Glenn Wins 3 of 3 Michigan GOP Debate Straw Polls

 Takes 54% in five candidate contest

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glenn Wednesday evening won an outright majority of a straw poll taken following a Senate candidates debate sponsored by the Grand Traverse County Republican Party and attended by Glenn and fellow GOP hopefuls Randy Hekman, Peter Konetchy, Chuck Marino, and Scotty Boman. Two other GOP Senate candidates -- former Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Clark Durant -- did not attend.

The win was Glenn's third debate straw poll victory since September, and he won in impressive fashion, taking 54 percent of the vote and leading the second place finisher by 32 percentage points.

Glenn Radio Ad Slams Hoekstra Record On Wall Street Bailout, Spending, Unions

MIDLAND, MI -- Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glenn, who is endorsed by a statewide coalition of over 40 local TEA Party groups, Wednesday will launch a statewide radio buy that touts the TEA Party movement and slams former nine-term Congressman Pete Hoekstra's support for the Wall Street bailout, increased federal debt, and forced unionization of state and local government employees.

"When TEA Party and other conservative Republican primary voters learn about Congressman Hoekstra's big-spending, Big Labor voting record," Glenn said Tuesday, "they'll know he's not the candidate we can trust to hold Debbie Stabenow accountable for her record on those issues."

Why Are Anti-TEA Party Liberals Campaigning for Michigan Senate Candidate Pete Hoekstra?

Washington Examiner reports one of Hoekstra's top signature-gatherers is petitioning pro, convicted felon

DETROIT, MI - Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glenn, whose candidacy is endorsed by a statewide coalition of over forty local TEA Parties in Michigan, Thursday advised TEA Party leaders that Teamster union president Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., is not the only anti-TEA Party liberal who has worked to help elect former nine-term Congressman Pete Hoekstra to political office.

Hoekstra's past campaigns, including his 2010 campaign for governor, have been endorsed and/or funded by the Teamsters and Hoffa, who famously said at an Obama campaign rally last year regarding TEA Party members, "Let's take these sons of b-----s out."

Gary Glenn

Glenn in an e-mail and Facebook message Thursday alerted TEA Party leaders that one of the top circulators this past spring of petitions to put Hoekstra on the August primary ballot was Keith Moore of Grand Rapids, who the Washington Examiner last month reported is a convicted felon who works as a professional petition circulator for PCI (Progressive Campaigns, Inc.) Consultants of Los Angeles.

According to a 2010 report by Mackinac Center for Public Policy's Michigan Capitol Confidential, PCI is the same firm that gathered signatures in an attempt to put a slate of alleged "TEA Party" candidates on the Michigan ballot that year. Democratic operatives recruited candidates to run on the new "TEA Party" ticket in hopes of peeling conservative votes away from Republican candidates in order to help elect Democrats.

Glenn Declares Candidacy for U.S. Senate

* Marriage Protection Amendment co-author
* Right to Work and School Choice leader
* Health care reform “pioneer”
 

Midland, Mich. — Gary Glenn, 53, of Midland Wednesday filed a formal statement of candidacy for the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, for the U.S. Senate in 2012.  Glenn, who said he has crossed the $5,000 fundraising threshhold at which federal election law requires a formal statement of candidacy, is the only GOP candidate to formally file after former Rep. Pete Hoekstra announced his entry into the race.

Noting Hoekstra's votes for the $850 billion Wall Street bailout, earmarks such as the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere," and budgets and debt ceiling increases that added trillions of dollars to the national debt, Glenn cited "Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

"The last twenty years, Debbie Stabenow and Pete Hoekstra both voted for red-ink budgets and debt ceiling increases that resulted in trillions in crushing new debt on our economy and our children's future," Glenn said. "A Democrat in Congress fourteen years, a Republican for eighteen years plus two more as a lobbyist, a total of over three decades as part of the go along to get along culture that got us where we are now. If we want to end the fiscal insanity in Washington, is it rational to expect we'll get a different result if we keep sending the same people back there over and over again?"

Glenn said the nation's "economy, security, liberties, moral foundation, and founding principles — all that’s made America and Americans exceptional in the history of the world – are under attack from within."

“If they're not stopped, liberal ideologues like Debbie Stabenow and Barack Obama will rob our children of their birthright and turn our country into the United Socialist States of America," Glenn said. "My mission, commitment, and duty is to do whatever I can to help senators like Jim DeMint and Rand Paul and Mike Lee stop them.”

