THIS INFORMATION DESERVES YOUR ATTENTION AND ACTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE  !

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), added the “Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” (which is better known to conservatives as the “Pedophile Protection Act,”) to his short-term legislative list Monday, by saying he was “committed” to a Senate vote on hate crimes legislation before the August recess.  The pro-homosexual newspaper Washington Blade reported the vote could happen as early as this week, but staffers at  Senator Kennedy’s office denied that claim, giving us a few more days to act.

The pro-homosexual, anti-faith bill, sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and pushed hard by the Obama Administration, was until recently labeled S. 909 “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act.” But it faced such strong resistance by conservatives (including threat of filibuster or faith-protecting amendments by pro-faith Senator Jim DeMint, R-SC), so instead Democrats have announced they will soon hide the bill as an amendment to another “must-move” bill, denying committee hearings, and completely side-stepping the Republicans right to debate and amend.

547 SEXUAL DEVIANCES TO BE PROTECTED BY FEDERAL MARSHALS

The forthcoming “poison pill” amendment will mirror a House bill H.R. 1913, already passed 249-175 along strict party lines, which makes “sexual orientation,” “gender,” and “gender identity” into federally-protected classes under the law, and codifies federal protection of up to 547 types of sexually deviant behaviors, including:

* Incest – sex with one’s offspring (a crime, of course)
* Necrophilia – sexual relations with a corpse, also a crime
* Pedophilia – sex with an underage child, another crime
* Zoophilia – a crime in numerous states
* Voyeurism – a criminal offense in most states
* Fronteurism – a man rubbing against an unknown woman’s buttocks
* Coprophilia – sexual arousal from feces
* Urophilia – sexual arousal from urine

Attempts by House Republicans to add amendments stating “pedophilia is not protected as a sexual orientation” were specifically blocked and defeated by House Democrats. Lesbian Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) expressed opposition to excluding pedophiles from the bill, and Democrats voted with her to strike any child-protection amendment. She claimed that pedophiles would not be defined within “sexual orientation,” but wouldn’t put that in writing, and refused to define that phrase “sexual orientation,” which according to the American Psychiatric Association includes all 547 sexual deviances listed in their DSM-III manual of clinical psychoses, including pedophilia, so now thanks to most Democrats, child molesters will be protected by federal law.

QUOTING THE BIBLE IN CHURCH WILL BE PUNISHED

Not only will sexually deviant behaviors gain legal protection, this legislation also lays the legal foundation to investigate, prosecute and persecute pastors, youth pastors, Bible teachers, and anyone else whose speech and thought is based upon and reflects the truths found in the Bible. How will this legislation over-rule the First Amendment?

PASTORS NOT PROTECTED BY FIRST AMENDMENT

S. 909 broadly defines “intimidation,” thus a pastor’s sermon could be viewed as “hate speech” if heard by an individual who then acts aggressively against persons based on any “sexual orientation.”

The pastor could be prosecuted for “conspiracy to commit a hate crime” or for “inciting violence against gays” simply by quoting the Bible in church. And the First Amendment won’t automatically protect pastors, since speech accused of “inciting violence” is not protected, and is punishable, under precedent of Supreme Court rulings.

In 1993 Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a “hate speech” law providing enhanced punishments for violent crimes based on racial motives as revealed by speech of the accused, (which would now apply broadly to punish any “anti-gay motives” in the speech of accused pastor “co-conspirators.”)  But pastor, if a crazy person in your audience commits a crime against a heterosexual, don’t worry, you’ll get a comparative discount in your prison time.

IS PRAYER IN JESUS’ NAME A “HATE CRIME?”

