A House Democrat to sponsor personhood amendment
Today is the first day that bills can be pre-filed for next year’s session of the General Assembly.
We’re told that two lawmakers intend to submit “personhood” resolutions – proposed constitutional amendments that would declare that life begins at fertilization, as would legal protection. All abortions would be banned; in vitro fertilization would be restricted.
Mississippi defeated a similar measure last week by 58 percent.
In the Senate, the sponsor will be Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville – no surprise, given his pro-life reputation. In the House, the sponsor will be Rick Crawford of Cedartown.
Here’s the thing: Crawford is a Democrat.
“I’m from rural Georgia,” he said. “I have to be well in step, and people have to trust me to represent their interests. It’s not a surprise to anyone that I’m pro-life. This is a discussion that is appropriate for us to have.”
Crawford is currently teaching political science at Shorter College – the school that now requires all employees to foreswear pre-marital, adulterous or homosexual relationships. Crawford also once studied to be a pastor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. So the biography fits.
But the fact that the premier piece of anti-abortion legislation in the House will be carried by a member of the minority caucus clearly is a sign that the rift between House Republican leaders and Georgia Right to Life is still going strong.
With Bobby Franklin gone to his Maker, and James Mills now in the business of sending certain state prisoners to theirs, we may have a shortage of rank-and-file House GOP members willing to be caught in the crossfire.
- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider
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271 comments Add your comment
rudikkingme
November 15th, 2011
8:30 pm
…and I said, “get lost”…
now
moron
Paddy O
November 15th, 2011
8:31 pm
oooh, i gotta a candidate for pinhead of the day – - – — r_____________e
Tom
November 15th, 2011
8:33 pm
and “In God We Trust” as a national motto is not the product of our founders…it was a reactionary act of defiance during the McCarthy era of anti-communist fervor, just as the addition of the St Andrew’s Cross on the Georgia state flag was a thumb-of-the-nose to federal civil rights legislation.
Paddy O
November 15th, 2011
8:36 pm
states rights, baby!
hiram bronson granbury
November 15th, 2011
8:39 pm
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
Paddy O
November 15th, 2011
8:41 pm
Tom – In God We Trust was on coin as early as 1864. hmmm.
Paddy O
November 15th, 2011
8:41 pm
define priest ridden.
hiram bronson granbury
November 15th, 2011
8:41 pm
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
Jeff
November 15th, 2011
8:41 pm
To “No Longer Republican” at 6:32 p.m.:
You are completely overmatched and obviously lacking in critical thinking, because you miss even obvious points about life. You said, and I quote, “girls and women have absolutely no say as to what goes on inside their bodies.”
Ummm, yes they do, my friend… now, I’ll talk slow, so listen close: THEY CAN CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE SEX! I will repeat that… THEY CAN CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE SEX!!!!! Why is this concept SO FREAKING HARD for liberals/progressives/pro-abortion people to grasp??? You want control? You want women to have the say-so over their reproductive systems? Fine… then CLAIM IT! Refuse to give it up to ANY man until you are in a committed, stable, financially secure MARRIAGE that you plan to be in for life! Don’t eff around in high school, don’t eff around in college, don’t eff around in your roaring “have fun” 20s, and don’t eff around in some “long term dating arrangement” when you are 30…. WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE A SOLID MARRIAGE! What is the harm in people getting married, building their married life together for a few years, saving up some money, becoming debt-free, and THEN HAVING CHILDREN????? Why do people have this overwhelming urge to get knocked up at 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 years old, when they can’t even afford to take care of themselves, much LESS provide for another human being???
All I see from “progressives” is a stubborn addiction to the “have fun at all costs” brand of morality. Nobody has patience, nobody has self control, nobody has the wisdom to think more than five minutes ahead. The motto of these people is “If it feels good, do it!” You know who thinks like that? Five year olds! You know how you get ahead in life? Self control, delaying pleasure, making tough decisions, sacrificing, and careful, conservative planning for your future.
It’s not the taxpayers fault that so many of these mothers of unwanted children can’t support themselves. It’s not our fault that, by utter lack of self control or forsight, these people get into unplanned pregnancies. And the answer is NOT to just kill off a fetus that, left to its own, would become a living, breathing human being. The answer is to slap our collective society across its face and say “WAKE UP!” If you are not in a situation where you can afford to have children, then DO NOT engage in behavior that will LEAD to children! It’s just like lung cancer — I know if I smoke, I’ll likely get lung cancer, so to prevent it, I DON’T SMOKE! Why can nobody else SEE THIS????
I am all for helping the people in our society who REALLY need it, and there are some poor single mothers out there who fall into this category. But there are ALSO a TON of people out there who get into the “poor single mother” or “unwed pregnant girl” boat because of BAD CHOICES and RISKY SEXUAL BEHAVIOR. We cannot and SHOULD NOT reward their behavior and validate their poor choices by just letting people get abortions any time they want. We are ENABLING people to engage in irresponsible sexual behavior. And NOBODY, from the left or the right, can argue with me about that point… that is a proven FACT in our society over the last 50 years.
