By: Brian Sikma

Just before Thanksgiving, Planned Parenthood of Indiana distributed a press release announcing that for the first time ever they were offering gift certificates that could be redeemed at any one of their 35 locations around the state. The press release suggested that these gift certificates would make a wonderful and appropriate Christmas or holiday gift for someone you know.

As we approach that season of the year when we celebrate the greatest birth in all the world, the birth of the Christ-child, it is deeply unfortunate that Planned Parenthood of Indiana has taken this opportunity to promote their dark practices. As we celebrate birth and take a little extra time to recognize those who may need our assistance and kindness as they struggle through a difficult period in their life, we should give no place to organizations or entities that promote an agenda and culture of needless and unwarranted death.

The values and virtues of thankfulness, generosity, love, peace, joy, kindness and life are what we celebrate at this season. These qualities define what it means to have a respect and love for humanity and they are hardly the attributes of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has a dark history of promoting abortion irrespective of the situation or the dictates of ethics and love. No other single organization has done more to implement in practice the concept that unborn life is not worthy of our respect and not worthy of the protection which we or government would offer it.

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Tom Rose, who wrote the below article, contacted the Indianapolis Star to see if they could perhaps run a toned-down and shortened version of the op-ed before the election. Rose was seeking to draw attention to the media’s failure to carefully scrutinize Andre Carson’s faith while at the same time having no qualms about reviewing the faith of other candidates, an example being former-GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a follower of the Mormon faith.

The Star told Rose that they could not publish his article because it was to close to the election and Carson would not be able to adequately respond. Yet Rose’s article does not attack Carson but rather asks questions and makes careful charges against the mainstream media for its failure to give Carson a chance to distinguish himself from other, less freedom loving, Muslims.

The real crux of this incident is not Carson’s personal faith, but the unwillingness of the media in general to defend its own values system while asking serious questions of a values system who’s adherents often make declarations against the foundations of freedom. A culture, and a media, that is unwilling to believe in the goodness of its own values system is a culture-or media-that is quite unsure of its identity.

Editor’s Note: Tom Rose, one of the candidates who ran during the GOP nominating process for Tuesday’s special election, has written the below article on Democratic congressional candidate Andre Carson’s faith and the role of a candidate’s faith in politics.

By: Tom Rose

While both candidates for Tuesday’s special election to Congress have explained their positions on some important issues, there is a virtual media blackout preventing discussion of perhaps the most important and certainly most uncomfortable issue of this short campaign. That issue is religion.

Democrat Andre Carson is a recent convert to Islam. He proud of his faith and to his credit, appears both happy and willing to answer any questions the media asks him. The problem is that media isn’t asking any questions. Why not?

Is it because the media is worried that discussion of Carson’s Muslim faith would focus unfair attention upon a religious minority? Is it worried that asking him specific questions might sound too much like a constitutionally forbidden “religious test”? Neither explanation holds water since neither explanation prevented an aggressive, even belligerent focus on Mormonism during Mitt Romney’s recent presidential campaign.

Here is a thought. Maybe the list of murdered journalists, ransacked newspapers, torched embassies and whole countries subjected to crippling international pressures by millions of “aggrieved” Muslims has so intimidated even our local media that they now willingly impose upon themselves the very censorship that extremist Muslims demand when ever they are “offended”. Maybe the media showed none of the “sensitivity” to Mormons that it self righteously offers to Muslims during the Romney campaign because they did not fear violent outbursts of “Mormon Rage”?

Since many of the most prominent positions of influence and authority within the Muslim world are filled by people who openly call for the violent overthrow of the United States, the destruction of Western civilization and the establishment of a global Muslim caliphate, determining precisely where Mr. Carson stands vis-à-vis the leaders of his religion is not just a legitimate demand, it is an essential one. If we as voters are not entitled to ask Carson what role Islam plays in his thinking about public policy and national security, then when are we entitled to ask him?

[More After the Fold]

By: Brian Sikma 

On Tuesday, March 11th voters in Indiana’s 7th Congressional District will go to the polls in a special election to replace the late Congresswoman Julia Carson. The candidates set before them are Andre Carson (D), Jon Elrod (R) and Sean Shepard (L). For the past few weeks we’ve seen articles and heard news stories about this or that fact of the life histories of Mr. Carson and Mr. Elrod. The public is well aware of the general political affiliations of these two candidates and hopefully possesses some vague knowledge of where they stand one at least one or two issues.

There are similarities between the two major candidates; similarities that cause me to dislike both of them. However, on one very important issue one candidate in particular has adopted a disturbing stance. Andre Carson, a Muslim, has called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. In this time of great debate about America’s role in the world and specifically our role in defeating Islamic terrorists, it is utterly vital that individuals who, well meaning though they may be, push for a policy that would be a catastrophe for our national security are not sent to Washington to vote on critical pieces of legislation that impact our future.

Yet beyond perhaps a mention or two of this “out of Iraq” stance on the part of Mr. Carson, the mainstream media has failed to carefully touch on a very important underlying issue: Mr. Carson’s Islamic faith. It should not be assumed that Mr. Carson’s Muslim beliefs automatically tie him to those evil thugs who, in the name of their Islamic faith, engage in atrocities and periodically seek to force their brand of faith on anyone, anywhere.

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HB 1076 is a “bias crimes” (also known as “hate crimes”) bill that is making its way through the House. So far the majority of House Republicans have stood on the side of equal justice and common sense and have not supported the measure. The General Assembly has defeated this kind of bill before and it needs to do so again.

Here is an interesting video of what happened with a Wisconsin hate crimes statute. Whether you agree with the guy’s viewpoint isn’t the point here, the point is that this law punished him merely for expressing his thoughts on a subject.

I was originally going to post this as a comment to a previous post covering Gov. Romney’s speech, but instead I’ll use (or abuse, depending on your view) my status as a director of this blog to post my thoughts in this separate post.

You have to give Team Romney an A+ for imagery here. The Governor looked very presidential behind the podium with the flags behind him. His cadence as well measured and I think the average person who saw this got the image of a president.

The substance of the speech, however, was a little lacking. Although Gov. Romney used quotes from the founding fathers, he did not fully articulate the founders’ view of the role of religion in the public square. On the one hand he quoted John Adams saying that we have no government capable of managing the passions of men unbridled by morality and that our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people On the other hand he stated that his faith does not define his candidacy. He held that people who argue that one’s faith is not important when considered against “other important issues” are wrong. He then said no one should be elected or rejected to the office of the President based upon their religious convictions.

This apparent change of positions within the speech does not lend Gov. Romney the credibility that he needs.

Throughout the speech, Romney’s main tactic is to tie his Mormon faith to other Christian denominations. Admitting that differences do exist between traditional Christianity and Mormonism, he nevertheless downplays those differences in an attempt to highlight “our great moral heritage”. Many Christians, myself included, do not see the Mormon faith as being a mere off-shoot of Christianity. I have met Mormons; I have found them to be respectable and decent individuals. But these facts do not mean that the basic tenets of the Mormon faith are the same tenets that under gird the Christian faith.

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Presidential candidate and only Mormon in the field, Mitt Romney today gave his much anticipated defense for faith.  Some have made it out to be his “Kennedy Moment” while others have said he blew it.  While I know this is a national issue and not a state or local one, the Presidential primaries are about to start and by the time Indiana’s finally roles around in May, the race for nomination may not yet be decided.  So if you didn’t get a chance to see the speech, I’m posting his whole speech as well as the highlights (for those of you who don’t want to sit through the whole thing).  Give us your thoughts.

(The entire speech)

(The Highlights)