Any public prayer against the sin of homosexuality could be construed as “inciting violence” by easily offended listeners, especially if those prayers are offered “in Jesus name.”  When I served our country as a former Navy Chaplain, for example, I was told in writing by Chief of Chaplains Rear-Admiral Louis Iasiello, that “any chaplain’s continued insistence on ending public prayers ‘in Jesus’ name’…could reasonably tend to denigrate those with different forms of faith.” His policy prohibiting prayers “in Jesus name” was enforced against me at court-martial, before it was later rescinded by Congress in 2006. But this year I’ve already been falsely accused of “inciting violence” because I quoted verbatim from Psalm 109 in my public prayers, (for which secular activist Mikey Weinstein literally requested an FBI investigation against me!) Just imagine more anti-Christian aggression by law enforcement officials AFTER this hate-crimes bill becomes law.

IS PREACHING AGAINST SIN A HATE CRIME?

As a former Navy Chaplain who was punished (in writing, three times) for quoting the Bible in chapel during optionally-attended worship, I know exactly how they’ll come after us. The enemies of religious liberty will simply declare certain gospel phrases “hateful” and “offensive” like my commanding officer who punished me for quoting John 3:36 in chapel, and was supported by government lawyers for “protecting” easily offended listeners from the “offensive” gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) agrees with me, saying pastors, rabbis, or imams could be charged with encouraging or inducing a “hate crime” if they preach against homosexuality.  “Every preacher of the gospel, unless you cut out parts of it; every imam who mentions anything with regard to sexual immorality – they could be pursued, and in other countries they have been,” says Gohmert.  (Congressmen Gohmert is my personal advocate, with whom I preached last year at a pro-faith rally in Texas…and we both agree the gospel of freedom from sin really is “love speech” not “hate speech.”)

FREE SPEECH SUPPRESSED IN NORWAY: Hate crimes laws protecting homosexuals from criticism are already silencing pastors in Norway, where these dangerous laws specifically empower law enforcement officials to prosecute “intimidation” of homosexuals. For example, Congressman Gohmert warned “I was talking to a guy from Norway who was telling me that people are even afraid to say Mary was a virgin, because just bringing up sexuality at all can raise problems with law enforcement.”

FREE SPEECH CRIMINALIZED IN SWEDEN: In Sweden, Pastor Ake Green received a one-month jail sentence last year under a Swedish “hate crimes” law that forbids criticism of those who participate in homosexual behavior. The Goeta Appeals Court later overturned the decision.  The government demanded the pastor be punished by appealing the case to the Swedish Supreme Court, which ruled the law unconstitutional.  Yet here in America, the Reid-Kennedy-Obama trio is pushing to pass and enforce this same type of “anti-free speech” law, despite their acknowledgment that any such enforcement would be unconstitutional in America too. (They why pass the bill in the first place?)

FREE SPEECH CRIMINALIZED IN CANADA: In Canada, where “hate crimes” laws already passed, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal actively forbid evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson from expressing his moral opposition to homosexuality. The tribunal also ordered Boisson to pay $5,000 “damages for pain and suffering” and apologize to the “human rights” activist who filed the complaint. His crime? In 2002, the pastor wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper in which he denounced the homosexual agenda as “wicked” and stated that: “Children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.”  The Canadian government tribunal ordered the Christian pastor to “cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.” (This “re-education commission” reminds me of Big Brother from Orwell’s 1984.)

FREE SPEECH CRIMINALIZED IN PENNSYLVANIA: Can’t happen in America?  It already has.  In 2004 my friend Michael Marcavage was arrested along with ten other Christians (including two elderly grandmothers), and charged with violating Pennsylvania’s “hate crimes” laws, because they carried signs conveying God’s love at a Gay Pride rally. One member of “The Philadelphia Eleven,” Arlene Elshinnawy, 75 year-old grandmother of three, was holding a sign: “Truth is hate to those who hate the truth,” before she was hauled off to jail by police officers. They were literally threatened with 50 years in jail for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ on a public sidewalk, because it offended gays. That hate crimes law was so outrageous it was later found unconstitutional by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but now Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama want to pass essentially that same discredited law nationwide.