Glenn Wins Michigan Senate Debate Straw Poll

Defeats Hoekstra and Durant By Wide Margins

Gary Glenn

DeWITT, Mich. -- Thursday night, three mid-Michigan Tea Party groups cohosted a U.S. Senate candidates forum/debate in DeWitt which drew nearly 500 attendees.

Results of a straw poll of the audience taken immediately after the debate were released Saturday. See below.

Gary Glenn said the results "were consistent with what I've experienced everywhere I've spoken the last six weeks, from Escanaba to St. Joe to Warren."

"When Tea Party and other grassroots activists learn that Pete Hoekstra voted for the $850 billion Wall Street bailout, to raise the debt ceiling to $11 trillion, for earmarks like the $223 million Bridge to Nowhere, for the Brady Bill gun control law, and that his campaigns have been funded by Jimmy Hoffa and Pete has long opposed state and national Right to Work laws, they want an alternative," Glenn said. "My mission and message of bringing more freedom, more fiscal responsibility, and more jobs to Michigan and America is making a powerful connection."

 STRAW POLL RESULTS

US Senate Candidate Forum

September 29, 2011

Banquet and Conference Center of  DeWitt, Michigan

Scotty Boman  ===================== 02.33%

Clark Durant=======================18.07%

Gary Glenn ====================== 31.84%

Randy Hekman ====================  09.94%

Pete Hoekstra =====================  23.39%

Pete Konetchy ====================    09.35%

Undecided =======================   05.08%

Michigan Homosexual Lobby Backs Jail, Lawsuits For Refusal to Recognize Homosexual "Marriage"

Gary Glenn

President of AFA-Michigan

Homosexual activist says business owners should be jailed, newspapers sued and "slapped publicly"

LOS ANGELES -- Michigan's largest homosexual activist group says once marriage is legally redefined to include homosexual couples, business owners and even news media outlets who refuse to recognize such marriages should be jailed or sued and "publicly slapped," a Jewish and openly bisexual columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News reported Monday.

Statements attributed in the column to homosexual lobbyist Sean Kosofsky, director of policy for the Detroit-based Triangle Foundation, were denounced Wednesday by American Family Association of Michigan President Gary Glenn, co-author of the Marriage Protection Amendment approved by voters in 2004 to constitutionally reaffirm the legal definition of marriage in Michigan as only between one man and one woman.

"The Triangle Foundation openly admits homosexual activists' intentions, once they gain sufficient political power, to impose their radical social agenda on America by brute force, trampling cherished American values such as religious freedom, freedom of speech, academic freedom, and even freedom of the press if it stands in their way," Glenn said.

Glenn pointed to comments by Kosofsky reported Monday by David Benkof, author of Gay Essentials: Facts for Your Queer Brain and founder of the Q Syndicate, a "gay"-press syndicate that provides columns and other material to a hundred homosexual newspapers.

Benkof, who strays from "gay" political orthodoxy by opposing the redefinition of marriage, wrote in a column published Monday by the Los Angeles Daily News that he had interviewed homosexual activists nationally about the legal implications of a California Supreme Court ruling last week declaring a constitutional "right" to so-called homosexual "marriage."

Benkof wrote: "What happens if a traditionally religious business owner wants to extend his 'marriage discount' only to couples married in his eyes? Sean Kosofsky of Michigan's largest gay-rights group, the Triangle Foundation, says, 'If you are a public accommodation and you are open to anyone on Main Street, that means you must be open to everyone on Main Street. If they don't do it, that's contempt and they will go to jail.' " http://www.dailynews.com/editorial/ci_9312682

Benkof continued: "Michael Taylor-Judd, the president of the Legal Marriage Alliance of Washington state, said if a newspaper writes that a given same-sex marriage wasn't really a marriage, 'it is certainly in the realm of possibility for someone to bring a (libel) suit, and quite possibly to be successful.' Kosofsky agreed: 'I would be sympathetic to some damages. They need to be slapped publicly.' "

(See link to Benkof column below)

Glenn said the Triangle Foundation routinely justifies its hostility toward individuals and organizations who disagree with homosexual activists' political agenda, as well as Triangle's admitted plans to suppress their opponents' free speech rights, by demonizing those who support traditional one-man, one-woman marriage as promoters of "hate" and violence.

