According to a Washington Times editorial (9/30/11), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed papers in a court proceeding earlier in September in which EPA discusses the scope of the greenhouse-gas regulations it would like to impose on the nation.  Here are the amazing figures:

The agency is defending sweeping greenhouse-gas emissions rules that if fully implemented would require 10,000 new state-level employees to process permits. At the federal level, it would take 230,000 new officials and a $21 billion budget expansion – quite a boost for an outfit that currently has 17,417 bureaucrats and $10.3 billion to spend. EPA admits it would be “absurd or impossible to administer” the rules all at once, but “that does not mean that the agency is not moving toward the statutory thresholds.”

These facts reinforce why conservatives have to focus their attention on the regulatory tsunami that is now hitting America.

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Exposing one’s undergarments traditionally has been viewed as poor form, at best, and more often than not, just plain immodest.

While it’s true there is no accounting for taste (polyester leisure suits for men and gigantic shoulder pads for women are among happily-jettisoned fashions), subjecting one’s fellows to the sight of one’s underpants is, quite literally, too much.  Thus, the town of Albany, Georgia has instituted a ban on “anyone from wearing pants or skirts more than three inches below the top of the hips, exposing the skin or undergarments. First-time offenders face a $25 fine. On further offenses, the fine can rise to $200.”

As a conservative, I dislike the idea of government taking upon itself the right to measure pant length or hip exposure.  Yet such intrusions are inevitable if people lack the common sense – and common decency – to dress with at least some semblance of normality and decorum.  People only stand for so much before they call for legal fences to protect them against bad neighbors.

That should serve as a broader warning for a society enmeshed in narcissism, immorality, and the general abandonment of truth.  Moral erosion leads to anarchy.  Anarchy threatens lives, which results in a popular call for the restoration of order.  And, thus, fascism emerges in the guise of strident leadership proclaiming “bread and peace” (Bolshevism) or “one people, one empire, one leader” (Nazism) or “socialism builds and capitalism destroys” (Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez).

In his book Twelve Types, G.K. Chesterton wrote that “politeness … is everywhere understood and nowhere defined.”  Such definition really is unnecessary, since the rites of courtesy are only the formalization of intuitive conscience, of the moral stirrings that cause us to help an elderly woman up a staircase or open a door for a mother with a stroller.  Or keep one’s pants pulled up over his briefs.

Our Founders argued that if we lack self-restraint and basic virtue, we were unfit for self-government.  “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt,” wrote Samuel Adams.  In the era of such diverse but somehow connected phenomena as Lady Gaga, eroticized childhood, abortion on demand, and bizarre cosmetic surgery, is such universal corruption far behind?  Only if Christians are willing to stand against it, and work to restore a society where honor, courage, kindness, and enterprise are fostered and not demeaned.

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Dr. Charles Krauthammer has been hailed by National Review as “The Leader of the Opposition.” He is indisputably one of Washington’s wise men. His critiques of the manifold errors of the Obama administration are legendary. But in one particular, I suspect, he is flat wrong.

He recently opined that “voter intensity” does not matter because all the votes are equal on election day. He’s correct that you cannot pull the lever five times to indicate your impassioned support of your candidate (sorry Chicago).

But voter intensity is the key to winning elections. Voter intensity counts because the number of votes will depend on how motivated is the electorate. One radio talker this week mourned that GOP voters had “to hold their noses” last time and, “unfortunately, there weren’t enough of them.” Try to envision those nose-holders rushing to the polls. It would be funny if it were not so sad.

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Adult stem cells are being used extensively in the veterinary world to treat various animals, including horses and dogs. Now add goats to that list of creatures great and small that have benefited from the practical success of adult stem cells. Cinnamon the Goat has apparently become the first goat treated with its own adult stem cells. The procedure was performed by Kentucky veterinarian Dr. Clark Slone. The goat had some fat tissue removed and adult stem cells isolated from the tissue, then re-injected to treat damaged ligaments and joints. The vet expects that Cinnamon will be moving well within a month.

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Today marks the 11th year anniversary of the approval of RU-486, the one drug legally approved for abortion in the United States.

September also marks another difficult anniversary — the death of Holly Patterson, who died as a result of RU-486, which is considered “safe” and legal. Holly was a beautiful young woman who graduated from high school a year early. She received the abortion pill from a Planned Parenthood clinic in California at the age of 18 in September, 2003 and died a few days later from complications. Holly would have been 26 this year.

