God Booed By Dems at Convention! Incredible!

The Connecting Link

God Not Welcome at Democrat Convention

by Rev. Austin Miles

Charlotte North Carolina (9/5/12) In what must be a first in American History, the Democratic Convention in Charlotte, N.C. took an ugly turn tonight when Dems booed God!

The dispute began yesterday when it was moved to remove the words, “God-given (potential)” from the Democrat platform language as well as dropping the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This stirred up a new hurricane producing heavy public backlash which embarrassed Democrats to the extent that they voted to change it back to the original language. Tonight, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, presented the re-modification of the language amendment, to put God back in.

Those who voted Yea and those who angrily voted Nay (with boos) seemed tilted toward Nay. Unable to determine the majority, the vote was again presented. Again there were boos from the Nays. A third vote was taken with the same results, but Villaraigosa, obligated to read what the teleprompter flashed, said, “The chair has decided that the original language (God-given) remains.

Loud boos were heard when the name “God” was spoken and the cameras picked up angry objectors reacting. The reference to God and the name, God, was booed by more than half the Democrats in the filled to capacity arena.

The speakers who followed included, Sandra Fluke, the young law student who demands that taxpayers fund her contraceptives so she can have all the casual sex that she craves….and then…if the contraceptives don’t work and the sperm still gets through, then she demands the taxpayers, that’s US, to pay to have the resulting baby killed. As she slammed Romney, calling him and all Republicans bigoted in her grating voice, the Democrats CHEERED.

Next, Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren took the podium to extol the virtues of Obama. She questioned election integrity, stating, “We don’t want the game to be rigged.”

Warren is the woman who lied about having Native American Blood in order to gain financial advantage as a minority student in Rutgers University and to be hired by the Harvard Law School that was under pressure to “diversify”

She then put on her Christian undergarments, telling how she grew up in the Methodist Church. She then managed to use her ‘Christian’ identity to suggest that to vote for Obama is a call…yes, like a religious call to elect The One. She closed by saying God Bless America. The audience CHEERED her every word.

The keynote speaker was Bill Clinton, a very gifted orator and charming who referred to the Republican party as “An alternative Universe.”

Ear-piercing applause rang throughout his 50 minute speech which did have some snake-oil, lubricating some of the ‘facts’ he claimed for Obama and against Romney. That snake oil is on sale until November.

So let’s understand this pageant: God was mentioned and most of the audience booed. Sandra Fluke who sins against God while demanding we pay for her sins is cheered. Senate Hopeful Elizabeth Warren, a fraud and liar who pretends to be a Christian is cheered. Bill Clinton, a kinky adulterer is cheered. And God is booed? Something is wrong with this picture.

EndNote: Did anybody else notice that far more TV stations carried the Democratic Convention than the Republican one? Just asking.

http://blogs.christianpost.com/the-connecting-link/god-booed-at-dems-at-convention-incredible-11782/

 

Calif. Church Erects Billboard in NC Apologizing for Gay Marriage Ban By Anugrah Kumar

A California church led by a gay pastor has sponsored a billboard erected in North Carolina, apologizing to the gay community about that state’s recent constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions.

The billboard, sponsored by Missiongathering Christian Church in San Diego, Calif., and erected on Billy Graham Parkway in Charlotte, N.C., reads: “Missiongathering Christian Church is sorry for the narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, manipulative actions of those who denied rights & equality to so many in the name of God.”

“The statement we are making is big and its bold. It is a message we are passionate about sharing,” the church says on its Facebook page called, “Our Hearts Are With You.”

Alex Roller, Spiritual Formation pastor of Missiongathering Christian Church, was identified as a homosexual in a recent article by examiner.com.

Rich McCullen, senior minister of MissionGathering, told The Huffington Post that the root motivation behind the banner was “to say [that] some Christians don’t speak for ALL Christians, and to tell the LGBT community of North Carolina and their straight allies that there is a community of faith across the country, and many in between, that stand in solidarity in saying that ALL people are created equal in the eyes of God, that there are faith communities that accept and support ALL people, and that this fight is not over.”

The church says the response that has been directed at MissionGathering has been positive, whereas the comments on the Facebook pages and websites

McCullen says his church might consider buying more billboards in other states where a ban on gay marriage is being proposed. “The local and global church should stand up for same-sex equality,” he was quoted as saying. “It’s not a social issue; it is a human issue. We must speak out for those who are oppressed and marginalized, just as Jesus did throughout His life and ministry.”