* The Triangle Foundation's web site currently features a news release charging that support for Michigan's Marriage Protection Amendment by Glenn and Catholic Cardinal Adam Maida of the Archdiocese of Detroit was a motivating factor in the alleged beating death of a homosexual senior citizen last year in Detroit. "It is appalling hypocrisy," the statement reads, "for (Glenn and Maida) to pretend that their venomous words and organizing have no connection to the plague of hate violence against gay people, including the murder of Mr. Anthos." http://www.tri.org/violence/pdfs/taskforce.pdf

Triangle's claims were proven false when police reported they found no evidence of assault and

the Wayne County medical examiner's office concluded the man had died from natural causes after a fall resulting from arthritic paralysis. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,262308,00.html

* Kosofsky has for years publicly accused Glenn's organization of supporting murder, though only one news media outlet has ever published the allegation. "We personally believe that the AFA may support the murder of gay, lesbian and bisexual people," Kosofsky said, as reported in 2001 by State News, the student newspaper at Michigan State University.

http://www.statenews.com/index.php/article/2001/11/gay-rights_group_fights

And Kosofsky in a published column in 2005 called Cardinal Maida "recklessly wicked," accused him of "arrogance, bigotry and hypocrisy," and said the Catholic church's position in support of one-man, one-woman marriage "should be tossed in the trash."

http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=13021

Glenn also noted that when Kosofsky said news media outlets should be sued and "slapped publicly" if they report material to which homosexual activists object, one example may have been fresh on his mind. Last month, Kosofsky attacked WNEM-TV Channel 5, Saginaw, for its coverage of a pro-homosexual student protest in public schools. "WNEM has run one of the worst stories I have seen in recent years on Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender issues by using insensitive and inflammatory terms," Kosofsky wrote on his blog, Blog O' Queer.

http://www.blogoqueer.org/2008/04/horrible-coverage-of-day-of-silence-in.html

Violations of religious freedom, free speech rights, academic freedom, and freedom of the press have become routine in countries and states that have already adopted so-called homosexual "marriage" or "hate crime" laws based on homosexual behavior, Glenn said.

* Swedish Pastor Ake Green in 2004 was sentenced to 30 days in jail for preaching a sermon in which he defined homosexual behavior as sinful and harmful to society. http://www.akegreen.org/

* Baptist Press reported in 2005: "A Catholic bishop in Canada is under investigation by a government agency for condemning 'gay marriage'... The bishop, Fred Henry of Calgary, is being investigated by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for comments he made about homosexuality in both a letter to parishioners and a Calgary Sun newspaper column. Two homosexuals filed the complaints." http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=20716

* The Irish Times reported in 2003: "Clergy and bishops who distribute the Vatican's latest publication describing homosexual activity as 'evil' could face prosecution under incitement to hatred legislation. ...Those convicted under the Act can face jail terms of up to six months."

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/frontpage/2003/0802/1059775167952.html

* The London Daily Telegraph reported in 2006: "New Government proposals on equality could require clergy to bless homosexual 'weddings' or face prosecution, the Church of England said yesterday. It said the proposed regulations could undermine official teaching and require Christians to act against their religious convictions." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1520849/Church-

* Catholic Charities in Boston was forced by a state "sexual orientation" law to either process the adoption of children to homosexual couples, a direct violation of Vatican policy, or abandon their century-old adoption referral services altogether. They chose the latter. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/03/11/catholic_charities_stuns_state_ends_adoptions

* The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix newspaper was ordered by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal to pay three homosexual men $1,500 each after the newspaper agreed to run an ad that featured Bible verses critical of homosexual behavior. "As the Star-Phoenix lawyer said in his closing statement (before the Tribunal), 'A Human Rights ruling against the Star-Phoenix and Mr. Owens could limit freedom of speech in the media, in churches and in classrooms.'" http://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/1999_Sept_Oct/article_7.html

* A British couple were questioned by police on possible "hate crime" charges after they wrote a letter-to-the-editor of their local newspaper criticizing city officials for distributing brochures at city hall promoting homosexual behavior. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/4555406.stm

* The London Daily Telegraph reported last month: "A Christian couple who have taken in 28 children have been forced to give up being foster parents after they refused to promote homosexuality. Vincent Matherick, 65, and his 61-year-old wife Pauline were told by social services that they had to comply with legislation requiring them to treat homosexuality as equal to heterosexuality." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567160/Christian-foster-parents-condemn-

* A British Anglican bishop in February was fined for refusing to hire an openly homosexual man as a church youth minister. http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08021104.html

* The London Daily Telegraph reported in 2003: "A bishop who angered homosexuals by suggesting they seek a psychiatric cure is to be investigated by police to see if his outspoken views amount to a criminal offence, it emerged yesterday."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1446318/Bishop

* Eleven Christians in Philadelphia -- including two grandmothers in their 70's, one white and one African-American -- were arrested and charged with "ethnic intimidation" under Pennsylvania's "hate crimes" law when they tried to read Bible verses out loud during a homosexual street festival. They faced a cumulative 47 years in prison had they been convicted. http://www.cultureandfamily.org/articledisplay.asp?id=6542&department=CFI&categoryid=nation

* A New Mexico Christian photographer was fined $6,600 for refusing on religious grounds to photograph a homosexual marriage-like "commitment" ceremony.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200804/CUL20080416a.html

* Catholic bishops in Belgium and Spain were sued in 2004 by homosexual activist groups for making public statements in opposition to homosexual behavior and homosexual "marriage."

