Quoted Text

PepsiCo opposes resolution regarding donations to homosexual activist groups

April 17, 2009

PepsiCo, one of the leading corporate promoters of the homosexual agenda, is opposing a shareholder resolution that requires it provide more information concerning its charitable contributions. The resolution will be voted on at the shareholders meeting May 6. The resolution reads:

    * "Resolved: That the shareholders request the Company to provide a semiannual report...disclosing: the Company's standards for choosing which organizations receive the Company's assets in the form of charitable contributions; business rationale and purpose for each of the charitable contributions; personnel who participated in making the decisions to contribute; the benefits to the Company and beneficiaries produced by Company contributions; and a follow-up confirming that the organization actually used the contributions for the purpose stated."

As expected, PepsiCo opposes the resolution. AFA asked Pepsi to remain neutral in the culture war, but the company refused - choosing to support the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.

The resolution was filed after it was discovered that PepsiCo gave a combined $1,000,000 to the Human Rights Campaign (the nation’s largest homosexual organization) and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays to promote the homosexual lifestyle in the workplace.
Take Action!

• Sign the Boycott Pepsi Pledge. After signing the pledge, please call Pepsi (914-253-2000 or 1-800-433-2652) and tell the company you will boycott its products until it stops promoting the homosexual agenda.
• Ask any shareholder you know to vote for the resolution.

Quoted Text

Redefinition of terms is an essential battle for gay marriage. This political tactic—to redefine a legal term—is crucial to all laws and this tactic is rapidly becoming the first course of action for radical causes.


Just twenty years ago few would have imagined that marriage would be so radically subjected to redefinition. In like manner, if the case for gay marriage is triumphant, then the tactic of redefining terms will explode every law that addresses human relationships and obligations. Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, declared, “Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex and family and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society.”[20]

Proponents of same-sex unions suggest that it is time for a legal redefinition of marriage because the traditional concept of marriage was based on religious belief. Where religious norms are tossed out, they say, there exists no non-religious impediment to gay marriage.[21]

This is erroneous. It ignores nature. In fact, marriage is older than religious or cultural norms. Marriage as one man and one woman in a permanent bond predates any political system or government. There assuredly are non-religious obstacles to redefining same-sex unions as another form of marriage. The obstacles are biological, psychological, and sociological.

Quoted Text

Froma Harrop
Gay marriage question best settled by states

    This has been a month of forward leaps in the campaign for gay-marriage — or so it is said. The Iowa Supreme Court struck down a ban on same-sex marriage, providing a toehold in the heartland. And the Vermont Legislature legalized gay marriage, marking the first time that elected lawmakers, rather than state judges, initiated such change.
    Significant developments both, but they are part of an evolution, not a revolution. The story really started 20 years ago, when Denmark offered the first civil unions. They give same-sex couples rights and benefi ts similar to those in a heterosexual marriage.
    In 2000, Vermont initiated civil unions in the United States. Three years later, Massachusetts sanctioned gay marriage, as did Connecticut last October. So the events in Iowa and Vermont were bricks laid upon an already tested foundation.
    There’s much to be said for letting states settle the question of gay marriage, one step and one jurisdiction at a time. This pragmatic approach does not always sit well with gay rights activists. They consider marriage a basic human right that should not be honored in one place and abridged in another.
    But the alternative — a U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming the right to gay marriage — would only slow things down. It could turn into another Roe v. Wade, the controversial 1973 ruling that guaranteed a right to abortion and has divided the country ever since. Even pro-choice legal experts find Roe problematic.
    And one can’t assume that the court would rule in favor of gay marriage. It might not. Further, turning the issue into a national controversy could revive the effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.
    In any case, domestic law (which includes marriage) is traditionally left to the states, and that’s where it should stay. For supporters of gay marriage, a series of peaceful advances at the state level paves a smoother path than a titanic battle on the national stage.
    Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously called states “the laboratories of democracy.” Being closer to the people and more attuned to the local culture, states are better equipped than the federal government to introduce new social policies. Innovations are usually first tried in the places most receptive to them.
    It helps to remember that even in liberal Massachusetts, people were of two minds about gay marriage. In a poll done shortly after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court threw out the ban on same-sex marriages, over half those residents surveyed said they wanted a state constitutional amendment limiting marriage to between one man and one woman. But a poll taken three years later found that 56 percent of the Massachusetts respondents would oppose such an amendment.
    What happened in Massachusetts? Gay marriage had become legal, and the sky hadn’t fallen in. People got used to the idea.
    A survey last October of Iowans found that more than 62 percent of those surveyed opposed same-sex marriage. It will be interesting to follow Iowa opinion in the likely event that gay marriage goes into effect.
    Of course, the road to same-sex marriage is not straight. There have been a number of hairpin turns back. Last November, voters adopted state constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage in Arizona and Florida and narrowly in California.
    The wind is clearly at the advocates’ back. Younger Americans are especially accepting of homosexuality. As they replace their elders, and gay marriage comes to seem routine, the bans will fall one by one.
    Activists should note: An idea whose time has not fully come often arrives faster when it takes the slow route through the states.

Quoted Text

RUDY RIPS GOV'S BID FOR GAY NUPS
By FREDRIC U. DICKER

April 20, 2009 --
RUDY GIULIANI is declaring war on gay marriage -- vowing to use his strong opposition of it against the Democrats if he runs for governor next year.

BUT HIS GUY PALS PLAN TO WED

The former mayor, in an extended interview with The Post, also predicted that Gov. Paterson's high-profile effort to legalize gay marriage would anger many New Yorkers and spark a revolt that could help sweep Republicans into office in 2010.

