Our Books

If you enjoy this site, please consider purchasing one of our books (as low as $2.99). Click here to visit our Amazon page.

Our Books

Our Books
Books by Trevor Grant Thomas and Michelle Fitzpatrick Thomas

E-Mail Me:

NOTE: MY EMAIL ADDRESS HAS CHANGED! Trevor's new email address: trevorgrantthomas@gmail.com

Latest News/Commentary

Latest News/Commentary:

News/Commentary Archives:

News/Commentary Archives (for the current year; links to previous years archives at the bottom of each page)---PLUS: Trevor's Columns Archived (page linked at the bottom of the table below):

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

The Dangers of Homosexual Parenting

A pair of new studies reveal the dangers of homosexual parenting. From Focus on the Family on June 11:

A pair of studies published today in the journal Social Science Research turns the widely accepted notion that kids raised by parents in same-sex relationships grow up to become well-adjusted adults on its ear.

According to data from the New Family Structures Study, led by Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas at Austin, children raised by homosexual parents are dramatically more likely than peers raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from a host of social problems. Among them are strong tendencies, as adults, to exhibit poor impulse control; suffer from depression and thoughts of suicide; need mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.”

Also, according to Dr. Keith Ablow from Fox News:

A careful analysis of the research studies that led the American Psychological Association (in 2005) to assert that the children of gay and lesbian parents are in no way disadvantaged, compared to the children of heterosexual parents, has concluded those studies were inadequate. According to Dr. Loren Marks, Associate Professor at Louisiana State University, who authored the analysis: “The available data, which are drawn from small convenience samples, are insufficient to support a strong generalizable claim...such a statement would not be grounded in science.”

Of course, no new studies are really necessary for anyone with any truly objective sense to understand that the best model of parenthood is the “stable, two-parent biological married model” Millennia of civilizations have proved this, and good governments for millennia have realized that it benefits a culture to promote such relationships.

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Monday, June 4, 2012

Home Depot, JC Penney, Target on the Wrong Side of the Marriage Debate

With President Obama coming out in support of same-sex marriage, along with North Carolina voting overwhelmingly to amend its constitution in support of traditional marriage, combined with the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruling the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, the debate over marriage in the U.S. is white HOT.

Sadly, several large U.S. retailers have chosen to align themselves with the pro-same-sex marriage lobby. Home Depot long ago took sides in the marriage debate. More recently, Target and JC Penney joined Home Depot in support of same-sex marriage. Target has pledged $120,000 to promote the legalization of same-sex marriage. JC Penney has released a Father’s Day ad that shows two gay dads hugging their children. The ad reads, “What makes Dad so cool? He's the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver -- all rolled into one. Or two.”

Read more about the JC Penney ad here. Find out more about Home Depot and Target at American Family Association. Also, if you feel, as Michelle and I do, that such actions by these retailers mean that you will no longer shop there, make sure that you make your local managers aware of your decision.

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Sunday, June 3, 2012

To Define Marriage, We Must Discriminate

The NAACP recently decided to (surprise!) side with President Obama and liberals across the U.S. and endorse same-sex marriage. The board of directors for the organization released a statement declaring that “civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law.” Roslyn Brock, chairman of the NAACP’s board of directors, declared “We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law.”

Of course, one of the most frequent and favorite cries of the left is the dreaded “d-word:” discrimination. Never-mind that virtually every position in the marriage debate requires a measure of “discrimination.” As Al Mohler recently put it, “Discrimination—even ‘obvious discrimination’—is not necessarily wrong at all. Indeed, any sane society discriminates at virtually every turn, as do individuals. The law itself is an instrument of comprehensive discrimination.”

For example, Americans can’t vote in federal elections until age 18. Until ratification of the 26th Amendment in 1971, the federal voting age had been 21. For the most part, this was the case all over the world throughout the 19th and into the 20th centuries. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 withholds revenue from states that allow the purchase of alcohol by anyone under the age of 21.

A 1960 Federal Aviation Administration regulation forced U.S. pilots to retire at age 60. In December of 2007 President Bush signed a law that raised the mandatory pilot retirement age to 65. Almost every U.S. state severely limits the voting rights of convicted felons. Are not each of these examples of discrimination?

What’s more, as Mohler also points out, both individuals and governments discriminate on (gasp!) moral terms. “No sane person would ask a convicted child molester to be a baby sitter. No sane society would elect a known embezzler as state treasurer. These acts of discrimination are necessary and morally right.”

So a real dilemma for the left here lies not in their efforts to gain acceptance of same-sex marriage, but rather, how they would (eventually) discriminate and define marriage? Also problematic for liberals: upon what moral code would this definition rest?

Liberals have recently hinted at how they would discriminate to define marriage. Mike Raven, the brother of a lesbian, has created an online petition through Change.org, challenging Dictionary.com to “correct” its definition of marriage. He has gathered over 95,000 signatures. Raven began the petition after his lesbian sister became offended when North Carolina overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Dictionary.com currently defines marriage as, “the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.” An alternative definition (the “b” definition) is given as, “A similar institution involving partners of the same gender: gay marriage.” However, this isn’t good enough for Raven and those like-minded. They want the definition to read, “the social institution under which a man and woman, woman and woman, or man and man establish their decision to live as spouses by legal commitments, etc.”

Notice the “discrimination?” Raven’s definition only includes couples. What about the polygamists? What if one couple wanted to “marry” another?

As a conservative, I understand well how marriage should be defined and the moral reasons why my discriminatory definition is justified. First of all, as a Christian I accept that God gave us the institution of marriage, and that the union of one man and one woman is THE foundation of every social institution the world over. Strong and healthy marriages lead to strong and healthy families. Strong and healthy families lead to strong and healthy communities. Strong and healthy communities lead to strong and healthy churches, schools, businesses, governments, and so on.