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=43235

* Boston public school teachers were threatened with termination if they failed to portray so-called homosexual "marriage" in a positive light. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=27201

The full text of Benkof's column in the Los Angeles Daily News is here.

MI GOP Senate Race Pits Tea Party Jobs Advocate Against 'Has Been' Defender of Hoffa and Status Quo

Right to Work advocate calls on Hoekstra to publicly disavow Hoffa threat to Tea Parties

By J. Gillman

Gary Glenn

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glenn, Midland, who has championed Right to Work legislation banning compulsory unionism, Wednesday said fellow GOP Senate candidate former Rep. Pete Hoekstra — because of his close relationship with Teamsters union president James Hoffa, Jr. — should publicly disavow Hoffa’s Labor Day comments in Detroit that some have interpreted as threatening violence against members of the Tea Party movement.

Glenn cited comments Monday in which Hoffa, referring to Tea Party activists, told a Labor Day rally, ”Let’s take these son of a bitches out.”

“Given Pete Hoekstra’s opposition to Right to Work and his cozy relationship and past endorsements by Hoffa and other Teamster union bosses, Pete needs to make clear to the public that his deafening silence does not indicate approval of his friend Jimmy Hoffa’s threats,” Glenn said.

Gary Glenn Discusses Michigan's Right-to-Work Law on the Mike Huckabee Show

Gary Glenn with son, Hunter, and Governor Mike Huckabee

Click here to listen to Gov. Mike Huckabee's December 13th interview with Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, regarding Michigan's historic new Right to Work law.

The law prohibits compulsory union dues, protecting Christian and other employees from being forced -- under threat of being fired -- to contribute money to union officials who promote abortion on demand, so-called homosexual "marriage," and other causes that the individual employee opposes as a matter of religious conviction or conscience.

Gary was a founding member of the Michigan Freedom to Work Coalition that in June 2011 announced its push for passage of this new civil rights law prohibiting job discrimination on the basis of union affiliation or support.  From 1980-86, Gary was executive director of the Idaho Freedom to Work Committee and led that state's successful drive to enact the same law.

Union officials are expected to put an initiative on Michigan's November 2014 election ballot to try to repeal the new law and restore their ability to discriminate against and fire individuals who as a matter of conviction and conscience refuse to support Big Labor's partisan political agenda.  

Gary Glenn Receives Top National Right To Work Award

We were pleased to support a great American patriot, Gary Glenn, when he ran for the United States Senate from Michigan in 2012.  Since then he has been elected to the Michigan House of Representatives where he has been a dynamic vice chairman of the House Energy Committee and also serves on the Commerce and Trade, Tax Policy, and Military and Veterans Affairs committees.

Recently, Gary's lifetime of work on behalf of right-to-work legislation has been recognized by the National Right to Work Committee.  The Midland Daily News has the story:

State Rep. Gary Glenn, R-Midland, on Friday was named recipient of the Senator Everett M. Dirksen Award, the highest honor bestowed annually by the National Right to Work Committee to an individual “making the most outstanding contribution to public awareness and understanding of the Right to Work principle.”

The annual award is named after the Republican Minority Leader from Illinois who in 1966 led a filibuster in the U.S. Senate that blocked President Lyndon B. Johnson’s effort to repeal the section of federal law that empowers states to enact Right to Work legislation. Twenty-five states — including Michigan and Indiana in 2012 and, just last month, Wisconsin — have enacted laws prohibiting compulsory unionism as a condition of employment.

Read more at the Midland Daily News >>

Michigan GOP Majority Eyes ‘Right to Work’ Legislation

The battle for America is playing out dramatically in the nation's heartland.  This struggle between two classes of Americans -- hard working taxpayers described by Obama as "clinging to their guns and Bibles," and the Obamunists -- socialist, governmental elites who fancy themselves the ruling class, and believe they know what's best for the rest of us.  Using the Cloward-Piven Strategy and their handbook for revolution, Rules for Radicals, they are intent on bankrupting and destroying the old Republic so that they might impose a new Marxist order.

