“We tried to defend the unborn child, the dignity of the family, but it was a holding action. We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged. We are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say we have lost all those battles.” That’s outgoing Focus On The Family leader James Dobson, admitting he and his social conservatives have lost the culture wars. Partly to blame is George W. Bush, they say. Or maybe they’re views on how humanity should operate aren’t simply outdated, but inherently wrong. [Telegraph]
Peter
Hopefully, all of his followers have heard his good news.
Alec
1. “Their views,” unless you mean to say “they are views.”
2. It was inevitable. The more they talked about things like marriage, the more the issues became clarified in the public’s mind.
3. They were responsible for forcing George Bush on us. They own his presidency.
Wayne
It’s one of the few good things you can say about the Bush presidency; it was so bad that it dealt a serious blow to the entire relgious right Christian conservative movement. Bush was so bad that he actually succeeded in bringing about CHANGE. lol
Trevor
Excuse me, but as your headline suggests that CONSERVATIVE is equated with anti-gay, you are sorely midled. I am a proud conservative, am gay, and support gay rights. Perhaps you might want to be more accurate and less misleading by referring to the RELIGIOUS RIGHT and not CONSERVATIVE. Remember, there are many Liberals out there, including the current president who DO NOT support full gay marriage – rather civil unions.
Alec
@Trevor: What makes American conservatism “anti-gay” is not their failure to support marriage equality, it is:
1. Support for sodomy laws and opposition to Lawrence v. Texas.
2. Opposition to any attempt to extend any protections to people on the basis of sexual orientation. Nor can opposition be chalked up to libertarian principles; those same people happily vote for employment anti-discrimination measures and hate crime statutes that cover other categories.
3. Opposition to civil unions and domestic partnership benefits.
4. Opposition to permitting gay men and lesbians to serve in the military.
Mikmars1
Despite this – never count these folks out. They will not stop organizing (prop 8 for example). They are relentless – so we have to remain as tireless.
rogue dandelion
this should make us more worried-
we are their last stand, their alamo. If they are going out, by jesus, they are going to take us with them.
George
To Trevor:
Maybe you should rethink calling yourself a conservative or calling yourself gay. If you consider yourself both, you don’t seem to be aware of the policy positions of the republican party.
Sorry.
John Smith
@George:
If Trevor is a man who has sex with men, he is entitled to call himself “gay.” Gay people have a whole spectrum of political beliefs, even if you don’t agree with them.
It’s like telling Clarence Thomas that he’s not allowed to call himself “black” because of his political views. Chicago politicians once told Barack Obama that he wasn’t “black” enough when he ran for Congress and lost. How stupid!
Jaroslaw
James Dobson says he is or was trying to uphold the family, the unborn child etc. If so, I would say obviously Gay families count and all the research shows they do a fine job raising kids. So in no way does banning same sex marriage help families or kids.
Abortion is a different matter. Many feel that life begins at conception. I personally do also. However, the most ardent supporters of this view (as groups) don’t do nearly enough to make sure if women were forced to carry children to term they wouldn’t be living in abject poverty. So until that happens, and it never will, I sadly endorse pro choice.
Jaroslaw
#6 Very True Mikmars 1 – the religious right has played possum and/or ressurected itself before!
Attmay
@Trevor: I’ve been calling them the Religious WRONG for years.
Scott
No, YOU are the evil, Dobson! Go fuck yourself with the dildo you’ve had your eye on.
naprem
I know it’s a cheap shot, but seriously, if you’re a professional writer, you should know the difference between “their” and “they’re.”
Nathan
How can equal rights and universal suffrage possibly be bad for the country? Any country? Media doesn’t talk bipartisanship when Conservatives are in power because bipartisanship is not in the Conservative lexicon unless Conservatives are out of power. Conservative definition of bipartisanship is pure obstructionism when they’re out of power and wedge issue divisiveness when they’re in power.
