'The Olympics has destroyed womanhood': Columnist provokes storm of criticism after attack on 'chestless, manlike' competitors

• The piece - called Womanhood is dying at the Olympics' - was written by Yuksel Aytug
• He said the Games was distorting women's bodies and that extra points should be given to female athletes based on how feminine they looked

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 11:45 EST, 8 August 2012 | UPDATED: 02:16 EST, 9 August 2012

A Turkish newspaper columnist has been heavily criticised after writing an article which said the Olympic Games is destroying the female figure.

The piece - called Womanhood is dying at the Olympics' - was written by Yuksel Aytug and was published in the daily newspaper Sabah and on the paper's website.

However, it soon spread around the world by saying the Games was distorting women's bodies and that extra points should be given to female athletes based on how feminine they looked.

Under attack: Female Olympians - such as swimmer Rebecca Adlington (left) and Jessica Ennis (right) have been criticised for having masculine bodies by Yuksel Aytug

Disgrace: Team GB's Zoe Smith, 18, has been the subject of vile internet abuse, with anonymous Twitter trolls telling her she looks like a 'lesbian' and a 'bloke'

According to Hurriyet Daily News, he said: 'Broad-shouldered, flat-chested women with small hips; [they are] totally indistinguishable from men.

'Their breasts – the symbol of womanhood, motherhood – flattened into stubs as they were seen as mere hindrances to speed.

 

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'I am not even talking about female javelin throwers, shot-put athletes, weightlifters, wrestlers and boxers.' 

He added that the appearance of many female Olympians was 'pathetic'.

Following the publication of the article, Mr Aytug was strongly criticised by people on Twitter and his own female colleagues.

He was accused of sexism and reducing the identity of women purely to appearance.

Feminine: Yuksel Aytug has clearly not seen much of the beach volleyball competition. Team GB's Zara Dampney and Shauna Mullin are pictured

His name was trending worldwide on Twitter for a number of hours, with people outraged by his comments.

In his column, he also said the Olympic Games forced woman to look more like men so they could become successful.  

One Turkish columnist, Banu Tuna, sarcastically asked Aytuğ if he thought the term 'woman' meant just a collection of legs, hips and breasts.

She also suggested that he watch lingerie fashion shows instead of the Olympic Games.

Team GB's Zoe Smith, 18,  faced abuse about her appearance before the Games began.

She was the subject of vile internet abuse after appearing on a documentary earlier this year, with anonymous Twitter trolls telling her she looks like a 'lesbian' and a 'bloke'.

The 18-year-old Londoner smashed a British record by lifting twice her body weight during the 58kg Weightlifting event at London 2012.

And she took the opportunity to slam the online bullies that have tried to sour her Olympic campaign. 

She wrote: ‘Most of the people that do think like this seem to be chauvinistic, pig-headed blokes who feel emasculated by the fact that we are stronger than them. Simple as that.’

She added that it was particularly ‘sad’ to see abuse from girls who labelled her ‘weird’ for her muscular physique.

‘You’d think that young women around the same age as us would commend us,’ she added.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185510/Newspaper-columnist-provokes-worldwide-outrage-saying-Olympic-Games-destroying-female-figure.html#ixzz233oj3zvm

