American Family Association demands special treatment for Christians

The American Family Association is planning a boycott of a major retailer in the US which does not use the word "Christmas" in their displays during the holiday season.

For some reason the action alert they emailed is not posted on their site, so I'm reproducing it here:

Would you be willing to boycott stores that refuse to use the word 'Christmas'?

AFA will call for a boycott of a national retailer this Christmas

October 9, 2009

Dear ##my#name###,

Christians celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Christ. It's a federal holiday and has always held a special place in the hearts of Americans. Yet there are those companies which feel that a public recognition of the birthday of Christ is not appropriate. Why? Because a few people may be offended!

In early November, AFA will choose at least one national retailer and ask you to boycott it until it begins recognizing Christmas in its "holiday" advertising. Will you let us know you will support our efforts by participating in the boycott?

Would you be willing to boycott retailers which refuse to allow the word Christmas to be displayed in their stores? Give us your answer.

Take Action!

Would you be willing to boycott stores which refuse to allow the word Christmas to be displayed in their stores?

Click Here to take our online poll now!

Christians can take a stand and proclaim to our communities that Christmas is not just a winter holiday focused on materialism, but a "holy day" when we celebrate the birth of our Savior. We can do it in a gentle and effective way by wearing the "God's Gift - Merry Christmas" button.

Thank you for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy of support, would you consider making a small tax-deductible contribution to help us continue?

Sincerely,

Tim Wildmon, President
American Family Association

Poor oppressed Christians. How horrible that stores selling products for people of many different beliefs are choosing inclusive "holiday" displays, which apply not only to Christmas but also Chanukah, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Yule, Winter Solstice, etc.?

The AFA accuses GLBT people of wanting "special" rights when they're merely seeking the same rights as cis straight people. Yet they have no problem with demanding that Christians get preferential treatment from retailers.

It's also interesting that they say their campaign is against materialism, so why are they hawking all kinds of "God's Gift: Merry Christmas" junk? (I noticed that although they call the prices "suggested donations", there is no way of making a smaller "donation". And judging by the prices of custom printed buttons (that's just the first site I found; no doubt if they shopped around they would pay even less), their donations don't just cover their costs but include a healthy profit. No wonder they rake in tens of millions of dollars every year.

The connection between gay marriage and mass murders

Morality in Media has sent out their most ridiculous news release yet, which doesn't seem to be on their website so I am reproducing it in full.

Connecting the Dots: The Link Between Gay Marriage and Mass Murders

NEW YORK (April 9, 2009) – On April 4 the NY Times ran adjacent front-page articles on the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing ‘gay marriage’ and the gunman who murdered 13 people in New York. That day the Times also ran an op ed article by Charles M. Blow who expressed concern about the negative impact that conservative media’s “talk of revolution” could have on “weak minds.”

Commenting on this is Morality in Media President Bob Peters:

“Having lived in New York City for more than 30 years, I am all too aware of the harm that firearms in the hands of criminals can cause. Having grown up in a small town in Illinois, where citizens owned guns without misusing them, I am also aware that guns aren’t the underlying problem. I am not an opponent of gun regulation; I am an opponent of making guns the scapegoat for mass murder.

“The underlying problem is that increasingly we live in a ‘post-Christian’ society, where Judeo-Christian faith and values have less and less influence. Among other things, Judaism and Christianity taught that murder was wrong and that included murder motivated by anger, hatred and revenge. Both religions also taught that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and to forgive others.

“For many citizens, what has replaced Judeo-Christian faith and values is the secular value system that is reflected in films, rap/music lyrics, and videogames and on TV and now the Internet, where the taking of human life for just about any reason is commonplace and is often portrayed in an appealing manner and in realistic detail. Murder motivated by hatred and revenge is also justified.

“This secular value system is also reflected in the ‘sexual revolution,’ which is the driving force behind the push for ‘gay marriage;’ and the Iowa Supreme Court decision is another indication that despite all the damage this revolution has caused to children, adults, family life and society (think abortion, divorce, pornography, rape, sexual abuse of children, sexually transmitted diseases, trafficking in women and children, unwed teen mothers and more), it continues to advance relentlessly.

“It most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement! It is my intention to point out that the success of the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to the decline in morality; and it is the decline of morality (and the faith that so often under girds it) that is the underlying cause of our modern day epidemic of mass murders.

“I would add that if conservative media’s irresponsible talk of revolution can ‘poison weak minds,’ the liberal entertainment media’s irresponsible portrayal of mayhem can also poison weak minds.”

This is so ridiculous it is hard to respond to. He thinks that access to guns has nothing to do with murder (contrary to evidence) and gay marriage does? (I'd include a link about gay marriage and murder rates but I doubt anyone has researched such a ridiculous possibility.)

Supposedly the link is that the "secular morality" which permits gay marriage considers murder to be justified. Where he gets this idea from I have no idea. Note that he gives no evidence for this, because there is none! The few people I have ever heard of arguing in favour of gratuitous murder are either mentally ill (and most mentally ill people are no more violent than anyone else) or religious fanatics!

Only the twisted mind of a homophobe could see loving couples wanting to make a formal lifelong commitment to each other and connect that love to acts of violence and hate.

On the bright side, fewer and fewer people are buying into the homophobes arguments, which is perhaps what is making them so desperate. In the US, support for same-sex marriage is increasing, especially among younger people. Eventually it will be clear to everyone that legalizing same sex marriage, as we did here in Canada a few years ago, benefits people who want to marry someone of the same sex and has no effect on anyone else.

