SusanG's diary on Daily Kos last night singing Gerald Ford's praises as having allegedly kept his faith and his political acts separate finally crossed some threshold that pushed my partner, Mike Doughney and I, into commenting. We wrote for the first time about an event we were present for where Ford threw the full weight of his status as Former President behind one of many key groups in the Biblical American, or what some might term the "dominionist", youth movement; by personally appearing at Teen Mania's "Stand Up" event in Michigan, back in 2000.

This diary, then, are some of the details of that, and unlike almost most every other piece of writing I've seen since Ford's death, this is based on a first hand experience, it reflects an event that happened almost 7 years ago, not during the 1970's.

This has been exceptionally difficult for me to write out, the gravity of what we saw and how to bring information forward; ourselves, holding to some value of civility even as we have seen incredibly uncivil things. But ultimately, I think it's critically important to look at Ford's 'legacy' in light of his actual actions. So at this point, I'm just going try to write 'what I know', while incorporating some quotes from my partner, Mike.

This will be a very brief diary entry, as I wanted to draw additional attention to both a specific article and the ongoing work of a researcher.

Marley Greiner, a researcher, activist, writer for the Columbus, Ohio Free Press and blogger behind

Theoconia: a Central Ohio Theocon Report has written an important initial article in the Free Press on Ron Luce and the Teen Mania Ministries Battlecry initiative:

photo credit: Marley Griener

And the article itself-

Teen Mania: Lift the Banner by Marley Greiner

   

(Please be gentle, it's my first diary here.)

Ok, so why were there kids as the backdrop setting for Bush's remarks following his veto of the stem cell research bill?

Because these kids are not merely cute props, they are emblematic of, and the end product of one particular corner of the so-called 'culture of life' that Bush and his allies are attempting to remake America into.

These kids, in evangelical adoption parlance, are referred to as "snowflake children", so named after the "Snowflake Embryo Adoption" program of Nightlight Christian Adoptions.

For Bush, thousands of couples' frozen embryos are not their individual genetic material to make their own decisions about. No, the cryogenically preserved embryos, to Bush, constitute a unique national resource. One which must be appropriately handled and appropriated, a national resource in a zero sum game tug of war between stem cell research and thousands of potential snowflake children reparented into couples deemed appropriately Christian.