Why Muslims Must Hate Jews

Return to the Article

August 3, 2012

By Nonie Darwish 

Recently, a Pakistani religious leader, Pirzada Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai, said: "When the Jews are wiped out ... the sun of peace [will] begin to rise on the entire world."  The same preaching is routinely done not only by clerics, but by politicians -- in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and elsewhere.  This is not just Ahmedinijad; it is at the heart of Islamic theology that world peace will be established only when all the Jews are wiped from the earth.  But few people in Western media are alarmed by this kind of rhetoric or care to expose this dreadful dark side of Islam's obsession with Jew-hatred.
I do not believe that one has to be an authority on human behavior or group thinking to find out the obvious pathology in Islamic Jew-hatred.  It is time for all of us to uncover and expose this atrocity against the Jewish people.  We owe that to humanity and the truth.
No true Muslim can see that such hatred is unbecoming and unholy for a world religion to focus on and that the credibility of Islam is tarnished by such hatred.  No Muslim is allowed to go far enough to self-analyze or ask why such hatred.  Muslims defend Jew-hatred by claiming that Jews betrayed Muhammad and thus deserve of this kind of treatment.  Even when I was a Muslim, I believed that the one-sided story against Jews by Islam was enough to justify all the killing, terror, lies, and propaganda by Islamic leaders against Jews.  To the average Muslim, routinely cursing Jews in mosques feels normal and even holy!
After a lot of thinking, analysis, research, and writing, I discovered that Jew -atred in Islam is an essential foundation to the Islamic belief system that Muslims cannot seem to be able to rid themselves of.  Jew-hatred masks an existential problem in Islam.  Islam is terrified of the Jews, and the number-one enemy of Islam is the truth, which must be constantly covered at any cost.  It does not matter how many Muslim men, women, and children die in the process of saving Islam's reputation.  The number-one duty of Muslims is to protect the reputation of Islam and Mohammad.  But why would a religion burden its followers like that?  This is why:
When Mohammed embarked on his mission to spread Islam, his objective was to create a uniquely Arabian religion, one created by an Arab prophet, which reflected the Arabian values and culture.  Yet to obtain legitimacy, he had to link it to the two previous Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity.  He expected the Jewish tribes who lived in Arabia to declare him their Messiah and thereby bring him more legitimacy with Arabs, especially with his own tribe in Mecca, the Quraish.  Because his own tribe had rejected and ridiculed him, Mohammed needed the approval of the Jews, whom he called the people of the book.  But the conversion of Jews to Islam was part of the scenario that Mohammed had to accomplish in order to prove to Meccans that they had made a mistake by rejecting him.
That was one of the reasons Mohammed chose to migrate to Medina, a town that had predominantly been settled by Jewish tribes and a few impoverished Arabs who lived around the Jews.  The Jews allowed Mohammed to move in.  At the beginning, the Koran of Mecca was full of appeals to the Jews, who were then described as "guidance and light" (5:44) and a "righteous" people (6:153-154), who "excelled the nations" (45:16).  But when the Jews rejected the appeasement and refused to convert to Islam, Mohammed simply and completely flipped.  The Quran changed from love to threats and then pure hatred, cursing, and commandments to kill Jews.  Rejection by the Jews became an intolerable obsession with Mohammed.
Not only did the Jews reject him, but their prosperity made Mohammed extremely envious.  The Jewish Arabian tribes earned their living from legitimate and successful business, but Mohammed earned his living and wealth through warfare -- by attacking Arab tribes, some of whom were from his own tribe -- and trade caravans, seizing their wealth and property.  That did not look good for a man who claimed to be a prophet of God.  The mere existence of the Jews made Mohammed look bad, which led Mohammed to unspeakable slaughter, beheading of 600 to 900 Jewish men of one tribe, and taking their women and children as slaves.  Mohammed had the first pick of the prettiest woman as his sex slave.  All of this senseless slaughter of the Jews was elaborately documented in Islamic books on the life of Mohammed -- not as something to be ashamed of, but as justified behavior against evil people.
One does not have to be psychiatrist to see the obvious: that Mohammad was a tormented man after the massacre he orchestrated and forced his fighters to undertake to empower and to enrich himself and his religion.  To reduce his torment, he needed everyone around him, as well as future generations, to participate in the genocide against the Jews, the only people whom he could not control.  An enormous number of verses in the Koran encouraged Mohammed's fighters to fight, kill, and curse Muslim fighters who wanted to escape fighting and killing Jews.  The Quran is full of promises of all kinds of pleasure in heaven to those who followed Mohammed's killing spree and curses and condemnation to those who chose to escape from fighting.  Muslims were encouraged to feel no hesitation or guilt for the genocide because it was not they who did it, but rather "Allah's hand."
Mohammed never got over his anger, humiliation, and rejection by "the people of the book" and went to his grave tormented and obsessed that some Jews were still alive.  On his deathbed, Mohammed entrusted Muslims to kill Jews wherever they found them, which made this a "holy commandment" that no Muslim can reject.  Muslims who wrote sharia understood how Mohammed was extremely sensitive to criticism, and that is why criticizing Mohammed became the highest crime in Islam that will never be forgiven even if the offender repents.  Mohammed's message on his deathbed was not for his followers to strive for holiness, peace, goodness, and to treat their neighbors as themselves, but rather a commandment for Muslims to continue the killing and the genocide against the Jews.  Killing thus became a holy act of obedience to Mohammed and Allah himself.
Mohammed portrayed himself as a victim of Jews, and Muslims must avenge him until judgment day.  With all Arab power, money, and influence around the world today, they still thrive at portraying themselves as victims.  Sharia also codified into law the duty of every Muslim to defend Mohammed's honor and Islam with his own blood, and allowed the violation of many commandments if it is for the benefit of defending Islam and Mohammed.  Thus, Muslims are carrying a huge burden, a holy burden, to defend Mohammed with their blood, and in doing so they are allowed to kill, lie, cheat, slander, and mislead.
Mohammed must have felt deep and extreme shame after what he had done to the Jews, and thus a very good reason had to be found to explain away his genocide.  By commanding Muslims to continue the genocide for him, even after his death, Mohammad expanded the shame to cover all Muslims and Islam itself.  All Muslims were commanded to follow Mohammed's example and chase the Jews wherever they went.  One hundred years after Mohammed's death, Arabs occupied Jerusalem and built Al Aqsa mosque right on top of the Jewish Temple ruins, the holiest spot of the Jews.  Muslims thought they had erased all memory of Jewish existence.
Mohammed's genocide of the Jews of Arabia became an unholy dark mark of shame in Islamic history, and that shame, envy, and anger continues to get the best of Muslims today.  In the eyes of Mohammed and Muslims, the mere existence of the Jewish people, let alone an entire Jewish state, delegitimizes Islam and makes Mohammed look more like a mass murderer than like a prophet.  For Muslims to make peace with Jews and acknowledge that Jews are humans who deserve the same rights as everyone else would have a devastating effect on how Muslims view their religion, their history, and the actions of their prophet.
Islam has a major existential problem.  By no will of their own, the Jews found themselves in the middle of this Islamic dilemma.  Islam must justify the genocide that Mohammad waged against the Jews.  Mohammad and Muslims had two choices: either the Jews are evil sub-humans, apes, pigs, and enemies of Allah, a common description of Jews still heard regularly in Middle Eastern mosques today, or Mohammad was a genocidal warlord not fit to be a prophet of God -- a choice that would mean the end of Islam.
Then and now, Mohammad and Muslims clearly chose the first worldview and decreed that any hint of the second must be severely punished.  Jews must remain eternally evil enemies of Islam if Islam is to remain legitimate.  There is no third solution to save the core of Islam from collapsing; either Mohammed was evil, or the Jews were evil.  Any attempt to forgive, humanize, or live peacefully with Jews is considered treason against Islam.  How can Muslims forgive the Jews and then go back to their mosques, only to read their prophet's words, telling them they must kill Jews wherever they find them?  It does not add up, if someone wants to remain Muslim.
That is why the number-one enemy of Islam is, and must remain, the truth.  If the truth exposes Islam's unjustified Jew-hatred, Muslims will be left with an empty shell of a religion, a religion whose prophet was a murderer, a thief, and a warlord.  Without Jew-hatred, Islam would self-destruct.
Nonie Darwish author is the author of The Devil We Don't Know.
(See also: "Fed to the Sharks by Political Correctness")