WE CAN STILL DE-RAIL THIS TRAIN

But together, we can still stop them. We’ve identified 16 Democrats below, who are NOT YET committed as co-sponsors of S. 909, so please call them today, asking to OPPOSE AND FILIBUSTER any amendment to any bill that resembles S. 909. Sadly two Republicans (Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, R-ME) have joined 43 Democrats by co-sponsoring this pro-homosexual bill, so call them too, and ask them to switch.

But remember, 100 emails = 10 phone calls = 1 fax in political capital, since the Senate staffers must handle each paper and usually write a reply. So you can join our automated fax-petition campaign first, and WE WILL FAX THE 18 KEY UNDECIDED SENATORS LIST ABOVE with your personalized petition.  This does cost a bit but it will save you time or you can make the contacts yourself.

Thank you for reading our lengthy analysis. If you’ve read this far, we must agree, so now please forward this email widely to other pro-faith friends, and to pastors in all 50 states.

Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt

(For media interviews, or to invite “Chaps” to speak to your crowd, click here.)

P.S. Time is urgent! The full Senate could vote any day to pass S. 909 as an amendment to any other “must-move” bill.  Select and sign today, & we will forward your name immediately. Please don’t wait another minute. Life, Liberty, and Jesus are too important to be banned by Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, and Barack Obama.

Disclaimer: The views of Chaplain Klingenschmitt, who was honorably but involuntarily discharged from the Navy in 2007 after facing court-martial for praying “in Jesus name” in uniform, (but was later vindicated by Congress), are his own personal views, not the views of any political party, government, or organization.

Quotes from President Barack Hussein Obama at the Cairo University on Thursday, June 04, 2009.

“Throughout history Islam has demonstrated tolerance and racial equality.”

“My father came from a Muslim family; I know civilization’s debt to Islam.”

“America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.”

“America is not and will not be at war with Islam.”

“9/11 had led some in my country to view Muslims with fear and as being anti-human rights.”

“Changes brought about by globalism made many Muslims view the West as hostile.”

None of these are accurate … in fact they are consider lies by most Americans and not representative at all to them.

Please tell me about Islam’s demonstration of tolerance and racial equality … you can’t … history shows there is none.

What debt does civilization owe to Islam … convert or death to the infidel? … civilization owes Islam nothing.

America is exclusive and what on earth and why would they want to compete with Islam?

9-11 had nothing to do with Muslim human rights but everything to do with a terrorist war against the West on American soil … indeed taking away American human rights. Islam’s human rights records are atrocious.

Globalism is not what made Muslims view the West as hostile … the Koran and Islamic teachings did!

How anyone can actually make these statements in an Islamic country is ridiculous!

First he declared that America isn’t “a Christian nation.” Now President Obama is telling the world that his country is a Muslim one. In a stunning interview with France’s Canal Plus, he said, “If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” The statement, one in a long line of White House shockers, is part of the administration’s campaign to soften the opposition to America in advance of the President’s speech to the Islamic world tomorrow. As ABC’s Jake Tapper puts it, President Obama is getting in touch with his “inner-Muslim,” even embracing “Hussein,” his once-taboo middle name.

Wednesday, the President is hoping his silky oratory will translate well in Cairo, where he will try to charm the Arab nations with his Muslim roots. While the White House may talk a good game, this President’s agenda is the embodiment of every immorality the Islamic world detests about the West. In five months, his policies have endorsed global promiscuity, sodomy, and abortion. Just last Friday, his Baghdad embassy presided over the region’s first “drag party” in the middle of a war zone. Like a growing number of Americans, the Middle East sees the tension between the President’s rhetoric and the global reality. This kind of duplicity only fans the flames of anti-American sentiment.

While the President speaks of peace and reconciliation on the Arab stage, American soldiers are being gunned down in the U.S. by Muslim converts. On Monday, a 24-year-old Army recruiter was killed and another wounded by Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammed in Arkansas. The suspect admitted to the killing, blaming “what [the Army] had done to Muslims in the past.”

