I Am Offended – Part 1

I am so offended that bunches of whinny little people are pretty much making ALL of us change who we are and what we do and what we say. And we seem to be so afraid of them that we do it. The bottom line is that no body will go through life never seeing or hearing or experiencing things we don't like of that “offends” us - it is not possible unless we live in a closet and never go out into the “real” world.

Lets take this to the extremes and be offended say by towns or cities that have Kill in their names.

Battenkill (What is a Batten and why do they kill them?), Catskill (Does that mean they like to kill cats?), Fishkill (Why are they killing all the fish?) how about Waterford . . . we use water to Baptize people so the word water should be eliminated; I am also offended that on TV and in Movies men are portrayed as bumbling idiots who act like children – they should always be portrayed as the hard working, family supporting people that they are. I am offended by politicians who have armed body guards who want to take everyone else's guns away.

I am offended by the trash that the entertainment industry puts out, have we no shame or morals anymore? I am offended that these people have slowly but surely changed our culture to accept things that used to be considered dirty / sleezy / immoral etc. It is no wonder that our society is falling apart.

I am offended that the very people who need welfare and food stamps and public housing are all walking around with iphones, ipads and other such devices.

I am offended by people who drink their coffee “black”. - isn't that racist?

As a big person I am offended by people wearing “skinny” jeans.

I am offended that car tires no longer have the “white wall” option. Whats up with that?

I am offended that sports teams show white males in a bad light such as “Buccaneers” and “Raiders”. Shouldn't tall people be offended by “the Giants”.

James Kavanaugh: "I Laugh and Cry with the Same Eyes"

James Kavanaugh: "I Laugh and Cry with the Same Eyes"

I laugh and cry with the same eyes,
Love and hate with the same heart.
I feel my rage and my gentleness,
My sanity and suicide.
When I hide my anger, my joy doesn't seem real.
When I hide my fear, my strength is a fraud.
If I only laugh, I leave no place for your pain.
If I only shout, I leave no place for your tenderness.
I want to be all of myself,
So you can be all of yourself,
And together we can be whole.

City of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons

By Todd Starnes   Published October 14, 2014   FoxNews.com

The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.

“The city’s subpoena of sermons and other pastoral communications is both needless and unprecedented,” Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Christina Holcomb said in a statement. “The city council and its attorneys are engaging in an inquisition designed to stifle any critique of its actions.”

ADF, a nationally-known law firm specializing in religious liberty cases, is representing five Houston pastors. They filed a motion in Harris County court to stop the subpoenas arguing they are “overbroad, unduly burdensome, harassing, and vexatious.” 

“Political and social commentary is not a crime,” Holcomb said. “It is protected by the First Amendment.”

The subpoenas are just the latest twist in an ongoing saga over the Houston’s new non-discrimination ordinance. The law, among other things, would allow men to use the ladies room and vice versa.  The city council approved the law in June.

The Houston Chronicle reported opponents of the ordinance launched a petition drive that generated more than 50,000 signatures – far more than the 17,269 needed to put a referendum on the ballot.

However, the city threw out the petition in August over alleged irregularities.

After opponents of the bathroom bill filed a lawsuit the city’s attorneys responded by issuing the subpoenas against the pastors.

The pastors were not part of the lawsuit. However, they were part of a coalition of some 400 Houston-area churches that opposed the ordinance. The churches represent a number of faith groups – from Southern Baptist to non-denominational.

“City council members are supposed to be public servants, not ‘Big Brother’ overlords who will tolerate no dissent or challenge,” said ADF attorney Erik Stanley.  “This is designed to intimidate pastors.”

Mayor Parker will not explain why she wants to inspect the sermons. I contacted City Hall for a comment and received a terse reply from the mayor’s director of communications.

“We don’t comment on litigation,” said Janice Evans.

However, ADF attorney Stanley suspects the mayor wants to publicly shame the ministers. He said he anticipates they will hold up their sermons for public scrutiny. In other words – the city is rummaging for evidence to “out” the pastors as anti-gay bigots.

Among those slapped with a subpoena is Steve Riggle, the senior pastor of Grace Community Church. He was ordered to produce all speeches and sermons related to Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality and gender identity.

The mega-church pastor was also ordered to hand over “all communications with members of your congregation” regarding the non-discrimination law.

“This is an attempt to chill pastors from speaking to the cultural issues of the day,” Riggle told me. “The mayor would like to silence our voice. She’s a bully.”

David Welch, director of the Houston Area Pastor Council, also received a subpoena. He said he will not be intimidated by the mayor.

“We’re not afraid of this bully,” he said. “We’re not intimidated at all.”

He accused the city of violating the law with the subpoenas and vowed to stand firm in the faith.

“We are not going to yield our First Amendment rights,” Welch told me. ‘This is absolutely a complete abuse of authority.”

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, said pastors around the nation should rally around the Houston ministers.

“The state is breaching the wall of separation between church and state,” Perkins told me. ‘Pastors need to step forward and challenge this across the country. I’d like to see literally thousands of pastors after they read this story begin to challenge government authorities – to dare them to come into their churches and demand their sermons.”

