Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
Ted Olson, who argued the Supreme Court case that ended California’s ban on same-sex marriage, condemning Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for calling the decision “judicial activism.”
It is a sad thing when people don’t understand that the people cannot vote away the rights of minorities.
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TFN founder and current president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards, during Wednesday’s anniversary of the Wendy Davis filibuster.
One year later, we come back together, and we’re all in. Know what we’re going to do to restore women’s rights and health in Texas? We’re going to do any damn thing it takes.
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Jonathan Saenz, the lawyer/lobbyist who heads up Texas Values, insisting that supporters of LGBT equality are out to imprison anyone who opposes them.
That’s right, that’s right. You know, they tried to do something like that here in Texas. … But I mean, this is what they want. I mean, there’s no question. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen them try to do it with legislation here in Texas at the state level. It is a goal of theirs to put people in jail that disagree with homosexual marriage, without question — or the homosexual lifestyle.
Read the article
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Dan Patrick, Republican nominee for Texas lieutenant governor, at this past weekend’s “Faith and Freedom Coalition” policy conference.
We have too many candidates and too many elected officials that think politics and service is about them. It’s about Him. It’s about building the kingdom for Him.
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John Paulk, a former spokesman for the “ex-gay” movement.
There was a time in my life when I used to sound a lot like Rick Perry. In fact, for more than ten years I was one of the nation’s leading spokesmen for the ‘ex-gay’ movement. But I was in denial. It wasn’t in fact true, any of it. Worse than being wrong, it was harmful to many people—and caused me years of pain in my own life. Which is why I have this to say to the Rick Perrys of the world: You don’t understand this issue. At all.
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Former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, claiming that gay marriage is bad for the economy.
When we continue to see a decline in marriage and a redefinition of marriage, you get less marriage. You get families that aren’t as strong, and as a result, society generally, the economy suffers.
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Jody Hice, a Republican candidate for a U.S. House seat from Georgia.
Although Islam has a religious component, it is much more than a simple religious ideology. It is a complete geo-political structure and, as such, does not deserve First Amendment protection.
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Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, drawing parallels between the ongoing debate over marriage equality and the nation’s long struggle over slavery and civil rights for African-Americans.
The battle looked like it was lost, but it really wasn’t. And that’s kind of like where we are right now. Anybody heard lately that we’re losing the marriage issue? Anybody heard that argument? You notice some similarities? I’m not comparing slavery to same-sex marriage, OK? I’m just pointing out that when you have these fights, what’s interesting is that if you look at same-sex marriage, it’s now legal in 17 states.
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Bonus: David Barton is still lying about San Antonio.
John Paulk is right.
Jody Hice has an interesting argument that might deserve some debate here at TFN Insider. Here is the anthropologist in me talking.
Despite what most idiots on the Religious Right might think, our American view of religious freedom is posited on the separation of religion and government mandated by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The problem with Islam (particularly radical Islam) and its ideological blood-brother (Christian fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism) is that both see no line of division between religion and government. Rather, the religion is always the government, and the government is always the religion—there is no twain where they meet—because they are both one and the same.
In addition, the U.S. Constitution has the view that the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Methodists, Lutherans, Charismatics, Pentecostals, etc. are free to go off and do their own religious thing—as long as they do not violate the First Amendment by forcing their religious viewpoints on people who do not subscribe to them. However, radical Islam and Christian fundamentalism insist that everything is going to be either their way or the highway (including the highway of death) for anyone who is not willing to go along with their insistence that religion and government are one and the same—and all must submit to the system.
Given this binding of religion and government into ONE under Islam, Jody Hice aptly brings up the question of whether Islam can be treated solely as a religion—and nothing else—when its actual followers insist that there is much more to it than just that—and that their goal is to impose the WHOLE PACKAGE on anyone that they can. In this view, the First Amendment protection from Islam is viewed not as the great help of freedom that it usually is—but rather as a weakness (the proverbial “foot wedged in the doorway” that will give radical Islam the initial leverage it needs to eventually wedge the entire ISLAMIC PACKAGE by force into American life and government. This is an interesting issue when framed in this way.
However, and I think this is crucially important. Those Americans who are so afraid of radical Islam taking over the United States (making Islam and government one in the same for all Americans) need to understand in spades that Christian fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism in the United States are no different from radical Islam. Their goals are exactly the same. As a famous dissident Southern Baptist (Pastor Godsey) has said, “There is not a dime’s worth of difference between the two of them.”
We Americans have to understand that we quite literally have our own Taliban living right here among us in the United States today and working hard each day to make a so-called “Christian” equivalent of radical Islam be the dictator and arbiter of every action in American life—an American life where oppression, hatred, and death rule the day under a political system where religion and government are bound together as one and the same.
The prospect of something like this would have scared the doody out of Thomas Jefferson, and it should scare the doody out of you too. Mark my word. If you do not take peaceable action to stop them, they will one day order the closure of your home church, and they will send city workers down to board it up so it cannot be used.