WASHINGTON (BP)–President Obama Monday named June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month” issuing a proclamation that goes even further than those of former President Clinton in its pro-homosexuality slant.
Clinton was the last president to issue such a proclamation, first doing so in 1999 and then in 2000 before he left office. Obama’s 572-word proclamation calls for ending the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — which was put in place under Clinton — and also includes the phrase “transgender” for a first time. Clinton’s proclamations never referenced transgenderism, a category that includes cross-dressers and people undergoing sex change operations. Another first: Obama’s proclamation reiterates his support for same-sex civil union laws.
President George W. Bush never issued a proclamation commemorating Gay Pride Month. Clinton’s proclamations differed from Obama’s in calling June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month,” leaving out “bisexual” and “transgender.”
“The LGBT rights movement has achieved great progress, but there is more work to be done,” Obama’s proclamation reads. “During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.”
The proclamation is posted on the White House website but is difficult to find and as of Tuesday afternoon was not listed under the website’s category of proclamations — a fact that some homosexual activists were criticizing.
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Michelle Malkin on Obama’s ‘terror’ double standard
Writing in her syndicated column today, Michelle Malkin shines the light on President Obama’s refusal to call Islamic terrorism exactly what it is:
When a right-wing Christian vigilante kills, millions of fingers pull the trigger. When a left-wing Muslim vigilante kills, he kills alone. These are the instantly ossifying narratives in the Sunday shooting death of late-term abortion provider George Tiller of Kansas versus the Monday shootings of two Arkansas military recruiters.
Tiller’s suspected murderer, Scott Roeder, is white, Christian, anti-government and anti-abortion. The gunman in the military recruitment center attack, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, is black, a Muslim convert, anti-military and anti-American.
Both crimes are despicable, cowardly acts of domestic terrorism. But the disparate treatment of the two brutal cases by both the White House and the media is striking.
President Obama issued a statement condemning “heinous acts of violence” within hours of Tiller’s death. The Justice Department issued its own statement and sent federal marshals to protect abortion clinics. News anchors and headline writers abandoned all qualms about labeling the gunman a terrorist. An almost gleeful excess of mainstream commentary poured forth on the climate of hate and fear created by conservative talk radio, blogs and Fox News in reporting Tiller’s activities.
By contrast, Obama was silent about the military recruiter attacks that left 24-year-old Pvt. William Long dead and 18-year-old Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula gravely wounded. On Tuesday afternoon — more than 24 hours after the attack on the military recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark. — Obama held a press conference to announce his pick for Army secretary. It would have been exactly the right moment to express condolences for the families of the targeted Army recruiters and to condemn heinous acts of violence against our troops.
Jars of Clay: The Long Fall Back To Earth
Jars of Clay is a band that refuses to be pigeonholed into a specific sound or genre. They’ve made ten albums in their time as a band, and not a single one of them sounds alike. But never have they released an album that shows off their musical influences so much as The Long Fall Back To Earth. Traces of 80’s synth bands such as The Cure or INXS and even groups as recent as The Killers can be found everywhere throughout the album.
Upon first listen, the album doesn’t offer anything truly exciting for the listener, except for the euphoric instrumental intro “The Long Fall” which bleeds immediately into “Weapons,” and the glorious rush of “Hero.” But upon further listens the songs reveal their individual charms. There’s nothing on this album that’s as passionate as Good Monsters, as wickedly funny as If I Left the Zoo and as deeply moving as Much Afraid.
The album goes beyond normal Christian music “Jesus is my boyfriend” clichés and instead delves deeper into human relationships that any CCM band in recent memory. Tracks like “Closer” and “Don’t Stop” make this hugely apparent. Indeed, the title for the album comes from a line in the song “Safe To Land” (which first appeared on the Closer EP in 2008), which describes a broken relationship and offers the image of a plane waiting to land as a metaphor for grace. It’s a moment of breathtaking and heartbreaking beauty that shows why Jars of Clay is leaps and bounds better than any other CCM band making music today.
Elsewhere on the album, the band explores ideas of finding solace in music (“Headphones”), defense of their right to experiment (“Scenic Route,” the best track on the album), and add a little mentorship in the form of “Boys (Lesson One)”. All in all, the album is less cohesive than any of their other albums. A lot of the time it sounds like the band is playing it too safe, like on “There Might Be A Light” and “Forgive Me,” while at other times they’re taking full advantage of their creativity (“Scenic Route,” “Heart”). It’s useless to say that this album is a new step for Jars of Clay, because every album is a new step for Jars of Clay. And even if this is an average Jars of Clay album, an average Jars of Clay album is better than most other bands best albums.