Tragically, Holly is not alone. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as of late April, at least 11 women in the U.S. have died as a result of the drug since its approval in September, 2000. Over 2200 adverse events have been filed with the FDA since that time, and 612 women had been hospitalized as a result of this abortion pill. More than 330 women have required a blood transfusion after having a chemical abortion.
Despite all of this, use of chemical abortion is on the rise in the U.S., specifically at Planned Parenthood clinics.

In Holly’s memory, today, her father, Monty Patterson, launched a website dedicated to spreading the truth about the abortion pill.

Please do whatever you can to spread the news about this website to the women in your life — they need to know this critical information that could one day save their life.

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Last week Margaret Ogola’s life on Earth came to an end, at the very young age of 53.  Here was a woman who understood the gift of time, for she filled the hours allotted to her in radical solidarity with those God entrusted to her care, and in service of advancing the cause of human life and dignity.

Dr. Ogola was a medical doctor, an award-winning novelist, a university professor, a human rights advocate, and a mother of six children.  She ran a hospice for AIDS orphans.  She directed the Institute of Healthcare Management at Strathmore University in Nairobi.  She was an advisor to the Catholic Bishops of Kenya.  She was a powerhouse, yet was described as a person filled with peace.  (For a comprehensive obituary see the Strathmore University web site.)

Margaret Ogola was well known in her country as an award-winning novelist.  Her first novel, The River and the Source, won every African literary award around.  Her subsequent works also received acclaim.

Dr. Ogola was well also known to many Americans active on the world pro-life stage.  Family Research Council’s own Pat Fagan and my husband Austin Ruse knew her from their work with her on the biennial World Congress of Families where I am told she kept huge audiences rapt with her soft voice and powerful message.  In a speech she made at the 4th Women International Conference in Beijing (China) in 1995, she argued that, unless we recognize that each individual is valuable by virtue of simply being conceived human, we cannot begin to talk about human rights.

May God give comfort to her husband and children and may He rest her soul in eternal peace.

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A recent Relevant magazine piece entitled “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing it” reveals that young adults ages 18-29 are having pre-marital sex more often than not. According to a 2009 survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 88% of all young adults have had sex before marriage. What should be shocking is that 80% of all self-identified Evangelical young adults have done the same.

Don’t Christians understand the Bible on this issue? According to a Gallup poll quoted by Relevant, 76% of Evangelicals have a clear Biblical understanding on this issue. Or, to reverse the data, 24% of Evangelicals are alright with premarital sex.

Is the data really shocking though? In a world where nothing is sacred, and where what used to be considered sacred is now fodder for ridicule via every form of entertainment and media, why should the sanctity of marriage be considered any different? Young adults have grown up in an “MTV” world, where sexuality is glorified in television shows like “Skins” and where one cannot buy groceries without being confronted by magazine covers taunting chastity.

One professor quoted by Relevant says that a major sociological difference that contributes to (but does not excuse) the growing statistic of pre-marital sex is the average age of marriage. He compares Biblical arranged marriages of early adolescents to the current average ages of 28.1 for men and 26.1 for women. I posit that this temptation is not a modern one: Paul addresses it in 1 Cor. 7:8-9. Instead, it can be argued that adults ages 18-29 have grown up in an “instant gratification” society, where patience is no longer a virtue. This is even understood and glorified by secular society, as exemplified by the Black Eyed Peas song “Now Generation” with lyrics like “I just can’t wait, I need it immediately.”

Merge the two contributing factors of an over-sexualized society, along with a generation craving instant gratification, and it is no surprise that young adults are engaging in pre-marital sex more than ever. What we need is an Evangelical culture that not only volitionally is against pre-marital sex, but practices what is preached. The church needs to restore that which is sacred, encourage young adults to stay pure, and exemplify purity to the secular world. Eighty percent of young Evangelicals is eighty percent too much.

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“The cost for businesses to buy health coverage for workers rose the most this year since 2005 and may reach $32,175 for a family in 2021, according to a survey of private and public employers.”  So reports Bloomberg News.

This is not news any family wants to read.  The last thing our recession-bound country needs are rising health care costs, particularly when we know these costs will be augmented dramatically should the Obama health care plan go into effect.

Buried within the Bloomberg article is a story that is underreported but finally seeping-out into the mainstream press: “Contributing to the rise in premiums are … fewer young and healthy people in the insurance pool.”  This assertion is being made by the respected insurance association president Karen Ignagni, but it is verified by cold data.  The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the following:

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Yesterday NIH Director Francis Collins approved three more human embryonic stem cell lines for taxpayer funding, bringing the total to 135. It’s been about a month since the last approvals, and just over three months since the rush to approve a large number of lines. Two of the three new lines from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center appear to have chromosomal abnormalities, as well as to be from destruction of full siblings.