As Gary Bauer pointed out in his End of Day, “President Obama, who immediately condemned the murder of abortionist George Tiller on Sunday, still has not – 24 hours later – said one word about the cowardly attack on these soldiers. The U.S. Justice Department, which sent federal marshals yesterday to guard abortion clinics, has sent no one to guard our military recruitment offices, even though more than 100 of those offices have been attacked in recent years … I guess he was just too busy pouring over his … proclamation declaring June ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.'”

The government limits Christianity in prisons but by all means let Islam do what it wants !

Last week, the FBI arrested four members of a would-be terrorist cell in New York.  While the arrests eliminated the immediate threat from this particular group, it highlighted a much bigger threat: the spawning of terrorism in American prisons.

The four men, allegedly angered by the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan, had planned to bomb several synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down a military plane using a Stinger missile.  Thankfully the plastic explosives and the Stinger missile they planned on using were fake because the FBI, acting on a tip from another member of their mosque had penetrated the cell and sold them fake goods and foiled the plot.

Maybe these terrorists were not in the know weapon-wise but their rage was well-developed.  Their leader considered Jews “the source of all problems in America.”  They “wanted to make a statement” by targeting synagogues and destroying military aircraft.

What is more frightening than their rage is the fact that there are potentially a lot more of them where they came from … our prisons.  At least two of the terror suspects converted to radical Islam while in prison, while the other two were also the product of what is called “jailhouse Islam.”

An NYPD report, entitled Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, concludes that in-prison conversions to Islam “fuel anger towards the United States.”  Part of the reason is that the men doing the converting are often angry and resentful and looking for someone to blame for their predicament so they pass that anger on.  Most of it though has to do with the kind of Islam being preached in American prisons since in many American prisons, prisoners learn about Islam from other prisoners.  These prisoners, in turn, rely on reading material targeted at prisoners and their resentments as the book called The Noble Koran does.

This version of the Koran, distributed by a Wahhabi group, included “numerous interpolations” not present in the original Arabic.  It includes a 22-page appendix entitled “A Call to Jihad” urging “war against non-Muslims who have not submitted to Islamic rule.”  Other literature from the same group told prisoners that non-Islamic government “must be sincerely hated and despised for the pleasure of Allah.”

While some prison systems have banned this group’s literature, others haven’t.  The effect of this literature on angry and, in many cases, unstable men isn’t hard to imagine … as the events in New York remind us, we don’t have to imagine it.

What’s the answer?  For starters, officials should crack down on the purveyors of radical Islam in our prisons.  That kind of literature and the message it spreads have no business in our prisons.  They should focus on the problem … Islam … not religion in general because that would kick out Christianity – the only thing that can really help the prisoners because it brings the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ into prisons across America.

The fact of the matter is that prisoners are looking for solutions to their problems.  And they will find one in drugs, or gangs, or even in hate-filled jihadism and Stinger missiles.  They need to be offered the only solution that will work … forgiveness of their sins, and transformation through Jesus Christ.

It is March 31 and has the brutal winter finally come to an end in the Great Plains? With temperatures across North Dakota 5 to 10 degrees below normal all winter long. Massive snowfalls blanketing the Peace Garden State for months. Now, North Dakota is enduring an end-of-March blizzard. The people of Fargo are paying the price as the ice-jammed Red River is cresting more than 40 feet over normal flooding conditions.

So, I ask you, what is the cause of all the cold, the snow, and the ice? Global warming, of course!

According to Kate White, a civil engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “climate change caused by global warming likely is changing ice conditions and adding to the unpredictability” of ice jams along the Red River, so she said.

What? Let me see if I get this. A “near-record snowpack,” along with below-normal temperatures, has led to more ice, which is acting unpredictably because of global warming?