Perkins called the actions by Houston’s mayor “obscene” and said they “should not be tolerated.”

“This is a shot across the bow of the church,” he said.

This is the moment I wrote about in my book, “God Less America.” I predicted that the government would one day try to silence American pastors. I warned that under the guise of “tolerance and diversity” elected officials would attempt to deconstruct religious liberty. 

Sadly, that day arrived sooner than even I expected.

Tony Perkins is absolutely right. Now is the time for pastors and people of faith to take a stand.  We must rise up and reject this despicable strong-arm attack on religious liberty. We cannot allow ministers to be intimidated by government thugs.

The pastors I spoke to tell me they will not comply with the subpoena – putting them at risk for a “fine or confinement, or both.”

Heaven forbid that should happen. But if it does, Christians across America should be willing to descend en masse upon Houston and join these brave men of God behind bars.

Pastor Welch compared the culture war skirmish to the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, fought in present-day Harris County, Texas. It was a decisive battle of the Texas Revolution.

“This is the San Jacinto moment for traditional family,” Welch told me. “This is the place where we stop the LGBT assault on the freedom to practice our faith.”

We can no longer remain silent. We must stand together - because one day – the government might come for your pastor.

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is "God Less America."

Ten Tips For The Day

1. I'm not saying let's go kill all the stupid people. I'm just saying let's
    remove all the warning labels and let the problem work itself out.
2. I changed my car horn to gunshot sounds. People move out of the
    way much faster now.
3. You can tell a lot about a woman's mood just by her hands. If they
    are holding a gun, she's probably angry.
4. Gone are the days when girls used to cook like their mothers.
     Now they drink like their fathers.
5. You know that tingly little feeling you get when you really like
     someone? That's common sense leaving your body.
6. I don't like making plans for the day because then the word
    "premeditated" gets thrown around in the courtroom.
7. I didn't make it to the gym today. That makes five years in a row.
8. I decided to change calling the bathroom the John and renamed
    it the Jim.  I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning.
9. Dear paranoid people who check behind shower curtains for murderers,
    if you find one, what's your plan?
10.  Everyone has a right to be stupid. Some just abuse the privilege.

Why I Oppose Liberalism

From Townhall.com

John Hawkins      Oct 11, 2014

Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks. Like a tick, liberalism latches onto a victim and sucks him dry. Of course, a single tick can’t gorge itself on so much blood that it does to a dog what liberalism did to Detroit. It doesn’t turn the different parts of the dog against each other. The tick doesn’t tell everyone he’s a victim and that the dog is greedy if he tries to scratch it off.

You can’t be both a good Christian and a good liberal because they’re incompatible and liberalism makes no exceptions for religious beliefs. It demands to be placed first in a person’s life, even above God; a liberal who stands up for his Christian beliefs or who merely asks that Christians not be demeaned will be ostracized for it by other liberals. Churches that adopt liberal beliefs inevitably become such pale imitations of the truth that missionaries should be sent in to convert them to Christianity.

Liberalism is an ideology of tribalism and hatred. It works incessantly to undermine anything that truly brings America together -- like Christianity, the culture and love of country -- so it can try to rebind people together as liberal drones. Relatively minor differences of opinion between liberals and those who disagree with them are habitually elevated to encourage hated.

For example, there’s no logical, rational reason that…

…If you oppose illegal immigration, you must hate Hispanics.

….If you oppose Affirmative Action, you must hate blacks.

….If you oppose free birth control, you must hate women.

….If you’re concerned about radical Islam, you must hate all Muslims.

….If you oppose gay marriage, you must hate gays.

Yet, liberalism promotes those lies incessantly to keep people at each other’s throats. Liberals have to convince their supporters that they’re hated for who they are to keep them from asking uncomfortable questions about why liberalism fails and conservatism works. As long as you’re brainwashed into believing that you’re universally hated by everyone except liberals for something you can’t control, you have nowhere else to turn.

Turning people against each other, lying about your opponents and adopting an ends justifies the means mentality are all interwoven into liberalism. Most liberals aren’t evil, but liberalism is a darkness of the soul and the more fully a person adopts it, the more of an awful human being he becomes.

Liberalism encourages a habitual hatred of people who aren’t liberal. It exaggerates grievances, elevates victimhood, excuses laziness and immoral behavior, undermines success and it pours acid on the pillars that hold up our entire society. To paraphrase Thomas Sowell,

Civilization has been aptly called a ‘thin crust over a volcano’. (Liberalism is) constantly picking at that crust.

Liberalism seems to begin with the assumption that there’s an infinite amount of money, goodness, cultural resiliency and goodwill -- and that nothing people do can have a negative impact on it. We’ll have plenty of money no matter how much liberals spend. People will be good no matter how much evil liberalism condones. Our culture will remain strong no matter how much liberals denigrate it and discourage people from embracing it. There will be no long term consequences of pushing division and hatred, no matter how often liberals do it.