God is going to judge us all, whether we like it or not… I prefer to stand with those who at least TRY to respect and honor his law instead of the bleeding-heart liberals to excuse every type of behavior under the sun just so they don’t come across as “judging” anybody.
Kudos to Crawford and Loudermilk for standing up for family values and solid Christian principles… but judging by the people on this blog, we will never get back to the moral nation we once were. We are a depraved society these days and we are in great moral decay… may God have mercy on our souls.
hiram bronson granbury
November 15th, 2011
8:43 pm
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
hiram bronson granbury
November 15th, 2011
8:44 pm
My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith, August, 6, 1816
hiram bronson granbury
November 15th, 2011
8:45 pm
Priests…dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Correa de Serra, April 11, 1820
hiram bronson granbury
November 15th, 2011
8:47 pm
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
td
November 15th, 2011
8:50 pm
Tom:
“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
–Adams wrote this on June 28, 1813, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson
“Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. … Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us.”
–History of the United States of America, Vol. II, p. 229.
“While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”
–The Writings of Washington, pp. 342-343
Alex
November 15th, 2011
8:50 pm
This is why I refuse to consider myself a Republican or a Democrat. They both disgust me. Nobody can provide scientific proof as to the moment when life begins. Essentially they are trying to force their opinion on when life begins down the throats of everyone else. I don’t think abortion should be used as a method of birth control. Then again, as a male, that is a choice I will never have to make. But again that should be a choice.
I’m tired of Democrats trying to control what I do with my money and Republicans trying to control what I do in my bedroom.
DannyX
November 15th, 2011
8:52 pm
I think this is a great idea!
I want my license plate to read Allah Akbar (God is Great)
Pretty generic, and non religious.
Tom
November 15th, 2011
8:54 pm
Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
- Thomas Jefferson, to the Danbury Baptists 1802
Shine
November 15th, 2011
8:56 pm
Anyone receiving a government provided contract, or job, or tax break, or farm subsidy, or corporate welfare, etc etc etc should be drug tested also.
DannyX
November 15th, 2011
8:57 pm
Do you mind if we use the Jefferson Bible td?
Jefferson’s Bible excluded all of Jesus’ miracles. You could say that Jefferson started the war on Christmas, and of course the war on Easter. Bill O’Reilly must hate Jefferson.
Allah Akbar!
Tom
November 15th, 2011
8:58 pm
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must approve the homage of reason rather than of blind-folded fear. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences…. If it end in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others it will procure for you.
- Thomas Jefferson 1787
td
November 15th, 2011
8:59 pm
James Madison
4th U.S. President
“Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”
–America’s Providential History, p. 93.
“When we view the blessings with which our country has been favored, those which we now enjoy, and the means which we possess of handing them down unimpaired to our latest posterity, our attention is irresistibly drawn to the source from whence they flow. Let us then, unite in offering our most grateful acknowledgments for these blessings to the Divine Author of All Good.”
–Monroe made this statement in his 2nd Annual Message to Congress, November
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:00 pm
If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D’Alembert, D’Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God.
- Thomas Jefferson 1814
DannyX
November 15th, 2011
9:00 pm
The Jefferson Bible did include Matthew 6:5, Don’t pray in public.
We should have a constitutional amendment that bans public prayer, its what our forefathers wanted.
td
November 15th, 2011
9:02 pm
Benjamin Rush
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution
“The gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation of life. Happy they who are enabled to obey them in all situations!”
–The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, pp. 165-166.
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:04 pm
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
- Thomas Jefferson (letter to John Adams) 1823
DannyX
November 15th, 2011
9:05 pm
“The gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation of life. Happy they who are enabled to obey them in all situations!”
I don’t think Republicans like td should be quoting the Gospels, Jesus didn’t give the rich much chance of reaching heaven, Republicans worship money.
td
November 15th, 2011
9:05 pm
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:00 pm
You, DannyX and others only quote Jefferson (Who BTW was our ambassador to France and did not take part in the writing of the Constitution) as your only source that we are a secular nation. I have provided quotes from the actual writers and delegates to the Constitutional convention.
Fair n balanced
November 15th, 2011
9:07 pm
So, life doesn’t begin until the fetus is “independent of its mother”. Well, when is that? Two, three, four years after birth? Killing a fetus inside the womb is bush league. Wait until after birth, look ‘em in the eye, and then slice their little head off.
Yup, a little harder after birth ain’t it.
td
November 15th, 2011
9:08 pm
Alexander Hamilton
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution
“I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.”
–Famous American Statesmen, p. 126.
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:11 pm
Yet, td, the document is completely and deliberately secular…..with no mention of God, Allah, Ra, Thor, Odin, Zeus or any of the 2,780 named and uniquely-identifiable supernatural beings fitting the accepted definition of ‘god’ found in the known writings and other artifacts of the known civilizations going back to the writings of the Sumerians.
Why?
td
November 15th, 2011
9:12 pm
Tom and DannyX Please pay close attention to the below quote as proof positive of what our founders intended:
Patrick Henry
Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
–The Trumpet Voice of Freedom: Patrick Henry of Virginia, p. iii.