What am I not getting here? I’ll tell you what I am getting – more proof that apocalyptic visions of global warming are driven by a particular worldview. Forget the facts … the politicians and warming-mongers are! Obama has bought into it. This is what he had to say: “I actually think the science around climate change is real. . . . If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota . . . that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.”

What part of record snow is the result of global warming?

Folks, what we have to take seriously here is the fact that our worldview determines how we see the world and how we live in the world. And we better have it correct. Despite the fact that the globe has been cooling since at least 2002, or that near-record cold and snow have plagued much of North America all year long, all the proponents of global warming can see is – well, global warming.

This is why its adherents in Congress and in the White House want curbs on greenhouse gases, potentially ruinous cap-and-trade policies, and curbs on oil exploration (at a time when we need to decrease our dependence on foreign oil). And if in the near future you start paying upwards of $5 a pound for ground beef, thank those in Congress who want to tax cow flatulence as a way to combat global warming.

As the New York Times relates, renowned physicist Freeman Dyson has called “climate change an ‘obsession’ – the primary article of faith for ‘a worldwide secular religion’ known as environmentalism.” Dyson accuses the adherents of this religion of “relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee … imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and storms and plagues sweep the earth.”

But the models aren’t holding true. This is why the global warming scientists need to examine their worldview … as do those who are being sucked into the hubbub … then they need to step out of the computer lab and take a walk. But they’d better bundle up first.

This doesn’t mean we don’t take care of the earth in a balanced way … but don’t worship it! … it really isn’t your mother.

Tomorrow will be April 1 … a good day for the global warming crowd.

Christianity has become taboo in American schools. “God” has become the new four-letter word in most public schools in the United States. This has come to pass due to an elite segment of society that views God as irrelevant that has come to predominate.

What has happened is that these elitists – the people who seem to be manipulating American society, from the public education system to certain governmental institutions and figures – have basically decided that God is irrelevant to public discussion.

In doing this they ignore 120 million-plus people in America who take their faith seriously, who practice it, and who pay taxes to support institutions like the public schools. What that does is deny these people their religious rights and their free-speech rights.

The issue is not separation of church and state – an argument frequently cited by those who assume the secular viewpoint. The issue in such instances is the religious believer versus the secular state. It is a denial of everything this country stands for in terms of the freedoms of speech, religion, and a respect for moral tradition.

What exists now in America is akin to the old Soviet Union and China, where it is religious believers being persecuted by the state.

So Al Gore braved the winter storm and the world’s sense of irony to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on global warming. As usual, Mr. Gore’s testimony was riddled with scientifically questionable claims and hyperbole passed off as indisputable facts: “This would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on earth … And this is within the century, if we don’t change.” As usual, Mr. Gore’s claim of a scientific consensus that, “The scientists are practically screaming from the rooftops” went unchallenged despite more and more scientists coming out as skeptics. And as usual, Mr. Gore’s standing to profit from alternative fuel technology subsidies, as he hoped to include in the stimulus, went ignored by the media and committee alike. As usual, the dissenters did their best to point out Gore’s inconsistencies. As usual, they were ignored by the media.

However, something very unusual is happening despite business-as-usual on The Hill. The American people are starting to catch on to these inconsistencies. According to new polls, those who believe this “global warming” push to be a natural phenomenon of long-term planetary trends or cycles, instead of being created by man has increased almost 10% in just a matter of months.

An interesting article came out today from the usually reliably left-leaning Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. Within it, Mr. Milbank mercilessly mocks the former Vice President, repeatedly referring to him as the “Goracle” and mocking members of the committee for fawning at his feet.

Could Al Gore be wearing out his welcome not just with the American public, but even with his once staunchest allies?

One can only hope.

Al Jazeera Signs Deal To Air Throughout U.S.

