WASHINGTON UPDATE 04/22/2015

| April 22, 2015 | Permalink Obama's Agents of Scandal The latest sex scandal involving federal law enforcement officials has claimed its first high-level victim, with Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief Michele Leonhart stepping down after a Department of Justice Inspector General's (IG) report documented that DEA agents in Colombia had participated in "sex parties" with prostitutes -- in some cases hired by the very drug cartels the agents were supposed to be fighting. This comes following a similar well-publicized scandal in Colombia (where prostitution is tolerated) involving Secret Service agents, but the IG report covered problems of sexual harassment and misconduct not only in the DEA, but also in the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Meanwhile, the Defense Department continues to struggle with problems of sexual assault and pornography in the military. White House spokesman Josh Earnest insisted, "The president ... maintains a very high standard for anybody who serves in his administration." Perhaps, however, what President Obama needs to do is engage in some soul-searching about his party's unqualified affirmation of the values of the sexual revolution -- namely, sex without boundaries (such as homosexuality) and without consequences (hence the necessity of abortion). If it is not permissible for the society or culture to demand sexual self-restraint from anyone, it inevitably makes it harder to demand such restraint even in the professional context of the military or law enforcement, which by now, should be very evident. Second Chance in the Second Trimester As of today, three months have passed since a handful of Republicans thwarted House passage of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The bill, co-sponsored by over 180 Members and widely supported by the American public was derailed on the day of the March for Life, as hundreds of thousands of pro-life Americans gathered in the nation's capital to defend life. The Pain-Capable Act is a very simple and reasonable measure that restricts late-term abortions (after 5 months) at a time during pregnancy when medical science shows unborn babies can feel pain. That is why today I joined with other national pro-life leaders in calling upon the GOP leaders in the House to vote and approve the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and send the measure to the Senate. So what derailed the bill in the first place? A handful of Members, including Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), who had voted for the exact language in 2013, suddenly claimed that the exceptions in the case of rape and incest would require women to report the tragic circumstance of their pregnancy to law enforcement. These Members wanted changes that would have provided massive loopholes to unscrupulous abortionists like Kermit Gosnell that would have effectively gutted the bill's protections. Pro-life Members including Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) are working to strike a balance that maintains the integrity of the bill while avoiding unrelated controversies surrounding sexual assault reporting. We are now in the second trimester, it is time for Congress to act! It's time to protect life. Let your Representative know you support moving forward the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36). It's a Small Minority After All Liberals have long wanted you to believe there's a consensus in America for redefining marriage, but now they are going global! Last month, Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh, along with a team of foreign law experts, submitted an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to join the "emerging global consensus" for same-sex marriage -- essentially arguing that since most countries in the world are jumping off this moral cliff, why shouldn't we? If that philosophy -- which most of our mothers warned us against as children -- wasn't weak enough, they also need to dust off their World Book Encyclopedia. Turns out, less than 9 percent of the countries belonging to the United Nations have redefined marriage -- and only one of them did so through the courts! To correct the record, Brigham Young University law professors Lynn Wardle and Elizabeth Clark, along with 54 international law scholars, filed their own brief to the Court, shooting down the idea that America is behind the times in supporting same-sex "marriage" by comparing the U.S. to the rest of the world. They put the Ivy League and Left on the defensive with a stunning take-down of the logic that "everyone else is doing it." Using the U.N. as its guide, the professors explain that 176 sovereign nations "retain the understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman... [In other words,] over ten times as many countries disallow same-sex marriage as allow it." The team takes their argument even farther, explaining that this kind of majority "is not the result of mere animus and intolerance: 95 of the 176 states allowing only traditional marriage have decriminalized homosexual conduct." Eighty-eight have even extended special right to the LGBT community in their countries. As far as the courts are concerned, 12 "national and international tribunals" have agreed that natural marriage is "consistent with human rights." Wardle points out that "these include some of the jurisdictions with the earliest and strongest LGBT protections in the world." Here at home, our own polling shows how opposed voters are to letting the Supreme Court decide the issue. A whopping 61% of voters think that states and voters should remain free to uphold marriage as between a man and a woman. "If the U.S. Supreme Court is concerned about being out of step with the world's leading democracies, it couldn't make a bigger mistake," Wardle says, "than becoming one of only two nations in the world to cut democracy off at its knees and force its judicial will upon the people." The United States of America created the first working republic -- Dean Koh's brief pulls back the curtain on how far the Left will go to undermine it. ** Stand for Marriage Sunday: With the upcoming case before the U.S. Supreme Court regarding same-sex "marriage," religious freedom in America is at risk like never before. To help your church learn more about how they can be educated about this issue in order to pray for the Court, we're offering a special (free) short video and other resources that will equip your congregation to pray for this momentous decision on marriage. Click here for more details. Tony Perkins' Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.