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/08/why_muslims_must_hate_jews.html at August 07, 2012 - 10:57:55 PM CDT

Root: Obama’s College Classmate: ‘The Obama Scandal Is at Columbia’ | TheBlaze.com

Posted on August 6, 2012 at 10:28am

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• 
• WAYNE ALLYN ROOT
• 
• 

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee. He is the  […]

wayne@rootforamerica.com

Author's Website

I am President Obama’s classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I am also one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators. Accurate enough that I was awarded my own star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. And I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years since graduating Columbia.

Obama and his infamous strategist David Axelrod understand how to play political hardball, the best its ever been played. Team Obama has decided to distract America’s voters by condemning Mitt Romney for not releasing enough years of his tax returns. It’s the perfect cover. Obama knows the best defense is a bold offense. Just keep attacking Mitt and blaming him for secrecy and evasion, while accusing him of having a scandal that doesn’t exist. Then ask followers like Senator Harry Reid to chase the lead. The U.S. Senate Majority Leader appears to now be making up stories out of thin air, about tax returns he knows nothing about. It’s a cynical, brilliant and vicious strategy. Make Romney defend, so he can’t attack the real Obama scandal.

This is classic Axelrod. Obama has won several elections in his career by slandering his opponents and leaking sealed documents. Not only do these insinuations and leaks ruin the credibility and reputation of Obama’s opponents, they keep them on the defensive and off Obama’s trail of sealed documents.

By attacking Romney’s tax records, Obama’s socialist cabal creates a problem that doesn’t exist. Is the U.S. Senate Majority Leader making up stories out of thin air? You decide. But the reason for this baseless attack is clear- make Romney defend, so not only is he “off message” but it helps the media ignore the real Obama scandal.

My answer for Romney? Call Obama’s bluff.

Romney should call a press conference and issue a challenge in front of the nation. He should agree to release more of his tax returns, only if Obama unseals his college records. Simple and straight-forward. Mitt should ask “What could possibly be so embarrassing in your college records from 29 years ago, that you are afraid to let America’s voters see it? If it’s THAT bad, maybe it’s something the voters ought to see.” Suddenly the tables are turned. Now Obama is on the defensive.

My bet is that Obama will never unseal his records because they contain information that could destroy his chances for re-election. Once this challenge is made public, my prediction is you’ll never hear about Mitt’s tax returns ever again.

Why are the college records, of a 51-year-old President of the United States, so important to keep secret? I think I know the answer.

If anyone should have questions about Obama’s record at Columbia University, it’s me. We both graduated (according to Obama) Columbia University, Class of ’83. We were both (according to Obama) Pre-Law and Political Science majors. And I thought I knew most everyone at Columbia. I certainly thought I’d heard of all of my fellow Political Science majors. But not Obama (or as he was known then- Barry Soetoro). I never met him. Never saw him. Never even heard of him. And none of the classmates that I knew at Columbia has ever met him, saw him, or heard of him.

But don’t take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that Fox News randomly called 400 of our Columbia classmates and never found one who had ever met Obama.

Now all of this mystery could be easily and instantly dismissed if Obama released his Columbia transcripts to the media. But even after serving as President for 3 1/2 years he refuses to unseal his college records. Shouldn’t the media be as relentless in pursuit of Obama’s records as Romney’s? Shouldn’t they be digging into Obama’s past–beyond what he has written about himself–with the same boundless enthusiasm as Mitt’s?

The first question I’d ask is, if you had great grades, why would you seal your records? So let’s assume Obama got poor grades. Why not release the records? He’s President of the free world, for gosh sakes. He’s commander-in-chief of the U.S. military. Who’d care about some poor grades from three decades ago, right? So then what’s the problem? Doesn’t that make the media suspicious? Something doesn’t add up.

