Spencer Patrick .com

Having just come back from the California, it is shocking to see things like this happen. This is very interesting political commentary from Chuck Colson. A scary thought to have the United States of America losing it freedom and open society.

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=== BreakPoint with Chuck Colson ===
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Shutting Down Free Speech
The Gay Agenda Triumphant

July 25, 2007

It doesn’t pay to take your constitutional right to free speech seriously anymore — at least, not if you live in Oakland, California. There, a handful of African-American Christian women recently found out that their free speech rights had effectively been outlawed.

The women, who are Oakland government employees, had formed an organization called the Good News Employee Association. As their flyer put it, their group was, “A forum for people of Faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day. With Respect for the Natural Family, Marriage, and Family Values.”

As columnist George Will relates, the women posted their flyer after other employee groups, including those advocating gay rights, had advertised their activities on the city’s email system and bulletin board. When Good News asked for equal opportunity, they were told to forget it. City officials destroyed their flyer. They accused the women of Good News of being “determined to promote harassment based on sexual orientation. If the women posted any more flyers, or sent their message via email, the city warned, they would be disciplined and perhaps terminated.

In effect, as Will notes, Oakland “has proscribed any speech that even one person might say questioned the gay rights agenda and therefore created what that person felt was a “hostile environment.” While homosexual rights groups used the city’s email system to advertise “Happy Coming Out Day,” the terms “natural family” and “marriage” and “family values” are considered intolerably inflammatory, he adds.

This is why so-called “hate crimes” laws, like the one being considered by the U.S. Congress, are so dangerous. They can be used as a weapon to censor peaceful political speech that someone doesn’t like. The goal of homosexual groups is not to stop violence, or truly hateful speech; it’s to silence anyone who says that homosexual behavior is a biological disorder or a moral wrong. Mere disagreement is redefined as hate.

The Good News group has gone to court over Oakland’s attack on their First Amendment rights, and the super-liberal Ninth Circuit Court, not surprisingly, has ruled against them. The group now hopes the Supreme Court will intervene.

You and I need to be aware of attempts to encroach on our right to speak out against moral evils. We must also understand that this is ultimately a spiritual battle.

The Bible and natural law teachings tell us that God’s law is written upon our hearts and are known to all. As Christian philosopher J. Budziszewski writes in his book, THE REVENGE OF CONSCIENCE, those who rationalize their sins find it to be so much work that they require other people to support them in it. Society itself must be transformed so that it no longer stands in awful judgment.

This is why gay activist groups want to change the law to suppress any speech that identifies homosexual behavior as either a biological disorder or a moral wrong.

You and I must pray for those who are caught up in homosexuality; their lives are tragic. But we must also remember that, as the Apostle Paul puts it, we must witness to the truth, no matter what human lawmakers say or do, because we owe our ultimate allegiance to the eternal lawgiver: God.

Get links to further information on today’s topic (http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=6787)

The Japanese, Sex And Family

With a topic like sex, I am sure we’ve got your attention. In Japan, sex is a youthful thing. There is really no Judeo-Christian standard of sex being something being saved for marriage. But it is definitely not something two young people do at home. A whole industry sprung up called ‘love hotels’. More appropriately, they should be called sex hotels as they are just designed to give people a room to do something that husbands and wives are usually doing at home.

What has happened a lot in the Japanese society is pre-marital sex has been rampant. Youth have gotten pregnant and gotten married (which is a heck of a lot better than killing the baby through having an abortion which does happen) to take account for their actions. There is some abortion of babies as abortion in Japan is the lazy form of ‘birth-control`.

Once married the young couple ends up raising their children. Traditionally the Japanese wife stays at home with the family while the husband goes to work. Usually, the wife controls the bank account and budgets for the family. Unlike other countries, Japan does not allow joint bank accounts.

As time passes, the parents are focused on their kids but not too much on their relationships with each other. Many times the relationship goes cold as love is something that needs to be cherished and developed. When the children leave the home, the parents don’t have that much to talk about. Divorce in general has been taboo, but with laws are changing where wives can get half of their husbands worth.

In Japan, there are many Japanese married to foreigners. Many Japanese men married to foreign women, and many Japanese women married to western men. In general, ladies from the Philippines are known for looking after their usually aging husbands better than Japanese women. At the same time, American men are known for treating Japanese women better as there is the cultural sense of chivalry that American tend to have. For example, opening the door, walking behind the lady, giving her attention that a Japanese guy would usually not give.

One interesting phenomenon we have seen with many Japanese women married to Westerners is related directly to sex. American couples usually have very active sex lives. However, after a few years of marriage Japanese women tend to start to withhold themselves from their husbands. We have even heard of Japanese wives telling their western husbands if they want to have sex so often then they should ‘get a girlfriend’. How pathetic!

Men have a very strong sex drive and withholding yourself from your husband is very harmful to a marriage and the family as a whole. Of course, if the drive is out of your marriage then you need to do something about it. What can a husband and wife do to make their marriage deeper?

More next entry…

That is exactly what is going on in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israeli is being pressured by outside governments (US, Russia, EU) to give the Palestinians control of the land of Israeli.

This is a very short-sighted solution for an age old conflict.

This week we read about Tony Blair’s next job and his priority of ‘making a Palestinian state’. The whole situation is actually quite confusing to a person just trying to understand the situation. Norma Parrish Archbold in her book, “The Mountains of Israel” makes some very interesting points. If you don’t understand the history, you wouldn’t know that Palestine was actually created by the British. Jordan is a result of much of that.

Ms. Archbold makes it very clear that she believes that there is already a Palestinian state. If the terrorists want their own place to operate, then they should move to Jordan. She makes it also clear that Israel should never give any land because the land is an intrinsic part of Israel.

More on this.

Can everything your organization stands for be boiled down into a single concise message? It can, and it should be. At least if you want people to make a heart connection with it.

Jesus knew this. On one occasion some scholars asked him to summarize the entire Old Testament. Jesus was able to do so on the spot. He said the entire law can be boiled down to this: “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.”

My question for you is: “Do you have a clear, concise message with which your staff and customers can connect?”

-Mac Hammond