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Last Friday, September 23^rd, Congressman Chris Smith, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights (Committee on Foreign Affairs) held a hearing on China’s One-Child Policy.  The same day the Washington Times carried an article by Louise Watt (Associate Press) talking about whyChina’s “moneymakers” are interested in leavingChina.  The story contained the amazing statistic of the 20,000 Chinese with at least $15 million in individual assets, 27% have already emigrated and 47% are considering it.  The source of this statistic was a “report by China Merchants Bank and U.S. Consultants Bain & Co. published in April.”  Shouldn’t these people want to stay given their success?

There were a number of reasons given for this lack of enthusiasm for remaining in China.  They included the following:  1) the test-centric Chinese educational system; 2) the desire to live in a place with better health care; and, 3) the objective of preserving their assets and preparing for retirement.  Also of interest to these Chinese was “having more children and making it easier to develop overseas business.”  (emphasis added)

This is fascinating: the communist state cannot even relax the rules suppressing family size to accommodate the business leaders who are making the economy grow.

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The American Interest is running a piece by the distinguished scholar Peter Berger about Christian reflections on the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11.  After citing the various and sometimes guilt-laden responses, Berger says this: “In all these texts there is not one word about the obvious moral reality of the event: That the United States was brutally attacked by an enemy of unmitigated evil, against whom violent force was fully justified. Both the goal of Jihadist terror—the establishment of a tyranny with systemic violation of human rights—and the means to get there—indiscriminate mass murder and torture—are utterly evil in the perspective of Biblical faith. That should be at the center of any Christian reflection about September 11.”

Amen: Whatever the missteps of American policy regarding our response to the slaughter ten years past, nothing should surmount, as a response to it, the reality that the terrorists were killers on a mass scale and that their acts against our country were heinous.  Without qualification, without justification.  Period.

American Christians embarrassed by the occasional reactive response from some of their fellow believers often go much too far in the other direction, engaging in lugubrious self-reflection and near-flagelative anti-Americanism.  I am reminded of something the late Carl Henry wrote years ago: ”Not to oppose a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Mao would be an act of Christian lovelessness.”  The same is true for the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their associates in the fellowship of human evil.

Should we hate them?  No.  Should we defend ourselves from them?  Yes.  The means of this opposition might be open for debate, but if America refuses to thwart those who would destroy it, we demonstrate our unfitness for the independence and liberty our fathers have, at the cost of many of their lives, bestowed to us.  Let us be worthy of them.

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According to the residents of Bay Minette, Alabama, church attendance is an effective way to reduce repeat crime. They are implementing “Operation Restore Our Community,” which provides perpetrators of non-violent misdemeanors the opportunity to replace jail time with a year of attending weekly religious services at a place of worship of the offender’s choosing. So far, 56 area churches have signed up to participate in the program, which requires the criminal to check-in with a pastor and the police department every week to verify attendance.

The ACLU plans to send a letter to Bay Minette demanding that the program be stopped because it violates the “Separation of Church and State” on the grounds that it “forces” church attendance. However, the program simply allows non-violent criminals to choose an alternative to what would have been their only choice previously: time behind bars and a fine. It even allows the offender to choose their specific place of worship. In no way does the justice system force an offender to choose the alternative of church attendance.

However, the new program does provide positive economic benefits for the Bay Minette community. According to an article by local news station WKRG, Bay Minette Police Chief Mike Rowland says that the daily cost of holding a prisoner in jail is 75 dollars. Multiply that amount for a jail sentence, and it becomes quite expensive to dispense justice. On the other hand, if a potential inmate is allowed to integrate into society and hopefully obtain a job, not only will he or she be working towards a successful life path, but he or she will be able to contribute to the local economy, as opposed to being sustained in jail by tax dollars.

Religious affiliation or church attendance does seem to have a positive effect on crime rates. According to studies conducted by scholars at multiple universities, as well as FRC’s own Senior Fellow Dr. Pat Fagan, adolescents attending church services weekly show significantly lower crime rates than their counterparts who worship monthly or not at all. A study focusing on theft shows, “Thirteen percent of students in Grades 7-12 who attend religious services at least weekly admit to having stolen at least $50 worth of goods… By comparison, 19 percent of those who never worship, 14 percent of those who worship one to three times a month, and 18 percent of those who attend religious services less than once a month have committed such thefts.” After a year of attending religious services, it can be hoped that a similar effect would take place among offenders as well.

Based on the combined factors of economic benefit and positive moral reinforcement, “Operation Restore Our Community” should be an interesting example of how a community can join together to help local non-violent offenders get their lives on the right track, and hopefully get their spiritual lives on the right track as well. As Bay Minette Pastor Robert Gates said, “You show me someone who falls in love with Jesus and I’ll show you a person who won’t be a problem to society, but that will be a help and an influence to those around them.”