Secondly, if he had poor grades at Occidental, how did he get admitted to an Ivy League university in the first place? And if his grades at Columbia were awful, how’d he ever get into Harvard Law School? So again those grades must have been great, right? So why spend millions to keep them sealed?

Third, how did Obama pay for all these fancy schools without coming from a wealthy background? If he had student loans or scholarships, would he not have to maintain good grades?

I can only think of one answer that would explain this mystery.

Here’s my gut belief: Obama got a leg up by being admitted to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was raised as a young boy in Indonesia. But did his mother ever change him back to a U.S. citizen? When he returned to live with his grandparents in Hawaii or as he neared college-age preparing to apply to schools, did he ever change his citizenship back? I’m betting not.

If you could unseal Obama’s Columbia University records I believe you’d find that:

A)   He rarely ever attended class.

B)   His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get into Harvard Law School.

C)   He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.

D)   He paid little for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School because of foreign aid and scholarships given to a poor foreign students like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia.

If you think I’m “fishing” then prove me wrong. Open up your records Mr. President. What are you afraid of?

If it’s okay for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go on a fishing expedition about Romney’s taxes (even though he knows absolutely nothing about them nor will release his own), then I think I can do the same thing. But as Obama’s Columbia Class of ’83 classmate, at least I have more standing to make educated guesses.

It’s time for Mitt to go on the attack and call Obama’s bluff.

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee and the author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian.” He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee. He is a regular guest on Fox News and hundreds of radio shows across America. He is also a gun-slinging, riverboat gambling, entrepreneur and capitalist evangelist. His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com 

The Employment Rate In The United States Is Lower Than It Was During The Last Recession

(NOT written by Ralph Davis)

From: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-employment-rate-in-the-united-states-is-lower-than-it-was-during-the-last-recession

Did you know that a smaller percentage of Americans are working today than when the last recession supposedly ended?  But you won't hear about this on the mainstream news.  Instead, the mainstream media obsesses over the highly politicized and highly manipulated "unemployment rate".  The media is buzzing about how "163,000 new jobs" were added in July but the unemployment rate went up to "8.254%".  Sadly, those numbers are quite misleading.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in June142,415,000 people had jobs in the United States. In July, that number declined to 142,220,000. That means that 195,000 fewer Americans were working in July than in June. But somehow that works out to "163,000 new jobs" in July.  I am not exactly sure how they get that math to add up.  Perhaps someone out there can explain it to me.  Personally, I find that the "employment rate" gives a much clearer picture of what is actually going on in the economy.  The employment to population ratio is a measure of the percentage of working age Americans that actually have jobs.  When it goes up that is good.  When it goes down, that is bad.  In July, the employment to population ratio dropped from 58.6 percent to 58.4 percent.  Overall, the percentage of working age Americans that have jobs has now been under 59 percent for 35 months in a row.

The following is a chart of the employment to population ratio in the United States over the past 10 years....

The gray shaded bar in the chart represents the last recession as defined by the Federal Reserve.  As you can see, the percentage of working age Americans with a job dropped sharply from nearly 63 percent at the start of 2008 to a little above 59 percent when the recession ended.

But the "employment rate" kept on dropping even further.

It finally bottomed out at 58.2 percent in December of 2009.

Since that time, it has stayed very steady.  It has not fallen below 58 percent and it has not risen back above 59 percent.

This is very odd, because after ever other recession since World War II this number has always bounced back strongly.

But this has not happened this time.

In essence, it is starting to look like 4 percent of the working age population of the United States has been removed from the workforce permanently.

The good news in all of this is that things have at least not been getting any worse over the last couple of years.  Even though things have been bad, at least we have had a period of relative stability.

The bad news is that the employment rate has not rebounded despite unprecedented borrowing and spending by the federal government and despite reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve.

Considering how desperately the federal government and the Federal Reserve have been trying to stimulate the economy, I truly did expect to see the employment rate bounce back at least a little bit by now.

Unfortunately it has not and now the U.S. economy is rapidly heading for another recession.

But Barack Obama is going to prance around over the next few days and talk about how wonderful it is that the economy created "163,000 new jobs" in July.

What he isn't going to talk about are the millions of Americans that have been unemployed for so long that they don't even "count" in the official unemployment numbers anymore.

But those people actually exist and they are really hurting.  Many of them are starting to lose their unemployment benefits and they really do not know what they are going to do.  The following is from a recent USA Today article....

Since abruptly losing her $312 weekly unemployment check in June, Laurie Cullinan has depleted her savings, sought food from the Salvation Army and lit candles to save electricity.

If she can't find a job this month, the Royal Oak, Mich., resident worries she'll be evicted from her apartment, an unthinkable prospect for the 52-year-old, who enjoyed a solidly middle-class lifestyle until she lost her office-manager job two years ago.

"What am I going to do if I'm homeless?" says Cullinan, who collected unemployment for 1½ years. "My mind won't let me comprehend that."

Could you imagine having to face that?

What would you do if you were about to be tossed out on to the street?

When you add up all of the working age Americans without a job in the United States today, it comes to more than 100 million.

Some people have accused me of lying about that figure, but it is actually true.

There are more than 100 million working age Americans that are not employed right now.