"This will create a grass-roots movement. This is the kind of issue that, in many ways, is somewhat beyond politics," said Giuliani, a two-term mayor who unsuccessfully sought the GOP presidential nomination last year.

"I think gay marriage will obviously be an issue for any Republican next year because Republicans are either in favor of the position I'm in favor of, civil unions, or in many cases Republicans don't even favor civil unions," he continued.

Giuliani, who is slated to address a Republican fund-raising gala in Albany tonight in what is widely described as further proof of his interest in running for governor, said he's committed to the traditional definition of marriage.

"Marriage, I believe, both traditionally and legally, has always been between a man and a woman and should remain between a man and woman," said Giuliani, who has been married three times.

"And Democrats, including President Obama and Hillary Clinton, have essentially the same position I have, which is let's have civil unions but not go so far as to change the definition of marriage.

"And that has to embrace many Democratic voters, if two Democrats like that nationally have the same position essentially that I have."

While Obama and Clinton oppose gay marriage, Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, all Democrats, are in favor.

Paterson introduced legislation last week to legalize gay marriage, despite warnings from supporters that there aren't enough votes to pass it in the Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Democrats.

The move, which privately angered many gay-marriage supporters -- who fear a defeat would set back the gay-rights movement -- was widely seen as an effort by Paterson to shore up rapidly eroding support among Democratic primary voters.

Giuliani echoed that view of Paterson's motive, saying, "I think he's worried and, given his [low polling] numbers, it wouldn't be normal if he wasn't worried about a primary challenge from, I guess, Cuomo.

"But somebody else could also come out of anywhere with numbers like that."

Giuliani called Paterson's move risky, saying, "To solidify the Democratic base that way is to put yourself in jeopardy with New York voters as a whole."

A Quinnipiac poll earlier this month found only 41 percent of New York voters -- and just 33 percent of black voters -- back gay marriage.

Giuliani, the GOP's best hope to recapture.............http://www.nypost.com/seven/04202009/news/columnists/rudy_rips_govs_bid_for_gay_nups_165238.htm

Quoted Text

Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA on Sunday, but the big story to come out of the normally politics-free telecast was Miss California's comments regarding gay marriage.

When asked by judge Perez Hilton, an openly gay gossip blogger, whether she believed in gay marriage, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, said "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Keith Lewis, who runs the Miss California competition, tells FOXNews.com that he was "saddened" by Prejean's statement.

"As co-director of the Miss California USA, I am personally saddened and hurt that Miss California believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman," said Lewis in a statement. "I believe all religions should be able to ordain what unions they see fit. I do not believe our government should be able to discriminate against anyone and religious beliefs have no politics in the Miss California family."

Quoted Text

True Catholics can’t back same-sex marriage

    On April 20, one of our local TV news stations [CBS6] told of a Siena poll taken on the subject of same-sex marriage [April 21 Gazette]. They found that most Catholics in New York state support same-sex marriage.
    These so-called Catholics obviously don’t know that the Catholic Church and Holy Bible do not support samesex marriage, abortion, birth control or anything immoral.
    This is for all Catholics, Christians, or anyone who wants truth: Read the bible, read the Catechism. I will pray that you do.

    R.A. LALONDE
    Schenectady

Quoted Text

Same-sex marriage law nears

By FRED LEBRUN COMMENTARY
First published in print: Sunday, April 26, 2009

Inevitably, New York will have a same sex marriage law enacted by the Legislature and not created by a court decision. That's as it should be in both cases.


Perhaps it won't happen this session because of the strange contemporary dynamics of the state Senate that leave any controversial issue a crapshoot. Regardless, just as sure as we are an increasingly liberal state with each passing election, not far down the road the equal rights argument for a disenfranched class of citizens will win the day as it has in several other states, and such a law will pass.

It's not a question of whether, but when.

And when recognition of same-sex marriage does come for New York, it will hardly be revolutionary in the Northeast. We are surrounded by those ahead of us. Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario already have approved some form of same-sex marriage or civil union. On our borders, only Pennsylvania remains mute on the subject.

We lost our chance to be in the progressive vanguard when our Court of Appeals embraced the past rather than the future in a seminal decision three years ago.

Still, even Judge Robert S. Smith, who wrote the 4-2 majority opinion denying the right of marriage to same-sex couples, alluded to a seeming historic inevitability in that decision. Citing the minority opinion, he said:

"The dissenters assert confidently that 'future generations' will agree with their view of this case. We do not predict what people will think generations from now, but we believe the present generation should have a chance to decide the issue through its elected representatives. We therefore express our hope that the participants in the controversy over same-sex marriage will address their arguments to the Legislature; that the Legislature will listen and decide as wisely as it can; and that those unhappy with the result — as many undoubtedly will be — will respect it as people in a democratic state should respect choices democratically made."

I don't know Judge Smith's writing well enough to know if he routinely practices irony, or tongue in cheek. The vision of a "wise Legislature" raises the question, certainly. Nor is it clear whether Smith is in fact predicting the Legislature would affirm his conservative view of man-woman marriage, or whether he is preparing his supporters for the opposite, the inevitability of an inclusionary law that will disappoint traditionalists. Or maybe he is looking at both views.

Very short term, the traditional view will hold. Beyond that, it will crumble.

Interestingly, all you ever need to know about both sides of the argument over a gay marriage law for New York is incorporated in this Court of Appeals (Hernandez vs. Robles) decision that stemmed from the brief spate of gay marriages performed by the then-mayor of New Paltz.

The notable dissenter was then-Chief Judge Judith Kaye, who wrote a breathtaking 27-page opinion in favor of extending New York's marriage law to same sex couples that simply scorches the narrow definition of marriage as heterosexual...........http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=794048