The Al Jazeera Network plans to announce on January 22 that it has signed a deal to run its news on Worldfocus, a syndicated nightly news program produced in New York and distributed throughout the United States.  The deal would help the international news network, one of the top services in the Arabic-speaking world, broaden its reach in the United States, where it so far has been available to only a limited audience.

WHY ON EARTH WOULD WE WANT THE ARABIC-SPEAKING WORLD TO HAVE ITS REACH BROADENED ANYWHERE … BUT ESPECIALLY IN THE UNITED STATES?

Worldfocus, hosted by former NBC News correspondent Martin Savidge, is produced by New York City public broadcaster WLIW and syndicated to a number of Public Broadcasting Service affiliates (supported with taxpayer’s dollars), as well as other stations in 60 U.S. markets, including 27 of the top 30.  Al Jazeera declined to disclose terms of the deal.

The service’s Arabic-language network is available in the United States through the DISH Network Corp.  It has been trying to increase the distribution of its English- language network through cable television, but so far is available only in Washington, D.C., Toledo, Ohio and Burlington, Vermont.

One of its English-language programs, “Witness,” reaches viewers through the LINK TV network, which is distributed by DISH Network and others.

Al Jazeera also is expanding its presence on the Internet, with a YouTube channel, a Twitter feed on the Gaza war and a free broadcast at an online service called Livestation.

The network, whose English broadcasts appear all over the world through deals with companies such as Singapore’s SingTel and Hong Kong’s PCCW, has started running ads in papers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, advertising its Web presence with the slogan, “Find out what you’re missing.”

EXACTLY JUST WHAT ARE WE MISSING? … TERRORISM INDOCTRINATION SO WE FEEL SORRY FOR TERRORISTS WHO KILL PEOPLE?  DO WE REALLY WANT THIS TYPE OF PRESENCE?

Al Jazeera has increased its marketing campaign, particularly during Israel’s air-and-ground offensive into Gaza that began about three weeks ago.  It also plans to begin running ads in several weeks that a spokesman said will address misconceptions about the network in the United States. The U.S. government criticized the network for irresponsible and biased news reporting when the United States launched the 2003 war in Iraq.

WHAT MISCONCEPTIONS?  DO YOU REALLY THINK THEY WILL BE RESPONSIBLE? … THINK AGAIN!

WAIT!  DIDN’T HITLER BRAINWASH PEOPLE?

THE GAZA NAZIS
By Cal Thomas

Hamas, a group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, are the Nazis of modern times.  Israel is right to pound military targets inside Gaza, but much of the violence Israel brought on itself by giving up land it had to know would be used to reign down death on its civilians.  That is always the pattern.

Why is anyone surprised that after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the vacuum created was quickly filled by Hamas, whose sole purpose is the destruction of the “Zionist entity,” as it likes to call Israel, and the killing of as many Jews as possible?  The fiction, which is greater than a belief in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, is that Israel, or the United States, or anyone else, can do anything that will deter Hamas from its objective.  What did anyone expect when Israel pulled out of Gaza?  The establishment of a Disney theme park, perhaps?

Jews are vermin and less than human, Hamas says.  Oh, wait.  Wasn’t the same said of the Jews by the Nazis?  The only difference is that today’s killers don’t speak German.

The Year 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of Israel’s re-establishment in its ancient homeland.  It also marked the 60th anniversary of the first violent response to the formation of the State of Israel.  The violence hasn’t stopped despite the efforts of diplomats and politicians.

The incoming Obama administration has announced it will make a Middle East peace agreement a high priority.  It might as well announce plans to defy gravity.  Peace can only come once Israel’s enemies are defeated. No “infidel” diplomat is going to stop Palestinian schools from teaching a new generation of children to hate the Jews and to regard all of Israel as occupied Arab land.

Hamas and its terrorist cousins know how to play the public relations game.  Most recently we saw it in Lebanon with Hezbollah, as we have seen it in so many other places.  The terrorists operate within civilian areas so that when Israel strikes and unintentionally kills civilians, the bodies are paraded before Western media.  In some cases, in order to embellish the drama, bodies have been planted in rubble, along with a child’s toy.