And even if you do have a job that does not mean that you are doing well.  As I wrote about yesterday, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States today are good jobs.

The cost of living continues to rise much faster than wages are.  Many families are having a really hard time just paying for the basics.  The inflated standard of living that we have all enjoyed for so long is starting to disappear.

An increasing number of young people are living with their parents well past the age of 18 because there are not enough good jobs and it is just so hard to make it in this economy.  If you can believe it, 24 percent of all Americans in the 20 to 34 year old age bracket are living at home with their parents at this point.

But we will be seeing a lot more of this as the economy gets even worse.  "Multi-generational households" will become very common, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.  Perhaps this will give some families a chance to do some bonding.

Meanwhile, many of our once great cities continue to rot and decay at a staggering pace.  Today, I saw one report that discussed how the city of Detroit has become a dumping ground for dead bodies.

How sad is that?

Detroit was once the envy of the world and now it is a place where murder victims are dumped.

These are all indications of just how far we have fallen.

But things are going to get a lot worse, so we should actually be thankful for the period of relative stability that we are enjoying right now.

The long-term economic collapse that we are experiencing right now will soon accelerate.  Eventually even the highly manipulated official "unemployment rate" will soar well up into the double digits.

When it does, the anger and frustration that is boiling under the surface in this country is going to explode.

Let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst.

What same-sex "marriage" has done to Massachusetts

It's far worse than most people realize

by Brian Camenker October 2008 Updated June 2012

Anyone who thinks that same-sex "marriage" is a benign eccentricity which won't affect the average person should consider what it has done to Massachusetts since 2004. It's become a hammer to force the acceptance and normalization of homosexuality on everyone. The slippery slope is real. New radical demands never cease. What has happened in the last several years is truly frightening.

On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced its Goodridge opinion, declaring that it was unconstitutional not to allow same-sex "marriage." Six months later, despite public outrage, homosexual "weddings" began to take place. And that was just the beginning . . .

The public schools

The homosexual "marriage" onslaught in public schools across the state started soon after the November 2003 court ruling.

• At my own children's high school there was a school-wide assembly to celebrate same-sex "marriage" in early December 2003. It featured an array of speakers, including teachers at the school who announced that they would be "marrying" their same-sex partners and starting families, either through adoption or artificial insemination. Literature on same-sex marriage - how it is now a normal part of society - was handed out to the students.
• Within months it was brought into the middle schools. In September 2004, an 8th-grade teacher in Brookline, Mass., told National Public Radio that the marriage ruling had opened up the door for teaching homosexuality. "In my mind, I know that, 'OK, this is legal now.' If somebody wants to challenge me, I'll say, 'Give me a break. It's legal now,'" she told NPR. She added that she now discusses gay sex with her students as explicitly as she desires. For example, she said she tells the kids that lesbians can have vaginal intercourse using sex toys.
• By the following year it was in elementary school curricula - with hostility toward parents who disagreed. Kindergartners in Lexington, Mass. were given copies of a picture book, Who's in a Family?, telling them that same-sex couples are just another kind of family, just like their own parents. When David Parker - parent of a kindergartner - calmly refused to leave a school meeting unless officials agreed to notify him when discussing homosexuality or transgenderism with his son, the school had him arrested and jailed overnight.
• The next year, second graders at the same school were read a book,King and King, about two men who fall in love and marry each other, ending with a picture of them kissing. When parents Robb and Robin Wirthlin complained, they were told that the school had no obligation to notify them or allow them to opt their child out.
• In 2007 a federal judge ruled that because of "gay marriage" in Massachusetts, parents have no rights regarding the teaching of homosexual relationships in schools. The previous year the Parkers and Wirthlins had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit to force the schools to notify parents and allow them to opt out their elementary-school children when homosexual-related subjects were taught. The federal judge dismissed the case. The appeals judges later upheld the first judge's ruling that because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, the school actually had a duty to normalize homosexual relationships to children; and schools have no obligation to notify parents or let them opt out their children. Acceptance of homosexuality had become a matter of good citizenship!
  
  Think about that: Because same-sex marriage is "legal," federal judges have ruled that the schools now have a duty to portray homosexual relationships as normal to children, despite what parents think or believe!
• The judges also allowed the school to overrule the Massachusetts parental notification law on this issue, with the claim that homosexuality or same-sex marriages are not "human sexuality issues" (to which the law refers).
• School libraries have also radically changed. School libraries across the state, from elementary school to high school, now have expanding shelves of books to normalize homosexual behavior and "lifestyle" in the minds of kids, some of them quite explicit and even pornographic. Parents' complaints are ignored or met with hostility.
• A large, slick hardcover book celebrating Massachusetts homosexual marriages began to appear in many school libraries across the state. Titled Courting Equality, it was supplied to schools by a major homosexual activist organization. Its apparent purpose was to teach kids that "gay marriage" was a great civil rights victory.
• It has become commonplace in Massachusetts schools for teachers to display photos of their same-sex "spouses" and occasionally bring their "spouses" to school functions. At one point, both high schools in my own town had principals who were "married" to their same-sex partners who came to school and were introduced to the students.
• "Gay days" in schools are considered necessary to fight "intolerance" against same-sex relationships. Hundreds of high schools and even middle schools across the state now hold "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender days." In my own town, a school committee member announced that combating "homophobia" was now a top priority. The schools not only "celebrate" homosexual marriage, but have moved beyond to promote other behaviors such as cross-dressing and transsexuality.
• As a result, many more children in Massachusetts appear to be self-identifying as "gay." According to the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey, given to students in high schools across the state, between 2005 and 2009 both the percentage of kids "identifying as gay" and who had same-sex contact rose by approximately 50%. Although this bi-annual survey is unscientific and largely unreliable, it still shows a disturbing trend among those students who chose to answer the questions in this way. (At a minimum, it implies that these answers are being encouraged.)
• Once homosexuality is normalized, all boundaries begin to come down. The schools have already moved on to normalizing transgenderism (including cross-dressing and sex changes). The state-funded Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth, which goes into schools with homosexual and transgender programs and activities for children, includes prominent activists who are transsexuals.
• In 2006 a cross-dressing man undergoing a sex-change operationwas brought into a third-grade class in Newton to teach the children that there are now "different kinds of families." School officials told a mother that her complaints to the principal were considered "inappropriate behavior"! She ended up removing her child from the school.