Theist vandalizes subway ad

My sharp-eyed son spotted this vandalized PSA in subway car # 5077, eastbound on the Bloor-Danforth line, on Monday morning.

I hope that, given the cost of these ads, the TTC has a policy of replacing vandalized ads free of charge. I'm going to contact the Freethought Association of Canada about this.

Toys Toys Toys overcharges for Webkinz Emperor Dragon

I used to think that Toys Toys Toys at the Eaton Centre had decent prices, because on their price tags they list what is suppposedly the usual price, and then their price, which is lower. I am now a lot less trusting of their tags, having done more comparison shopping.

The most egregious example I know of is their pricing on the Webkinz Emperor Dragon. It should cost about $15, the same as the other Webkinz. But Toys Toys Toys has jacked the price up to almost twice that: $29.99! (Sighted a couple of weeks ago.) They did something similar with the Webkinz Whimsy Dragon, though I don't think the price was quite this bad. My son had saved up enough money to buy the Whimsy Dragon, and we were both pretty upset when we saw that Toys Toys Toys was charging significantly more for it. (Luckily, he found it at the normal price at Indigo, also in the Eaton Centre.)

It seems to me that the Bionicles at Toys Toys Toys are priced a bit higher than elsewhere too. I will not be visiting this toy store very often in the future, and when I do I will check prices elsewhere first!

Will "pro-life" advocates helps support the Suleman octuplets?

Nadya Suleman, single mother of six who recently gave birth to the longest surviving octuplets, has said that she decided to have so many embryos implanted so they wouldn't be destroyed. The "culture of life", which claims that an embryo at any stage of development, or even a morula is equivalent to a baby, should get some of the blame for this mess (obviously Suleman and her doctor are responsible as well).

For some reason, I haven't seen any pro-life organization stepping up to provide any kind of support, moral or financial, for Nadya Suleman's family, who exist because of Suleman's pro-life ideals. Pro-Life News currently has only one article about Suleman, and it's a call for greater regulation of fertility treatments to prevent families like Suleman's.

The pro-lifers I have seen commenting on Suleman take issue with her not having a father on the scene. So what, they think that the embryos of single women aren't babies? (And before anyone claims that single women shouldn't conceive: she was married when they were conceived.)

Pepsi supports Human Rights Campaign—the horror!

The American Family Association is campaigning against Pepsi for supporting the Human Rights Campaign and PFLAG. According to AFA, HRC and PFLAG "promote the homosexual lifestyle in the workplace". They make it sound like these groups are organizing gay orgies in the office, but looking at their websites, they aren't promoting "the homosexual lifestyle" (whatever that is), just seeking basic fair treatment that heterosexuals take for granted.

AFA has also released a video, It's Not Gay, featuring an "ex-gay" man, Michael Johnston, who it turned out was having sex with men while working as an "ex-gay" advocate (he is now ex-gay again, or is that ex-ex-ex-gay?)

I don't get why these "family" groups get so worked up about homosexuality. It seems to me that homophobia breaks up more families that acceptance does--how many people are rejected by their homophobic parents for coming out? How does that strengthen families?

Students burned in shop class gone wrong

5 BC students were burned in an accident that should never have happened. The students were working with molten aluminum outside in the snow. Some of the snow melted (of course). According to Donna Freeman of WorkSafeBC, the combination of molten aluminum and water is considered "risky". Students were sprayed with 2000° molten metal; some of the drops were as large as loonies.

The only safety equipment the kids had were goggles and long mitts. They should have had full face masks and aprons.

To make matters worse, school officials dallied for 45 minutes before taking the students for medical treatment. What were they thinking?

If something like this happened in a homeschooling family, there would be an outcry about how dangerous homeschooling is, how education should be left to "qualified" professionals. What kind of training did this teacher have that he would put the kids in a dangerous situation like this, without proper protective gear, and no burn kit on hand, and then not even taking the kids for immediate medical treatment?

Of course, many teachers are more safety-conscious than this one was. But the fact remains that the only way parents can be 100% certain that our children's teachers will be safety-conscious is to be those safety-conscious teachers ourselves.

Homeschooling a cover for abuse?

UK Children's Minister Delyth Morgan speculates, without giving any evidence, that Home schooling 'could be a cover for child abuse and sexual exploitation'.

Of course, there are abusive parents, and some might very well (pretend to) be homeschooling as a way to conceal their evil doings.

However, Morgan fails to consider that pedophiles are also likely to seek out jobs where they can be around children—for example, teaching in the schools. There have been many, many documented cases of school teachers abusing the children entrusted to them, sexually and otherwise.

In addition, abuse by peers is rampant in institutional schooling; while some schools are starting to take this seriously, even the best teachers cannot know everything that goes on when there are twenty or thirty students for each staff member. And of course there are unfortunately some teachers who will blame the victim or tell them to toughen up rather than teaching the bullies to behave themselves.

Morgan's comments obviously won't deter parents from homeschooling if that is what they think is best for their family. As a homeschooling parent, I know that the chance of me abusing my son is zero; I could not say the same for any institutional school.

It defies common sense to claim the odds of being abused by a homeschooling parent are higher than the odds of being abused by any of the many teachers, other school staff, and fellow students. A child will be exposed to many more risky situations in even the best school than with a loving parent at home.

Encourage AARP to keep BetterSex.com advertisements

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