colleen sitting with her legs open with her male genitalia showing, and Tiffany said to ‘her’, ‘You need to leave,”” he explained.

Obama Inauguration Pastor Reportedly Suggests White People Going to Hell

No surprise…

The pastor who prayed and delivered the benediction at President Barack Obama’s  2009 inauguration has caused controversy by reportedly suggesting that every  black person should vote for Obama on Nov. 6, and that white people are going to  hell.

Pastor Joseph Lowery’s comments, made at St. James Baptist Church at a rally  in Forsyth, Ga., as part of a Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),  were covered by the Monroe County Reporter, which reported:

“Lowery praised Obama’s commitment to the poor and said politicians  should quit saying ‘middle class’ and go ahead and say ‘poor.’ Then he urged  individuals to look at their own character and conduct.

‘We’ve turned our backs on the faith,’ said Lowery. ‘America is going to  hell in a hand basket. We need to straighten up so God can use us.’

Lowery said that when he was a young militant, he used to say all white  folks were going to hell. Then he mellowed and just said most of them were. Now,  he said, he is back to where he was.

‘I’m frightened by the level of hatred and bitterness coming out in this  election,’ said Lowery.’”

Obama’s ‘First Time’ Campaign Ad Comparing Voting to Losing Virginity Disgusts Viewers

Disgusting butch-haircut tattooed actress slut.

A new advertisement for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has many viewers disgusted at what they believe are gutter-level insinuations.

The web advertisement, which is geared toward youth that are first-time voters, features Lena Dunham of the sexually explicit HBO television series Girls.

“Your first time shouldn’t be with just anybody. You wanna do it with a great guy,” the ad begins. “It should be with a guy with beautiful… someone who really cares about and understands women.”

After further using suggestive sexual innuendo, she states, “[You want] a guy who cares whether you get health insurance and specifically whether you get birth control. You want to do it with a guy who brought the troops out of Iraq. You don’t want a guy who says, ‘Oh hey, I’m at the library studying,’ when really he’s out signing the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Or, who thinks that gay people should never have beautiful, complicated weddings of the kind we see on Bravo or TLC all the time.”

The advertisement then closes by finally getting around to letting the viewer know that Dunham is talking about voting.

“My first time voting was amazing. It was this line in the sand. Before I was a girl, now I was a woman,” she says. “I went to the polling station; I pulled back the curtain; I voted for Barack Obama.”

The commercial then ends with the standard announcement, “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.”