After the passing of the ban in North Carolina, known as Amendment 1, through a vote on May 8, a photo of the church’s original billboard put up in 2008 in San Diego in response to the passing of a similar ban in California re-surfaced online and went viral, according to the Facebook page. “People from all over the country (and even other countries) saw the photo and contacted us ‘thanking’ us for putting up the billboard. When we started returning people’s emails and phone calls to tell them ‘thanks, but that picture was taken four years ago,’ we began asking the question, what if we did it again?”

The church believes their message is “so important that we are willing to take crazy risks and go to extreme measures to challenge some of the current ‘Christian’ messages that are out there.”

“We understand that one of the risks of putting this message out there like this is that we might alienate our Christian brothers and sisters,” MissionGathering says on the Facebook page. “We might be viewed as being divisive, causing further division in the Body of Christ. However, we feel it is more important that we love the unloved and defend the discriminated. If, in the process, we ruffle the feathers of fellow Christians, perhaps that is an okay price to pay. Perhaps those feathers need a little ruffling.”

Amid the ongoing debate on gay marriage, many Christian leaders have called on the Christian community to reach out to homosexuals with compassion and love but without compromising the biblical stance that homosexuality is a sin.

“There is a saying in the South that ‘we just love people to death,’” said Dan Wilson of Harvest USA in an earlier interview with The Christian Post. “But as Christians, we need to love them to life instead of loving them to death. Most people, including pastors and church leaders, are afraid to talk to some about their sin because they feel guilty about their own lives. We simply need to all agree that we’re all sinners and that the reason Jesus died on the cross is for our sins.”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/calif-church-erects-billboard-in-nc-apologizing-for-gay-marriage-ban-75947/

Tar Trap? Charlotte Convention Could Backfire for Obama by Matt Taylor

Angry unions, ugly scandals, protesters, and the new gay-marriage ban could make for an ugly backdrop, writes Matt Taylor.

When the Obama campaign last year picked Charlotte, N.C., as the host city for the 2012 Democratic National Convention, they hoped to double down on the president’s historic victory four years ago, when his electoral coalition of young, black, and college-educated white voters made him the first Democrat to carry the Tar Heel State since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Joe Sohm / Visions of America-Getty Images

But while polls show Barack Obama and Mitt Romney neck-and-neck in the state, the president’s choice to hold the convention there could come back to haunt him, given the convergence of angry labor unions, an unfortunately named venue, embarrassing local political scandals, Occupy Wall Street protesters, and the voters’ decision this year to pass a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions.

Democrats will be deciding whether or not to add a party plank in line with Obama’s personal declaration in support of gay marriage, which came just days after North Carolinians voted overwhelmingly against it. That vote led more than 30,000 people to quickly sign a petition from a New York–based marriage-equality group to move the convention elsewhere, though timing and logistics alone render that functionally impossible.

The president might be able to contain any bleeding of Southern white support in the wake of his move on gay marriage with aggressive populist rhetoric that makes the Democratic Party’s base fire on all cylinders, said Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, a strategist who has helped Democrats like Edwards and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner hone their cultural appeals to rural Southerners.

“If Obama can strategically place himself as the anti–Wall Street candidate, then that far exceeds the gay question,” said Saunders.

But the economic backdrop is far from ideal for the president looking to sell voters on the Obama recovery. North Carolina’s unemployment rate has persistently been above the national average, at 9.4 percent last month, and Charlotte is the world headquarters of Bank of America, a bailed-out megabank so closely associated with the financial collapse of 2008 that Occupy Wall Street has devoted a campaign specifically to breaking it up. Protesters will be on the streets of Charlotte taking aim at the bank even as President Obama delivers his acceptance speech—at Bank of America Stadium. And labor unions are fuming that the convention is being held in a so-called right-to-work state (where union membership or dues cannot be required for employment).

“It was always a bit of a risky choice to target North Carolina just by the way of electoral history,” said John Dinan, a political scientist at Wake Forest University and an expert on local politics. “North Carolina is a Republican-leaning state that [Obama] won by 14,000 votes in 2008, a really, really good year for Democrats.”

Since then the Tea Party has upended American politics, remaking state legislatures and Congress, and pitting Republican governors against labor unions. Labor, which remains the bedrock organizing arm of the Democratic Party, is miffed that national Democrats chose to meet in the state with the smallest proportion of union members—just 2.9 percent of the workforce last year—to make their case for a strengthening the middle class and broadening economic prosperity. Some locals are planning to skip or even protest the convention, and labor has pointedly declined to contribute its expected share of the convention’s costs, which will be upwards of $36 million this year.