Public health

• The Commissioner of the Mass. Dept. of Public Health, who is "married" to another man, told a crowd of kids at the state-sponsored Youth Pride event in 2007 that it's "wonderful being gay" and he wants to make sure there's enough HIV testing available for all of them.
• The STD test required to obtain a marriage license was eliminated five months after same-sex "marriages" began in Massachusetts, by a bill quietly signed by Gov. Mitt Romney. This was despite an increase in syphilis cases and other STDs in homosexual men in Massachusetts at the time (according to the Mass. Dept. of Public Health).
• In recent years state funding for HIV/AIDS programs has gone up considerably in Massachusetts, along with the proportion of homosexual-related cases. According to the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health, even though the total number of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses has declined, the proportion caused by male homosexual behavior rose by over 30% from 2000-2009. Thus, for the last several years the state has budgeted $30-$35 million per year for these programs. This dwarfs spending on any other viral disease that we are aware of.
• A hideously obscene booklet on "gay" practices created by health officials was given out in a high school. Citing "the right to marry" as one of the "important challenges" in a place where "it's a great time to be gay," the Mass. Dept. of Public Health helped the AIDS Action Committee produce The Little Black Book: Queer in the 21st Century. It was given to teens at Brookline High School on April 30, 2005. Among other things, it gives "tips" to boys on how to perform oral sex on other males, masturbate other males, and how to "safely" have someone urinate on you for sexual pleasure. It even included a directory of bars in Boston where young men meet for anonymous sex.

Hospitals

• Because of the purported necessity to cater to "LGBT health" issues, nearly every major Boston hospital has become an active supporter of the radical homosexual movement. This includes marching in the "Gay Pride" parades, holding homosexual events, and putting on numerous "gay health"-related seminars. This is one of the most disturbing things that's happened since "gay marriage" became "legal."
• A major Boston hospital threatened to fire a physician when he objected to its promotion of homosexual behavior. In 2011 a prominent physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston -- a large Harvard-affiliated hospital -- objected to the hospital being involved with "Gay Pride" activities. He also pointed out to his superiors the medical health risks of homosexuality, and said that he and others at the hospital considered homosexual acts to be unnatural and immoral. The hospital then threatened to fire him, telling him that same-sex marriage is "legal" and that his comments constituted "harassment and discrimination." After a "hearing" he was allowed to keep his job, but was told to apologize and to keep his opinions on these matters to himself.
• In 2012 the Boston Medical Center purchased a prominent full-color ad (full page, inside cover) in the Boston Gay Pride guide book. The content? The entire ad promoted the hospital's STD and AIDS clinics for the "pride" participants - particularly its screening services for gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, hepatitis, and HIV.

Domestic violence

• Every year more state money goes to deal with the high incidence of homosexual domestic violence. Since "gay marriage" began, Massachusetts has one of the highest proportions of homosexuals living as couples in the country. Given the extremely dysfunctional nature of homosexual relationships, the Massachusetts Legislature has felt the need to spend more and more money to deal with that problem. "Gay domestic violence programs" have also become a major lobbying push in the State House by the homosexual groupMassEquality. This year it comprises a considerable portion of a $5.5 million state budget item (according to MassEquality). This is up from $100,000 budgeted in 2007.
• "Gay domestic partner violence" literature (funded by the state) is now distributed at virtually every public homosexual event -including to children at "Youth Pride" events, GLSEN conferences, "gay straight alliance" high school clubs - and especially at the various events and parades during "Gay Pride" week.
• It has become such a problem that a public candlelight vigil in downtown Boston is held every year by a coalition of Massachusetts homosexual groups "to remember victims of recent LGBT intimate partner violence, and to raise awareness of this important community issue."