Also, science supports what common sense (for most) has long revealed: children, and society, function best when men and women are united in strong and healthy marriages. In “Marriage and the Law: A Statement of Principles” published by the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, the authors note that, “Children raised outside of intact marriages have higher rates of poverty, mental illness, teen suicide, conduct disorders, infant mortality, physical illness, juvenile delinquency, and adult criminality. They are more likely to drop out of school, be held back a grade, and launch into early and promiscuous sexual activity, leading to higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases and early unwed parenthood.” Thus, it is simply a matter of good government to promote an institution—not redefine it—that is so beneficial to society.

However, I suspect that the real effort of liberals (whether some realize it or not) in the marriage debate is NOT simply “marriage equality.” Many in this debate have been deceived; for you see, ultimately, this battle is not, nor has it ever been, about marriage or discrimination.

Dan Brown of the National Organization for Marriage hinted at this when, after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned California’s Proposition 8 (a constitutional ballot initiative that defined marriage as a union of one man and one woman), he declared that, “The goal of this movement is to use the law to reshape the culture so that disagreement with their views on sex and marriage gets stigmatized and repressed like bigotry.” In other words, the pro-same-sex marriage movement is an attempt to morally legitimize homosexual behavior.

Doug Kmiec, professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, also hinted at this in his 2005 Becket Fund (a nonprofit institute dedicated to protecting freedom of religion) paper when he wrote, ‘Were federal equal protection or substantive due process to be construed to require states to license same-sex marriage, those who have profound moral or religious objection to the social affirmation of homosexual conduct would be argued to be the out-liers of civil society.’ Therefore, he argues that churches could be targeted for legal penalties and disadvantages as were universities that participated in racial discrimination decades ago.

There you have it. Marriage is just the means to a more sinister end for the homosexual movement and their like-minded liberal allies. This is about sex and about legitimizing, through the American judicial system and discrimination law, a sexual lifestyle many Americans find immoral (along with destructive and dangerous).

So, in the marriage debate (or any of the other “social issues”—or as I prefer, “moral issues”), if a liberal throws out the “discrimination” charge, or cries out with “how dare you try and force your morality on me!” remind them that their position requires discrimination and a moral stance as well.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Barack Obama: The Original Birther

Well, it looks like Barack Obama was born in Kenya. At least that’s what a booklet produced by his former literary agency said in 1991. Distributed throughout the publishing industry, and touting Obama’s first book—Journeys in Black and White—which was later abandoned, the brief biography claims that, “Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.” The agency continued to tout Obama’s Kenyan birth until April 2007, just after he announced his bid for U.S. President.

While distancing itself from the “Birther” narrative, Breitbart News, who obtained the booklet, declared that it was rehashing Obama’s birth past due to the “complicit mainstream media [refusing] to examine President Obama's ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him… [the pamphlet] is evidence--not of the President's foreign origin, but that Barack Obama's public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.” In other words, who knew: Barack Obama was the original “Birther!”

Whether Obama was born in Kenya, the U.S., or the Cherokee nation, the promotional booklet is more evidence for all too common an occurrence that Breitbart also points out: whether the President himself, his handlers, or his supporters, Obama’s public persona is manipulated whenever it’s expedient. With his cloudy birth records, composite girlfriend, dying mother, bombastic former pastor, gay marriage-revolution (he has not “evolved” on the issue, but rather “revolved,” as in full-circle), and so on, the President has often presented convenient narratives for the betterment of his political future.

Speaking of convenient narratives, it seems that editing Obama’s past to further his political future isn’t enough. The Obama administration has now taken to editing the official online White House biographies of nearly every U.S. president within the last 100 years. According to Fox News, each edit (which provides a link) finds a way to tout “a host of Obama administration initiatives, ranging from the health care overhaul to the so-called ‘Buffett Rule’ to his green-energy policies.

Speaking of the Cherokee nation, composite women, and political expediency, Elizabeth Warren appears to have caught on to Obama’s methods. For decades now the Massachusetts senate candidate has claimed to be 1/32 Cherokee to further (or attempt to further) her career. As recently as late April of this year, Ms. Warren said, “I’m very proud of my Native American Heritage.”

For nearly a decade prior to receiving a job as a Harvard Professor, Warren listed herself as a Native American in a directory of law professors. Her senate race opponent, GOP Senator Scott Brown, has accused her of “participating in Harvard's diversity sham.” In spite of Brown’s calls for her to “come clean,” Warren doubled down and declared, “Being Native American is part of who our family is and I'm glad to tell anyone about that.”

Warren also noted that her aunt often remarked that Warren’s grandfather “had high cheek bones like all of the Indians do.” Warren concluded that “Being Native American has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born.”

A Cherokee genealogist has recently blasted Warren saying, “Ms. Warren, some of us have independently done our own research and we know you have no documentation supporting your claim of Cherokee ancestry… You have claimed something you had no right to claim -- our history and our heritage and our identity…These are not things we choose to embrace when they benefit us and then cast aside when we no longer need them, but that is what you seem to have done…”

The Mainstream Media (MSM) is all too eager—even yearning, to play up these narratives, whether accurate or not, because it fits with their radical liberal worldview. Just as Bill Clinton was the “first black President,” Barack Obama, with his recent statement in support of same-sex marriage, has been anointed the “first gay President.” (Never-mind that he was for it before he was against it before he was for it—I told you it was a circle!)

Though they can find a near 50-year-old tale of a Mitt Romney prank (that is full of holes), the MSM virtually ignores Obama’s past, even when it is in print. Thus we are left with the alternative media to get to the truth in these matters. Oh well, at least that makes for more interesting political game. I just hope the country is not the loser in the end.

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com