“There’s no doubt that the Democratic Party in North Carolina has been having bad optics, bad overall news, for the last few months,” said Dinan.

And that run of bad news for Democrats seems likely to continue through September. After the state seemed to shift toward the party with Obama’s historic win in 2008, Republicans just two years later took control of the state legislature for the first time since the 19thcentury, and the first-term Democratic governor, Bev Perdue, is retiring in the face of polls showing she would have no chance at winning reelection.

“There’s no doubt that the Democratic Party in North Carolina has been having bad optics, bad overall news, for the last few months.”

Compounding the Democrats’ branding troubles in the Tar Heel State are two sex scandals involving former party political stars—the trial of former senator John Edwards, John F. Kerry’s vice presidential running mate in 2004 and the most outspoken populist in the 2008 presidential primary, and the ongoing investigation of the state party chair, David Parker, for bungling his own inquiry into whether his executive director sexually harassed an employee. After briefly resigning, Parker has returned to his office and is fighting to keep it. He may well still be there and fighting when the convention arrives.

“When North Carolina was picked, it was an excellent choice,” said election expert Larry J. Sabato of the University of Virginia. “As it has happened, North Carolina is going to be less competitive. [Democrats are] less inclined to admit the state is already gone, but it probably is, unless there’s a big Obama resurgence in the fall. They’ve got a very high unemployment rate.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story said Lyndon Johnson in 1964 was the last Democrat to have won North Carolina in a presidential election.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/23/tar-trap-charlotte-convention-could-backfire-for-obama.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_afternoon&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_afternoon&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

Bank of America Representative Opposes Pro-Family Legislation in North Carolina

On May 8, North Carolinians will vote on Amendment One:  an act which amends “the constitution [of North Carolina] to provide that marriage between a man and woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in [the] state.” President Barack Obama has spoken out against Amendment One, the ACLU is lobbying against Amendment One, and the California Democratic Party has registered its disdain over the possibility that Amendment One might pass.

And while none of this is particularly ground-breaking news—it’s not uncommon to see President Obama, the ACLU, and the Democratic Party align against something that protects marriage—people may be surprised to know that representatives from Bank of America are also doing their part to try to make sure Amendment One doesn’t pass.

For example, Catherine Bessant, global technology and operations executive at the Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, has appeared in a video opposing Amendment One and is on record saying, “Amendment One has the potential to have a disastrous effect on our ability to attract talent and keep talent in the state of North Carolina.”

Of course, the claim that the marriage amendment is going to hurt business is just a smokescreen unless it’s spoken out of ignorance. Which is true for Bessant is not known.  But North Carolina Rep. Paul Stam has made it clear that the amendment was framed in a way that doesn’t prevent private employers from offering civil-union benefits to an employee’s same-sex partner: “We added that language specifically to allay unfounded assertions that this was going to hurt businesses. They can give any kind of benefit they want. Where’s the beef?”

Nevertheless, the sad thing is that in reaction to an amendment that’s pro-family—and North Carolina’s Amendment One is pro-family—there are actually individuals who put financial interests first. (It’s all somewhat reminiscent of when many people—including some evangelical Christians—voted for Bill Clinton and justified doing so by seizing on the mantra,   “It’s the economy stupid.”)

But this time around, it’s not the economy that’s involved here, despite what some are claiming. Amendment One has been fashioned in such a way so as to guarantee that it isn’t. And this makes Bessant’s words all the more inaccurate.

Bank of America spokesperson Nicole Nastacie said that, while Bank of America won’t take an official position on Amendment One, “employees are allowed and encouraged to be involved in their personal capacity in dialogue and debate on important public issues.”

Let’s hope the bank sticks to its laudable policy if another executive stands up to in support of marriage and Amendment One.

Tags:                 Gay Marriage            ,                                    Marriage            ,                                    Family Values            ,                                    ACLU            ,                                    North Carolina            ,                                    Barack Obama

Brian Raum

Brian Raum serves as senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund.
TOWNHALL DAILY: Sign up today and receive Townhall columns and Townhall.com’s daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.

http://townhall.com/columnists/brianraum/2012/03/29/bank_of_america_representative_opposes_profamily_legislation_in_north_carolina/page/full/