In
this Issue:
Angels
in America: Last Chance to Buy Tickets
The Federal Marriage Amendment: Unnecessary, Anti-federalist,
& Anti-democratic
Out and About: Cheney’s Daughter
Talks Politics
Pat Robertson Alert: Claims God Says Tsunami Possible For
U.S.
Group Launches Ads promoting Carbon Dioxide: Carbon
Dioxide not pollution
Angels
in America THIS SUNDAY
Sunday, May 21 | 6:30 pm | Bath House Cultural Center
Last Chance to Buy Tickets!
 Hope
for Peace & Justice presents a benefit performance
of Tony Kushner’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning
epic Angels in America-Part One: Millennium Approaches
on Sunday, May 21 at 6:30 p.m.
The performance
will be at the Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E. Lawther
Drive, Dallas, TX 75218, on White Rock Lake.
The cast
features Hope for Peace & Justice staff member David
Plunkett as Joseph Porter Pitt. By purchasing your tickets
to this performance, you help us raise money for important
campaigns, programs and workshops. Your $50 ticket includes
an invitation to a post-show dessert reception.
Click
here to buy tickets.
In the
first Dallas production of this “gay fantasia on
national themes” in more than a decade, Risk Theatre
Initiative (RTI) offers an intimate, non-traditional presentation.
Widely considered to be the most ambitious American play
of our time, Angels in America transports it’s audience
from earth to heaven, from New York City to Salt Lake City
to Antarctica, from the frightening confines of an agoraphobic’s
mind to the crushing guilt of leaving a loved one you can
no longer love properly, to the bright white light of hope
regained in the face of ultimate loss. In what is becoming
a tradition for the young company, RTI defies expectation
and perceived limitations with Kushner's intensely human,
politically charged and theatrically magical exploration
of change and loss on personal, national and metaphysical
levels.
Click
here to buy tickets today!
H4PJ
Equality Coalition
Position Statement
Hope
for Peace & Justice is organizing a coalition
of individuals and faith-based organizations to stand
for equal rights for all. We will gather moderate
and progressive people of faith to dialogue about
marriage equality and learn how it is consistent
with our values for human rights. We believe that
God’s love should include, rather than exclude.
Regardless of what you or your congregation believes
about the issue of sexual orientation, the bottom
line about this issue is whether or not all people
deserve equal protection under the law. H4PJ is against
writing discrimination into any constitution. We
are against the Federal Marriage Amendment and call
for equal marriage rights for all people.
Take
Action Now!
Click
here to tell your Senators to vote against the
Federal Marriage Amendment. |
The Federal Marriage
Amendment:
Unnecessary, Anti-federalist, and Anti-democratic
by Dale Carpenter, Associate Professor at the University
of Minnesota Law School
Originally Published by the CATO Institute, a conservative
think-tank
 Members of Congress have proposed a constitutional amendment
preventing states from recognizing same-sex marriages. Proponents
of the Federal Marriage Amendment claim that an amendment
is needed immediately to prevent same-sex marriages from
being forced on the nation. The policy debate on same-sex
marriage should proceed in the 50 states, without being cut
off by a single national policy, imposed from Washington
and enshrined in the Constitution.
A person who opposes same-sex marriage on policy grounds
can and should also oppose a constitutional amendment foreclosing
it, on grounds of federalism, confidence that opponents
will prevail without an amendment, or a belief that
public policy issues should only rarely be determined
at the constitutional level.
There are four main arguments against the Federal Marriage
Amendment.
First, a constitutional amendment is unnecessary because
federal and state laws, combined with the present state
of the relevant constitutional doctrines, already make
court-ordered nationwide same-sex marriage unlikely for
the foreseeable future. An amendment banning same-sex marriage
is a solution in search of a problem.
Second, a constitutional amendment defining marriage
would be a radical intrusion on the nation’s founding commitment
to federalism in an area traditionally reserved for state
regulation, family law. There has been no showing that federalism
has been unworkable in the area of family law.
Third, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriage would be an unprecedented form of constitutional
amendment, cutting short an ongoing national debate
over what privileges and benefits, if any, ought to
be conferred on same-sex couples, and preventing democratic
processes from expanding individual rights.
Fourth, the amendment as proposed is constitutional overkill
that reaches well beyond the stated concerns of its
proponents, foreclosing not just courts but also
state legislatures from recognizing same-sex marriages
and perhaps other forms of legal support for same-sex
relationships. Whatever one thinks of same-sex marriage
as a matter of policy, no person who cares about
our Constitution and public policy should support
this unnecessary, radical, unprecedented, and overly
broad departure from the nation’s traditions and history.
Click
here to continue reading.
Click
here for details about the Federal Marriage Amendment.
H4PJ
Equality Coaliton Update
H4PJ is championing Equality in Colorado
and 5 other states that are considering discriminatory
amendments. The cost of producing religious based material
calling for equality is large. Focus on the Family and
other religious extremists will spend millions seeking
to put discrimination into the constitution! Join the thousands
of people that have joined the H4PJ Equality Coalition
today!
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You
can support this cause in several ways:
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Out and About
Cheney’s Daughter Talks Politics
By Jennifer Frey
Originally published by the Washington Post
 "Are
the eyes too much?"