If only they were right about that or if their policies worked. Want to know the consummate liberal policy? It’s Obamacare. It was passed with all Democrat votes and sold to the public almost entirely with lies. Almost every problem with the law was predicted by the law’s opponents beforehand and was vigorously denied by liberals. The law hasn’t worked as intended, it has had disastrous consequences and is extremely unpopular. Yet, liberals STILL support it wholeheartedly and blame the people who begged them not to pass the law for the difficulties it has.

As Talleyrand would say, “They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

That would be tolerable if liberalism confined its hatred, wickedness, stupidity and incompetence to liberal enclaves, but on top of all its other faults, liberalism is an ideology for control freaks. It’s not enough for liberals to bankrupt California and destroy Detroit; they have to centralize their policies to force the people who know better to suffer for their sins. After all, if people are given a choice, they may not choose liberalism and worse yet, they may prove to be bad examples by prospering BECAUSE they didn’t choose liberalism and that can’t be allowed.

However, the most unforgivable thing about liberalism is the sickening way it deceives people to destroy human potential. Liberalism comes in the guise of a friend offering “help” to desperate people. It’s the same sort of “help” a fisherman gives his catch; it just comes with a different sort of hook through the mouth. Liberals get people hooked on welfare and food stamps instead of teaching them to take care of themselves. They encourage people to think of themselves as helpless victims who can’t deal with the world without liberal help. Instead of helping the weak to become strong, they encourage them to be ever more sensitive and to look for new reasons to be offended. There are whole communities of people who’ve been voting for liberal policies for decades with nothing to show for it except poverty, crime, and decay. There are people on welfare today who would have had happy, productive lives if they had been pushed to take care of themselves. There are people who’ve been so convinced by liberalism that the deck is stacked against them that they’ve never tried to get their piece of the American dream. It’s wrong to do that to people. It’s sickening. It’s immoral.

Liberalism empties treasuries, blackens souls, and decimates everything it touches over the long haul. One day, unless the American people wise up to the damage liberalism is causing, it will eventually ruin this nation beyond repair.

If I Fail

Just read this in a daily E-Mail that I receive and thought I SHOULD share it.

If I Fail...
(By John MacArthur)
If I fail to teach my son to fear [reverence] God,
the devil will teach him to hate God.
If I fail to teach my son to guard his mind,
the devil will teach him to have an open mind.
If I fail to teach my son to obey his parents,
the devil will teach him to rebel and break his parents' hearts.
If I fail to teach my son to select his companions carefully,
the devil will choose them for him.
If I fail to teach my son to control his body,
the devil will gladly teach him to give it completely over to his lusts.
If I fail to teach my children to enjoy speech that is honorable to God,
the devil will fill their mouths with filth.
If I fail to teach my children to pursue their work,
the devil will make them lazy
If I fail to teach them to manage their money,
the devil will teach them to waste if on riotous living.
If I fail to teach them to love their neighbor,
the devil will gladly teach them to love only themselves!

From “The Upper Room”

One time, when I was a child, I was not picked last for a team; I wasn’t picked at all. The team captain who was supposed to choose the last remaining player declined to choose me. It hurt. Really hurt. But Cheryl, a girl on the other team, said, “Come on, Jennifer. You can be on our team.”

Twenty years later, I walked into a restaurant, and there was Cheryl. Throughout the years I had thought of her and what she did for me that day. She included me. She said that I was good enough. When I saw her, I was so choked up with emotion that I could barely speak. I thanked her for being nice to me when we were in school. Even though she remembered my face, she didn’t remember my name or that day on the playground. That was okay. I did remember, and her compassion still meant a lot to me.

Ecclesiastes suggests that compassion may be returned to us. Even small acts of kindness can make a big difference in someone else’s life. Our compassion is the bread we send out, and maybe one day those who enjoyed that bread long ago will be able to come back and tell us that what we did made a difference.

Racists! ! !

Those that holler racist the loudest and find racism in every aspect of life – they are the real racists as they look for the black vs white in everything,  they don’t just see people they see color. 

Poem by James Cavanaugh – I Played God Today

“I played God today
And it was fun!
I made animals that men had never seen
So they would stop and scratch their heads
Instead of scowling.
I made words that men had never heard
So they would stop and stare at me
Instead of running.
And I made love that laughed
So men would giggle like children
Instead of sighing.
Tomorrow, perhaps, I won't be God
And you will know it
Because you won't see any three-headed cats
Or bushes with bells on...
I wish I could always play God
So that lonely men could laugh!”
― James Kavanaugh, There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

Positive Marriage Quotes

The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent, and it must be equal.
-- Frank Pittman

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
-- Mignon McLaughlin

Marriage, like a submarine, is only safe if you get all the way inside.
-- Frank Pittman

Motto for the bride and groom:
We are a work in progress with a lifetime contract.
-- Phyllis Koss

If you treat your wife like a thoroughbred, you'll never end up with a nag.
-- Zig Ziglar