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Terrorism works because some politicians will eventually accommodate terrorist behavior in the hopes that in so doing a “greater good” will emerge from their moral compromise. Police Officer Lance Eldridge

Compromise is a loaded term. Often, it connotes sleaziness, payoffs, moral cowardice, the breeding ground of cynicism and political corruption. Compromise with terrorists, for example, will lead only to greater acts of terrorism, as Officer Eldridge and many others have noted.

However, appropriate compromise is part of all facets of life. For vacation, you want to go to Civil War battle sites, your wife wants to go to Hawaii . You end up in Orlando . Without such compromise, marriages would fail even more than they already do.

In politics, wedding allegiance to principle with prudent good judgment is a daily struggle. Critical legislation is seldom drafted to anyone’s full satisfaction. That is why principled compromise is so important.

Wisdom, prudence and good judgment, combined with accurate information and a willingness to decide, are all necessary for the making of sound decisions. Political philosopher Bruce Frohnen observes, “Prudence is the necessary tool for the attainment of virtue … (it) is the practical wisdom necessary if one is to judge rightly how to respond to particular circumstances.”

Such principled compromise is a matter of both honor and judgment – of the wisdom and prudence articulated in Scripture, affirmed in the conscience, and demonstrated in daily life. As Jesus said, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds” (Matthew 11:19).

Genuine wisdom is grounded in truth – truth that teaches the sanctity of life, the dignity of marriage, the importance of religious liberty. Thanks for standing with Family Research Council as we apply that truth, with wisdom, in the public square.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. FRC’s Values Voter Summit is coming up soon — it’s a “don’t want to miss” forum of presidential candidates and conservative leaders from across the country. Click here to register.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Educational pioneers,” Tiffany Owens, WORLD Magazine
• “Homeschool Gets Better Report Card Than Public Schools,” R. Leigh Coleman, The Christian Post
• “Homeschooling Magnifies Family Problems (and That’s a Good Thing),” Jennifer Fulwiler, National Catholic Register
• “Homeschool Co-ops Tap Pooled Resources,” Jim Carlton, The Wall Street Journal
• “Entrepreneurial homeschooling co-ops,” Rod Dreher, The American Conservative

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Scientists have reversed the aging process for human adult stem cells. Researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and the Georgia Institute of Technology have shown in laboratory studies that they can turn back the clock on the aging of adult stem cells, which are responsible for maintenance and repair of old and damaged tissues in the body. Adult stem cells are also the gold standard for patient treatments, now being used for dozens of diseases in thousands of patients around the globe.

The modern “stem cell hypothesis of aging” suggests that living organisms are as old as their adult stem cells, which explains the decline in regenerative power of our tissues as we age. Most cells show aging by the shortening of DNA sequences called telomeres, on the ends of chromosomes. As a cell ages, the telomeres get shorter, similar to a fuse burning down. But adult stem cells tend to maintain these fuses, so the researchers hypothesized that these repair stem cells must age by a different mechanism. They found that as we and our adult stem cells age, 65% of the DNA damage in self-renewing adult stem cells occurred within small sections of DNA called “transposable elements” or “retrotransposons”. Co-author King Jordan said:

“Retrotransposons were previously thought to be non-functional and were even labeled as ‘junk DNA’, but accumulating evidence indicates these elements play an important role in genome regulation.”

Young adult stem cells were able to suppress the activity of these genetic elements and deal with DNA damage, but older adult stem cells were less able to suppress them. Senior author Victoria Lunyak said:

“By suppressing the accumulation of toxic transcripts from retrotransposons, we were able to reverse the process of human adult stem cell aging in culture.”

Next steps will include validating the rejuvenation of adult stem cells in lab animals. The study is published in the journal Cell Cycle.

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An Israeli company is conducting a clinical trial using a patient’s own adult stem cells to treat ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease.) The method using adult stem cells was developed by professors at Tel Aviv University. Cells are taken from a patient’s own bone marrow and differentiated in the lab into astrocytes, cells responsible for nurturing neurons in the brain. By releasing neurotrophic factors, which are proteins that can protect brain cells, the former bone marrow adult stem cells can protect and preserve brain cell function.

Prof. Daniel Offen, one of the developers of the technique, says he and his team bypassed the ethical and safety issues inherent in embryonic stem cells by using adult stem cells derived from a patient’s own bone marrow. In addition, he notes that because the original cells are drawn from the patients themselves, the body should have no adverse reactions.