“The Bible … is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed.”
–Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, p. 402.
John Jay
1st Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
“In forming and settling my belief relative to the doctrines of Christianity, I adopted no articles from creeds but such only as, on careful examination, I found to be confirmed by the Bible.”
–American Statesman Series, p. 360
hiram bronson granbury
November 15th, 2011
9:13 pm
The Treaty of Tripoli (Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary) was the first treaty concluded between the United States of America and Tripolitania, signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796 and at Algiers (for a third-party witness) on January 3, 1797. It was submitted to the Senate by President John Adams, receiving ratification unanimously from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797 and signed by Adams, taking effect as the law of the land on June 10, 1797.
The treaty was a routine diplomatic agreement but has attracted later attention because the English version included a clause about religion in America.
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The treaty is cited as historical evidence in the modern day controversy over whether there was religious intent by the founders of the United States government. Article 11 of the treaty has been interpreted as an official denial of a Christian basis for the U.S. government.
DannyX
November 15th, 2011
9:17 pm
td you want me to post all the George Washington quotes on religion???? You won’t like them.
“If they are good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa or Europe; they may be Mahometans, Jews, Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists.”
Bring on the Mexicans, George approved! George liked atheists too. George didn’t think we are a Christian nation did he td?
BILLY MAYS HERE
November 15th, 2011
9:23 pm
Just FYI, don’t respond to TD unless you’re telling him to stop posting.
Don’t post here anymore, TD.
td
November 15th, 2011
9:28 pm
DannyX and Tom, Why is it so hard for you to believe that this nation was founded on religious principals? I think there is ample proof that the founders wanted to not create a nation based on one form of Christianity (Quakers, Calvinist, Puritans, Baptist”’) and they surely did not want the state controlling Religion (Church of England). They did have every intention of this nation being created on fundamental Christian philosophy. The evidence is overwhelming to that fact.
BILLY MAYS HERE
November 15th, 2011
9:30 pm
>>>> Please don’t reply to TD <<<<<
td
November 15th, 2011
9:31 pm
BILLY MAYS HERE
November 15th, 2011
9:23 pm
You my friend are an incompetent boob, incapable of tolerating any other views then your own narrow minded view of the world.
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:31 pm
td, I’ll take the Constitution over any other document….secular or religious. It, and it alone, is the final arbiter of what shall and shall not be legal in this nation.
Even if EVERY ONE of our founding fathers and framers of the Constitution had been a protestant minister, it does not take away from the fact that they made SURE the Constitution remained completely and indelibly secular.
They were establishing a nation in which any religion would be neither mandated nor prohibited, neither endorsed nor subverted. It was very likely the Test Act of 1673 in England had quite the bearing on the decision of these (mostly) pious men to deliberately make sure this new nation could do nothing similar by an act of its government (and, in fact, prohibited any religious test for elected office in the Constitution).
Shine
November 15th, 2011
9:31 pm
Well there you have it. TD has just proved the founders were all for feeding and housing the poor, healing the sick, etc etc etc. He is a dang liberal!
BILLY MAYS HERE
November 15th, 2011
9:33 pm
Stop responding to TD, you’re just encouraging him to post more.
Just tell him to get out.
BILLY MAYS HERE
November 15th, 2011
9:38 pm
I am not very smart and do not believe in freedom of speech. Td scares me because he makes me think how horribly I have been living my own life. If he stays on this board much longer then I may have to put down my crack pipe, stop drinking and actually take responsibility for my own life.
Please, please get td off these boards before I have to become a responsible citizen.
rooster
November 15th, 2011
9:41 pm
Calm down. Radical bills get pre-filed every year, and every year, they go nowhere.
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:42 pm
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
– John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” (1787-88)
td
November 15th, 2011
9:43 pm
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:31 pm
We are not that far apart. I believe the founders did not want the government to interfere in any way, shape or form the nations right to worship anyway they chose.
The difference I believe is that Christianity provided the inspiration and guidance on how to form the nation.
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:45 pm
Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents.
– John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:45 pm
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
– John Adams, letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816
Political Insider A House Democrat to sponsor personhood amendment | Blog for Democracy
November 15th, 2011
9:46 pm
[...] you read that right. Not sure what else to say about this, other than it feels like a punch in the gut. “I’m from rural Georgia,” he said. “I have to [...]
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:47 pm
What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because of suspected heresy? Remember the Index Expurgato-rius, the Inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter, and the guillotine; and, oh! horrible, the rack! This is as bad, if not worse, than a slow fire. Nor should the Lion’s Mouth be forgotten. Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years.
– John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814
Tom
November 15th, 2011
9:49 pm
“As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] … it is declared … that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries….
“The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.”
— Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams
nocumentum
November 15th, 2011
9:49 pm
So some of you think because you have an easy answer, you got the right answer. I don’t have to know anything about when life begins to know that believing a fertilized egg is a person is straight up stupid; it’s like believing that the sun revolves around the earth. You and your “personhood” friends should spend your time feeding and caring for real kids, not mythical beings.