Mary Cheney is peering into the makeup artist's mirror
in the early hours of the morning, getting "done" for
her appearance on "Good Morning America" with
Diane Sawyer. Taped to the mirror is the list of today's
guest stars. The name Nick Lachey -- aka the soon-to-be-ex-Mr.
Jessica Simpson -- she recognizes. Totally clueless on
actress Emmy Rossum. Needs some prompting on Josh Lucas
("Sweet Home Alabama"? Hottie who ends up with
Reese Witherspoon?).
Let's say she's a little bit out of her element. Mary
Cheney, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, had made
it her business to fly under the radar. She's a pro at
shunning the limelight. As the openly gay daughter of
a man running for office in a party opposed to gay marriage,
she took the hits and let them slide off her as if she
were coated with Teflon. Kind of like daddy.
Alan Keyes refers to her as a "selfish hedonist"?
No response. Gay-rights activists lampoon her by putting
her face on a milk carton ("Have you seen me?")?
No response. Her sexual orientation becomes fodder for a
presidential debate? No response.
Protesters show up in her hideout home town of Conifer,
Colo., and plant a "Bride of Satan" sign outside her house?
Nope, not a word.
Until now, that is. Cheney's self-written story of
life as a political daughter, campaign strategist and
happily partnered gay woman is out this week, with
a carefully planned media campaign surrounding its
release. At 37, she's trying out the Washington life
-- swapping snowboarding in the Rockies for commuting
on the Dulles Toll Road -- and heading out on the publicity
trail while longtime partner Heather Poe rips up pink
shag carpet in their new Great Falls home and consults
with Lynne Cheney, Mary's mom, about redecorating plans.
Called "Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of
Political Life," Cheney's book is primarily an insider's
story on campaign politics, a primer for those outside the
D.C. political bubble on what life is really like in the
midst of a presidential campaign -- with the added insight
of what it's like to be a candidate's child. (Cheney served
as her father's personal aide in 2000, then as director of
vice presidential operations on the 2004 campaign).
It's the other 10 percent of the book, though,
that the title speaks to -- and that has earned
early public focus, from Vanity Fair to People
to Sawyer, which is why she's moving through the
hallways of the "GMA" studio on this
particular morning, dressed in a tasteful gray suit with
a splash of color -- turquoise -- added by the shirt underneath.
She is the essence of understatement. Hasn't she always been?
Lucas goes by -- also in gray, but with that
early-morning sexy stubble he's perfected --
and neither bats an eyelash of recognition. Lachey's
bandmates look up as her Secret Service entourage
passes the greenroom and they have that "huh?" look
of "who was that?" Rossum glides by in a cascade
of gorgeous brown curls, getting briefed by an assistant
on the other boldface names gracing the hallways on this
particular Monday morning.
"Oh, Mary Cheney is here," she's told.
Her eyes light up for an instant.
"Mary J. Blige?"
Um,
no, not exactly.
Click
here to continue reading.
|
Hope
for Peace & Justice needs your support to continue
to provide a progressive, religious response to the
Religious Right. Donations, at any amount, are greatly
appreciated.
Click
here to Donate to H4PJ |
Pat Robertson Alert
Claims God Says Tsunami Possible For U.S.
Originally Published by the Associated Press
 The Rev. Pat Robertson says God has told him that storms
and possibly a tsunami will hit America's coastline this
year.
The founder
of the Christian Broadcasting Network has told viewers
of "The 700 Club" that
the revelations came to him during his annual personal
prayer retreat in January.
"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of
America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said May
8.
He added specifics in Wednesday's show.
"There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in
the Pacific Northwest," he said.
Robertson has come under intense criticism in recent months
for suggesting that U.S. agents should assassinate Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for Israel's pullout
from the Gaza Strip.
New
Ads say “Carbon Dioxide
is Life.”
Group Launches Campaign promoting Carbon Dioxide
 Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute – a
front group funded by ExxonMobil and other big oil companies – launched
two advertisements in response to Al Gore’s new movie,
An Inconvenient Truth.
The first ad portrays global warming science as a vicious
smear campaign against carbon dioxide. The ad, which despite
appearances is not an SNL parody, helpfully reminds us
that carbon dioxide is “essential to life” because “we
breathe it out.”
It’s comforting to know that this is the best global
warming rejectionists can come up with. There are plenty
of things that are healthy and essential in reasonable quantities
but harmful in extremely large quantities. (For example,
drinking a few glasses of water is beneficial. Drinking 10
gallons of water can kill you.) We need some carbon dioxide,
but too much causes global warming.
The second ad repeats the “carbon dioxide is our friend” theme
but adds a new wrinkle. It attempts to show that the scientific
evidence for global warming is in dispute, claiming a study
found “Greenland’s glaciers are growing.” (Watch
the second ad HERE)
Actually, the study (by Johanessen et al.) found
that there was an increase in snow accumulation on
Greenland’s
interior. Meanwhile, other studies show that glaciers are
thinning on Greenland’s coastal regions. This is exactly
what you’d expect as the earth gets warmer. The climate
scientists at realclimate.org explain:
However,
Johanessen et al. were not able to measure all of the coastal
ranges. Indeed, the thinning of the margins and
growth in the interior Greenland is an expected response
to increased temperatures and more precipitation in a warmer
climate. These results present no contradiction to the
accelerated sliding near the coasts.
Expect
more of this kind of deception from the right as An Inconvenient
Truth hits theaters on May 24.
 |
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