Business and employment

• All insurance in Massachusetts must now recognize same-sex "married" couples in their coverage. This includes auto insurance, health insurance, life insurance, etc.
• Businesses must recognize same-sex "married" couples in all their benefits, activities, etc., regarding both employees and customers.
• People can now get fired from their jobs for expressing religious objections to same-sex "marriage." In 2009, a deputy manager at a Brookstone store in Boston was fired from his job for mentioning his belief to another manager who had kept bringing up the subject with him that day. Brookstone's letter of termination (quoted on local TV news) said his comment was "inappropriate" because "in the State of Massachusetts, same-sex marriage is legal."
• The wedding industry is required to serve the homosexual community if requested. Wedding photographers, halls, caterers, etc., must accept same-sex marriage events or be held liable for discrimination.
• Businesses are often "tested" for tolerance by homosexual activists. Groups of homosexual activists go into restaurants or bars and publicly kiss and fondle each other to test whether the establishment demonstrates sufficient "equality" - now that homosexual marriage is "legal." Then they report "tolerance violators" to authorities, and businesses can be fined and punished. In fact, more and more overt displays of homosexual affection are seen in public places across the state to reinforce "marriage equality."

Legal profession and judicial system

• The Massachusetts Bar Exam now tests lawyers on their knowledge of same-sex marriage "law." In 2007, a Boston man failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer a question about homosexual marriage.
• In many firms, lawyers in Massachusetts practicing family law must now attend seminars on homosexual "marriage." Issues regarding homosexual "families" are now firmly entrenched in the Massachusetts legal system. In addition, there are now severalhomosexual judges overseeing the Massachusetts family courts.
• In 2011 the Governor appointed Barbara Lenk, a "married" lesbian activist, to be a state Supreme Court Justice. She has said that the interpretation of law "evolves and develops" because "minority groups [e.g., homosexuals] see certain things differently based on their own experiences."

Adoption and birth certificates

• In the year after the "gay marriage" ruling, the state's adoption and foster care workers went through a massive indoctrination on "LGBT youth awareness." This included employees and managers at the Mass. Dept. of Social Services. These sessions were run by the radical National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (which once awarded a "Leather Leadership Award" to the owner of a pornographic video company). The emphasis was that those working with children must be trained that homosexuality (and transgenderism) are normal. At one session, the trainer announced that the new motto is, "To tolerate is an assault; you have to accept" this behavior.
• Homosexual "married" couples can now demand to be allowed to adopt children - through any agency. In 2006 Catholic Charitiesdecided to abandon handling adoptions rather submit to regulations requiring them to allow homosexuals to adopt the children in their care.
• Adoption agencies have said that 40% of their adoptions are to homosexual couples. Anecdotal reports also indicate that many adoption agencies now favor homosexuals over normal couples.
• In 2006 the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) honored two men "married" to each other as their "Parents of the Year." The men had adopted a baby through DSS (against the wishes of the baby's birth parents). According to news reports, the day after that adoption was final, DSS approached the men about adopting a second child.
• The state-funded Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE) has been pushing "GLBT" family formation and holds "adoption parties" where homosexual couples have been encouraged to attend (along with others) and see "available" children in person. MARE places prominent ads in GLBT publications.
• Birth certificates in Massachusetts have been changed from "mother" and "father" to "mother/parent" and "father/parent."Two men or two women can now be listed as the "parents" on birth certificates! Homosexuals who adopt can revise children's' existing birth certificates.
• A court ruled in 2012 that if a child is "born of a same-sex marriage," there is no need for adoption by a non-biological parent. Thus, they would both be the listed as the "parents" on the child's birth certificate, without any formal proceedings necessary. (The other biological parent is not noted on the official birth certificate.)

Government mandates

• Marriage licenses and certificates in Massachusetts now have"Party A" and "Party B" instead of "husband" and "wife." Imagine having a marriage license like that.
• In 2004, Governor Mitt Romney ordered Justices of the Peace to perform homosexual marriages when requested or be fired. Several Justices of the Peace immediately decided to resign. That order still stands. Also Town Clerks were forced by the Governor's office to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
• In 2008 Massachusetts changed the state Medicare laws to include homosexual "married" couples in the coverage.

The public square

• Since gay "marriage" began, public "Gay Pride" events have become more prominent in the public square. There are more politicians and corporations participating, and even police organizations take part. And the envelope gets pushed further and further. For example: the annual profane "Dyke March" through downtown Boston, and the 2008 "transgender" parade in Northampton that included bare-chested women who have had their breasts surgically removed (so they could "become" men).Governor Patrick even marched with his 17-year-old "out lesbian" daughter in the 2008 Boston Pride event, right behind a sadomasochist "leather" group brandishing a black and blue flag, lashes and chains!