Most of the big media don’t focus on the occasional rocket attacks inside Israel; only on Israel’s attempts to stop them.  So much of Western thinking continues along the delusional line that only “adjustments” by Israel have a chance of bringing peace by diminishing the passions of her enemies.  If that were so, given all of Israel’s concessions, shouldn’t those passions have diminished by now and serious negotiations begun?

Instead, the more Israel concedes, the more violence it gets.  At some point you would think people would say, “this isn’t working” and try another approach, such as striking back in a manner that would not simply stop the present threat, but persuade Hamas and the others that there is no benefit in their continued aggression.

Iran is behind Hamas, supplying it with rockets, some of which are made in Russia, and with other weapons.  The goal of the Obama administration ought not to be “peace,” per se.  Peace is like happiness: a byproduct of something else.  Israel’s goal should be peace through strength.  The U.S. should commit to building up Israel, militarily and diplomatically, as a deterrent to Israel’s enemies, many of whom also hate and wish to destroy America.

Israel already has given up too much.  Every concession has been met with more war.  It is time to finish the job.  No more delays; no more cease-fires or truces, which merely allow Hamas now (and Hezbollah before) to dig new tunnels and smuggle in reinforcements and more weapons with which they kill more Israeli civilians.

Total victory or death should be Israel’s slogan and goal.  It is the slogan and goal of Israel’s enemies.  Is there an Arabic equivalent of “Seig (SIEG) Heil”?

Those who have embraced the culture of death had much to celebrate during 2008. Culture of death is referring to those movements which would advance euthanasia, assisted suicide, abortion, fetal experimentation, and even population control. These movements unlike the people they affect are ironically alive and well.

Let’s take a quick look at the year gone by for a recap and you will see.

In the U.S. voters in Washington state approved the grotesquely named “Death with Dignity Act,” which now allows physicians to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to their terminally ill patients. Washington has joined Oregon as the only states that have legalized assisted suicide for now.

Of course there was other significant news in the other Washington, Washington, DC, where the new administration began to set up shop in the White House – an administration that promised during the campaign to enact the “Freedom of Choice Act,” or FOCA. FOCA in essence will eliminate most restrictions on abortion. Parental notification, informed consent, conscientious objection on behalf of healthcare providers, restrictions on late-term abortions (including partial birth), will soon be things of the past. The Catholic Bishops describe FOCA as “the most radical and extreme abortion legislation ever considered in the United States.”

Of course, the new administration will do all that it can to promote the use of human embryos for stem cell research.

On the other side of the pond, legislators in the small nation of Luxembourg decided that the “right to death” was so important, that they stripped Grand Duke Henri of his constitutional right to veto legislation. Why? Because he dared to oppose a new euthanasia law. Well, I guess that’s better than what Europeans used to do when they didn’t like their monarch.

But it’s not enough that individuals can now legally find ways to kill themselves. No, now people can share their final moments with millions of onlookers. Britain’s Sky Network aired a documentary that showed the final minutes of the life of Craig Ewert, an American who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Ewert paid the Swiss assisted suicide group Dignitas 3,000 pounds (4,358.80 USD) to help him die. He had to travel to the little Alpine nation because Switzerland is the only country that opens the jaws of death arms to foreigners who want to kill themselves.

And then there’s the horrible case of the 19-year-old Florida man who committed suicide while some 1,500 viewers watched online. The video spread all over the Web like wildfire. This is the new entertainment to a desensitized world? What have we become?

As we embark on 2009, the Church must renew its commitment to protecting the life and true dignity of every human … from natural conception until natural death.

But despite the euphemisms of euthanasia law and suicide organizations, true human dignity is not found in death … except when you sacrifice your life for another for their protection or safety. Human dignity is found in life! And in Him who is the Author of all life.