What this guy fails to acknowledge is that the prevailing party for the past 28 years has abused its power to debase the poor and middle class without checks or balances, giving free reign to the corporate class. This has included all manner of denial of rights and opportunity to those who foot the bill for everything: those same poor and middle classes. Alternatively using red peril/immigrant threat/gay agenda/terrorism/boogieman du jour wedge issues, they’ve kept control by dividing the poor and middle classes with suspicion/mistrust harboring innuendo and outright lies. It took close to 30 years, but the American People are wise to this, and it took only a world wide financial crisis brought on by the “no-government is better government/free market can regulate itself” policies, central to Trickle Down Reganomics, that have systematically made the poor poorer, shrunk the middle class, and widened the gap between the working classes and the richm, “Captains of Industry” class. You know, the one with all the money and no tax liability. So, it’s we little folk who have taken back the reins of government, and the shrinking conservative segment, a mere fifth of the self identified voting public, are crying foul because their idea of checks and balances is that all the power to keep the not-rich down is in their hands; crying foul because they’ve lost it. Real checks and balances includes letting the electorate vote the bums out, which we have. Real checks and balances is evidenced by the pendulum of public attitude swinging back to taking the power until recently used to steamroll over the interests of the greater public to currently ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness even to the historically most marginalized segments of society.
This guy just doesn’t understand that his day in the sun is over. It takes generational attrition to eliminate the most regressive conservatism, and his generation is dying out. Quickly. Younger generations of voters are moving into majority. Even the most conservative among them are leagues more progressive than the old guard, angry white male model. You’ve lost. You’re archaic and anachronistic. Dobson would do better not using parenting rhetoric about what we should be shocked by, as if it were his prerogative to decide for the remaining 79% of the Democratic and Independent public who disagree with him what is best. The progressive left controls the Executive and Legislative branches of government because the Conservative Right has proven itself incompetent to ensure safe and secure national posterity. We can tell as a result of paying attention to the results of Conservative stewardship, especially these previous eight years. Stop wasting all our time and energy. Retire, and let the rest of us carry on in the modern world.
David Marshall
To date the Veterans Court Chief Judge’s “Constitution, statutes and regulations” violations have not been corrected![1] Now gone for both active U.S. Service Personnel and U.S. Veterans are the check and balances within and between our three (3) branches of government, i.e., the Legislative (U.S. House and Senate), the Executive (e.g., Departments of Defense [DOD] and Veterans Affairs [DVA]) and the Judicial Branch. Please make your members in the U.S. House and Senate accountable.
The 1950 U.S. Supreme Court’s FERES DOCTRINE holds the DOD harmless for no matter the cause, injuries to active duty personnel. In 1988 the U.S. Congress’s Veteran’s Judicial Review Act created the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals (COVA). This is a U.S. Congressional no teeth inferior LEGISLATIVE Court. It can not hold the DOD & DVA responsible for the underlying facts of a case. Its Chief Judge describes veterans captured within an out of control, DVA health care process. Lost is a before military service right to a facts of the case reviewing and precedence setting, superior Judicial Branch Court. All veterans are captured within the “freely ignored” “Constitution, statutes and regulations” Executive Branch. Also in 1994 is the to date ignored U.S. Senate’s, “The Feres Doctrine should not be applied for military personnel who are harmed by inappropriate human experimentation when informed consent has not been given.”[4]
In 2009, fifteen (15) years after the COVA Chief Judge’s and U.S. Senate statements, the Secretary of the DVA and his laymen “initial adjudicators” still are not held responsible for their “freely ignored” and medically brainless “Schedule of Ratings for Disabilities” decisions. In 1994 the Chief Judge of Congress’s 1988 established inferior Veterans Court stated that the, “Constitution, statutes and regulations” are “policy freely ignored” by both the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and “The Veterans Health Administration” (VHA), i.e., the “STATE OF COURT” transcript PARAGRAPH 9 with Congress’s law of the land, no allowed Court review U.S. CODE, TITLE 38, SECTIONS (§) 511 and § 7252. Decisions of the Secretary; finality. REFERENCES [1], [2] & [3].