Churches being harassed

Churches and religious people have been demonized, harassed and threatened - with no punishment for the perpetrators. Since the "gay marriage" ruling, those who publicly disagree with "gay marriage" or the normalcy of homosexuality - or hold events promoting traditional beliefs - are targets of militant retribution by homosexual activists. Police and public officials have shown no interest in stopping this. We are not aware of a single homosexual activist arrested (or charged with any "hate crime") for disrupting a religious event or threatening and harassing people at a church. For example:

• In 2012 someone threatened to burn down a Catholic Church in Acushnet which posted the words "Two men are friends, not spouses" on its outdoor sign. The church immediately received a flood of profane phone calls. At least one person threatened to burn down the church. An activist nailed a sign to church's fence saying, "Spread love not hate." Activists staged a protest outside of the Sunday Mass to intimidate parishioners with a sign saying, "It is legal for two men or women to be spouses." Neither the police nor the District Attorney pursued the threats as a hate crime or other offense.
• In 2010 a Catholic elementary school balked at letting a lesbian couple enroll their son. As a result, the school was excoriated in the media and even by the local liberal state representative as "discriminatory." The privately-run Catholic Schools Foundationthen threatened to withhold funding to the school unless it relented. The Archdiocese eventually backed down and the school reversed its policy.
• In 2009 angry homosexual activists terrorized the Park Street Church in Boston while it was holding an ex-gay religious training session inside. They demonstrated next to the doors and windows with signs, screaming homosexual slogans. One of them held a bullhorn against the window outside the meeting, bellowing at the participants inside. Police did nothing to stop them, even though they were standing inside the historic cemetery adjacent to the church.
• In 2006 dozens of screaming homosexual activists drowned out the speakers at an outdoor pro-marriage rally in Worcester organized by Catholic Vote, yelling "Bigots" and disgusting chants. Police did not stop them, even though the rally had a permit. When one of the rioters rushed the stage and started shouting, a rally organizer tried to lead her to the side. She subsequently sued that organizer for assault! He went through a four-day trial and was acquitted by a jury. But no charges were filed against any of the rioters.
• In 2006 a group of homosexual activists with signs taunted and screamed at people entering and leaving the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in downtown Boston, which was holding a nationally televised pro-marriage event inside.
• In 2005 hundreds of homosexual activists terrorized the Tremont Temple Baptist Church with makeshift coffins, screaming obscenities through loudspeakers as the national pro-family groupFocus on the Family held a religious conference inside. The crowd was so threatening that attendees could not leave the church for the lunch break. The Boston riot police stood in front of the church doors, but did nothing to disperse the protesters who were also completely blocking the street.

The media

• The Boston media regularly features articles and news stories using homosexual "married" couples where regular married couples would normally be used. It's "equal," they insist, so there must be no difference in how marriage is portrayed. Also, the newspaper advice columns now deal with homosexual "marriage" issues - and how to properly accept it.
• A number of news reporters and TV anchors are "out" homosexuals (at least one openly "married") who march in the "Gay Pride" parades and publicly participate in other homosexual events.

Politics

• A climate of fear has kept politicians at all levels from disagreeing with or criticizing same-sex marriage since it became "legal." Public officials are afraid of being accused of wanting to "take away rights." Those who support traditional marriage rarely discuss it publicly. And this fear has expanded to suppress any meaningful debate on all homosexual related issues. Additionally, it has brought a feeling of intimidation among pro-family people across the state.
• The Massachusetts Republican establishment has become arguably the most "pro-gay marriage" GOP in America. The state GOP House and Senate leaders now both publicly support "gay marriage," as did the recent Mass. GOP candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor. GOP candidates for office are told not even to discuss it.
• In April 2009, the Chairman of the Mass. Republican Party told a homosexual newspaper that the GOP would no longer oppose "gay marriage." Then Chairman Jennifer Nassour, interviewed on the front page of Bay Windows, assured the gay community that the state GOP would "steer clear of social" issues such as "opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion." The newly elected chairman, Bob Maginn, does not talk about the issue.
• Every Massachusetts state-wide elected official and member of Congress (but one) now publicly supports "gay marriage." The one (apparent) holdout, Republican US Senator Scott Brown, strenuously avoids the issue, saying that it's "settled law" and not worth fighting over.

Rule of law

• Same-sex "marriage" came to Massachusetts through a radical court's narrow ruling. Because of that, there is an often depressing sense of helplessness that pervades this issue. The marriage statute was never changed, and it has been convincingly argued that the whole process was in violation of the state constitution. The Governor simply went along. And the Legislature acted to block popular votes on two separate constitutional amendments protecting marriage, after sufficient signatures had been gathered for each. The rule of law seems further lost with every new outrage imposed on the people.
• Even the Massachusetts Law Library (online) shows no law legalizing same-sex marriage, only a court opinion. It is a dangerous precedent to allow such sweeping judicial activism to stand as law, enabling everything that has followed from it. It should serve as a warning to states across the country.

In conclusion

Same-sex "marriage" hangs over society, hammering citizens with the force of law. Once it gets a foothold, society becomes more oppressive. Unfortunately, it was imposed on the people of Massachusetts through a combination of radical, arrogant judges and pitifully cowardly politicians. The homosexual movement has used that combination to its continued advantage around the country.

It's pretty clear that this radical movement is obsessed with marriage not because large numbers of homosexuals actually want to marry each other. A small percentage actually "marry." (In fact, over the last several months, the Sunday Boston Globe's marriage section hasn't had any photos of homosexual marriages; at first it was full of them.) Research shows that homosexuals' relationships are fundamentally dysfunctional on many levels, and real "marriage" as we know it isn't something they can achieve, or even truly desire.

The push for "gay marriage" is really is about putting the legal stamp of approval on homosexuality and forcing its acceptance on (otherwise unwilling) citizens and our social, political, and commercial institutions.

To the rest of America: You've been forewarned.