The clinical trial has been started at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, but could be expanding soon to Massachusetts General Hospital in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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Stanford University is reporting that they have injected the fourth patient with embryonic stem cell-derived cells in Geron’s experiment on patients with a specific type of spinal cord injury.

Geron had previously announced the first and second patients, but not the third patient who was apparently injected in the last couple of months in Atlanta. Up to ten patients may be tested in the initial experiments. Patients will be monitored for 15 years because of the significant risk of tumor development. Scientists are still trying to overcome the cancerous potential of embryonic stem cells.

Adult stem cells have already successfully improved dozens of spinal cord injury patients, documented by peer-reviewed publications, and all without concerns for tumors, transplant rejection, or harm or destruction of the stem cell donor.

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Thanks need to go to the Washington Examiner’s editorial page (Monday, 9/19/11) for bringing our attention to a significant report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), examining the “regulatory tsunami” unleashed by the Obama Administration.  Entitled “Broken Government: How the Administrative State has Broken President Obama’s Promise of Regulatory Reform,” the committee report argues that the regulatory burden on the American economy is now so great that “it has stifled productivity, wages, job creation and economic growth” and it “has caused job creators to lock down at a time when we need them to expand.”  The report also argues that federal agencies are “avoiding meaningful scrutiny by employing numerous gimmicks” including: “1) refusing to perform accurate cost-benefit analysis; 2) overturning decades of precedent without justification; 3) entering into sue and settle agreements; 4) enacting policy changes through guidance documents; 5) improperly issuing emergency rulemakings.”

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For years, Christians and other people of conscience have worked to undo the great damage done (53 million unborn lives lost, and countless women deeply scarred) by the 1973 Supreme Court ruling known as Roe v. Wade.

Thus far, we have been unsuccessful in correcting Roe, which is why, after nearly four decades, there are those who say we should evacuate the public square, abandon political activism, support our local pregnancy care centers, and admit legislative and jurisprudential defeat.  Focus on personal and ecclesial acts of charity, they say, but let politics alone.

Such an attitude betrays a weak understanding of the nature of political change.  Such change is almost always incremental, involving two steps forward and one step back, over and over again.  This process is tedious and sometimes discouraging.  It is also necessary and intrinsic to any system of representative self-government.

At some point in the future, a Supreme Court that honors life might end Roe’s legacy of death.  Until then, however, conservatives and champions of life will have continued opportunities to hem-in unrestricted access to abortion on demand.

For example, under President Bush, we were successful in enacting the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, a ban on partial-birth abortion, and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.  We ended U.S. funding for organizations that perform abortions in the developing world and prevented federal funding of embryo-destructive stem cell research.  Mr. Bush appointed a series of pro-life judges to the federal courts and actively fought efforts to clone human beings.  This is only a partial list.

Under President Obama, some of these have been reversed: Our country now funds groups that perform abortion abroad and subsidizes abortion at home.  The President’s most recent Supreme Court nominee was a leading advocate for the legalization of partial-birth abortion. Yet some of the progress under the previous President has not been, nor likely will be, reversed.

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Attorneys for Dr. James Sherley and Dr. Theresa Deisher have filed a Notice of Appeal in the Sherley et al. v. Sebelius et al. case. The appeal asks for the court to reverse the District Court’s ruling and stop federal taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem cell research, which relies on the destruction of human embryos. The U.S. District Court had reluctantly ruled against Dr. Sherley and Dr. Deisher in July. The next steps will be for the U.S. Court of Appeals to schedule submission of legal briefs and oral arguments in the case.

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This is Part 2 of a 2-part blog post based on the transcript of the Proposition 8 trial–the legal challenge to the state constitutional amendment, adopted by California voters in 2008, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Today (Monday, September 19), Broadway will be the scene of a star-studded “staged reading” of a new play–one based on the transcript of the trial in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now known as Perry v. Brown). The unprecedented trial, presided over by the (then closeted, now “out”) homosexual judge Vaughn Walker, resulted in Walker’s opinion in August 2010 declaring that the male-female definition of marriage violates the U. S. Constitution. The ruling is currently on appeal in the Ninth Circuit.

Yet the testimony of one of the actual plaintiffs in the case, Sandra Stier, undermines the argument by same-sex “marriage” advocates that “gay people are denied the fundamental right to marry just because of ‘who they are.’” It also directly contradicts Judge Walker’s “finding of fact” number 51: “Marrying a person of the opposite sex is an unrealistic option for gay and lesbian individuals.” In fact, Stier’s testimony undermines two of the most fundamental premises of the entire homosexual movement–the claims that people are “born gay,” and that a person’s sexual orientation can never change.

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