A couple of examples of the “initial adjudicators” to date “freely ignored” are this veterans 1957 DVA Physician’s resultant USAF Physician’s, “MPerR PERMANENT” “SURGEON HQ ARRC JUN 25 ‘58 MEDICALLY DISQUALIFIED FOR MILITARY SERVICE” (1952 to 1956)! Then the layman adjudicator’s brainless 6/27/96 Supplemental Statement Of Case (SSOC) no “…competent medical evidence…”. After an ongoing 18 years in the DVA administrative process the veteran receives a 100% disability. To date there is still no recognition of their 1957 DVA physician’s resultant 1958 USAF physician “disqualified”!
REFERENCES (Emphasis added throughout) with comments:
[1] “STATE OF COURT, CHIEF JUDGE FRANK Q. NEBEKER, STATE OF THE COURT, FOR PRESENTATION TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF VETERANS APPEALS THIRD JUDICIAL CONFERENCE, OCTOBER 17-18, 1994 {as it appears in Veterans Appeals Reporter}”
——————–PARAGRAPH 9 of 16 in “STATE OF COURT” TRANSCRIPT records DVA laymen ignoring medical opinion without veteran recourse.—————————–
“I believe my message is clear. There is, I suggest, no system with judicial review which has within it a component part free to function in its own way, in its own time and with one message to those it disappoints — take an appeal. That is, I am afraid, what we have today in many of the Department’s Agencies of Original Jurisdiction — that is AOJs — around the country. Neither the Court, through the Board, the Board, nor the General Counsel has direct and meaningful control over the Agencies of Original Jurisdiction. Indeed, it is also clear that the VHA — the Veterans Health Administration — ignores specific directives to provide medical opinions as directed. And this is resulting in unconscionable delays. Let us examine judicial review. Remember, the Court and the Board do not make policy, the Secretary and Congress do. The Court simply identifies error made below by a failure to adhere, in individual cases, to the Constitution, statutes, and regulations which themselves reflect policy — policy freely ignored by many initial adjudicators whose attitude is, “I haven’t been told by my boss to change. If you don’t like it — appeal it.” The complete 16 paragraph “STATE OF COURT” transcript is available on request. Previously at, and now missing from the Chief Judges and state_of_court sites: http://www.goodnet.com/~heads/nebeker & http://www.firebase.net/state_of_court_brief.htm The legal-dictionary source “http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/federal+court”>Federal Courts notes in part: “The court may not review the schedule of ratings for disabilities or the policies underlying the schedule.”
The top medically ignorant “boss” is Congress’s confirmed “Secretary” of the DVA.
AND THE CONGRESS’S “policy freely ignored” UNITED STATES CODE law of the land, take away from Veterans:
[2] UNITED STATES CODE, TITLE 38 > PART I > CHAPTER 5 > SUBCHAPTER I >
§ 511. Decisions of the Secretary; finality
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/usc…11—-000-.html
“(a) The Secretary shall decide all questions of law and fact necessary to a decision by the Secretary under a law that affects the provision of benefits by the Secretary to veterans or the dependents or survivors of veterans. Subject to subsection (b), THE DECISION OF THE SECRETARY AS TO ANY SUCH QUESTION SHALL BE FINAL AND CONCLUSIVE AND MAY NOT BE REVIEWED BY ANY OTHER OFFICIAL OR BY ANY COURT, whether by an action in the nature of mandamus or otherwise.”
THEREFORE, NO COURT REVIEW OF THE MEDICALLY UNTRAINED DVA laymen and “Secretary” “schedule of ratings for disabilities” decisions as proven by:
[3] UNITED STATES CODE, TITLE 38 PART V > CHAPTER 72 > tcuts id=lw_1256062585_23>SUBCHAPTER I >
§ 7252. Jurisdiction; finality of decisions
“(b) Review in the Court shall be on the record of proceedings before the Secretary and the Board. The extent of the review shall be limited to the scope provided in section 7261 of this title. THE COURT MAY NOT REVIEW THE SCHEDULE OF RATINGS FOR DISABILITIES adopted under section 1155 of this title or any action of the Secretary in adopting or revising that schedule.”
[4] December 8, 1994 REPORT 103-97 “Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans’ Health? LessonsnSpanning Half a Century.” Hearings Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 103rd Congress 2nd Session. With NOTES 1 to 170.