Wisconsin makes clear that Americans should get their children out of schools that exist for the benefit of leftist governmental unions.  They provide indoctrination; they most assuredly do not provide education.  Their own test scores testify in every state that they utterly fail to provide the education most parents want for their children.

We believe the outcome of the battle in Wisconsin and other states is crucial to the survival and success of liberty in America.  In this regard, we are not surprised that one of the greatest freedom fighters we have known, and a Sunlit Uplands Contributing Editor, Gary Glenn, is playing a leadership role on what may be a battlefield even more challenging than Wisconsin.

The Michigan Messenger reports:

"Gary Glenn, who runs the American Family Association of Michigan, scored his first legislative scores in Idaho pushing for Right to Work legislation there. Idaho approved Right to Work 25 years ago, and Glenn recently returned to celebrate that win. He says Right to Work is really about civil rights.

'State Right to Work laws are civil rights measures that protect employees against job discrimination on the basis of union affiliation by prohibiting collective bargaining agreements which require employees to join or pay dues to a labor union as a condition of continued employment, i.e., ‘pay up or you’re fired.’ The result is that each individual is free to choose for himself whether to join or financially support a union at his place of work, without fearing discrimination, retribution, or termination for whichever choice he makes,' Glenn said. 'Obviously, employees in Right to Work states are just as free to exercise their federally-guaranteed right to join or support a union if they wish as they are anywhere else.'

Many Michigan groups, like CALL and a coalition of Tea Party groups who are hosting a day long conference in Lansing later this year, are turning to Glenn for advice, guidance and support in driving Right to Work legislation to the forefront of Michigan’s agenda."

Gary Glenn Interviewed on the Bott Radio Network

Gary Glenn

Gary Glenn, President of the American Family Association of Michigan and Contributing Editor of Sunlit Uplands, was recently interviewed on the Bott Radio Network by Dick Bott, its founder and Chairman and host of BRN’s public affairs talk show “The Complete Story.” The interview was heard on nearly 90 Christian radio stations in 15 states, from Tennessee to California and Indiana to Texas.

Click here to listen.

We think our readers will be especially interested in what Mr. Bott and Gary have to say about the "great pretender," Mitt Romney.  According to the AFA-Michigan website their discussion includes:

AFA-Michigan’s news release this week calling on Gov. Rick Snyder and legislative leaders to act to protect taxpayers from being forced to fund spousal-type benefits for the homosexual “partners” of state employees.  Glenn said the state should instead limit such benefits only to legally married employees as an incentive to encourage and promote marriage, an institution which social studies prove reduces poverty and the need for law enforcement, social welfare, and other government programs. Bottom line: incentivize and promote more marriages, get less government at less cost to taxpayers.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney’s responsibility for the actual implementation of so-called homosexual “marriage” in Massachusetts. As Associated Press reported April 25, 2004: “Gov. Mitt Romney’s top legal counsel told the state’s justices of the peace Sunday to resign if they are unwilling to preside over the marriage of same-sex couples beginning next month. …’If a justice of the peace cannot comply with his or her oath of office, then we would expect that person to tender their resignation from that office.’ …Romney has also ordered changes to the state’s marriage application, replacing ‘bride” and ‘groom’ with ‘Party A’ and ‘Party B.’”

African-Americans’ strong support for traditional marriage despite homosexual activists’ attempts to equate their political agenda with and thus exploit the black church-led Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Should Homosexuality Be a 'Litmus Test' for High Court?

"Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contends the position held by Focus on the Family is the equivalent of 'moral retreat.' 'It's not just the damage caused by Focus on the Family's moral retreat on the issue,' Glenn argues. '[That explanation] will be used by homosexual activists and their allies in the media to further marginalize and delegitimize any pro-family organization that continues to take a Biblical standard.'"

From OneNewsNow
By Jim Brown

Conservative political activists are divided over whether homosexual behavior should disqualify a judicial nominee from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Focus on the Family's judicial analyst, Bruce Hausknecht, recently told liberal blogger Greg Sargent that Focus would not oppose a Supreme Court nominee solely because of their homosexual behavior. "Our concern at the Supreme Court is judicial philosophy," Hausknecht said. "Sexual orientation only becomes an issue if it effects their judging."

Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst at Focus, says just like a nominee's ethnicity and life experience, homosexuality should not be a litmus test.

"Someone's sexual orientation or their preferences, none of these things should come into consideration when we're talking about evaluating someone who will make decisions based on precedent under the law [and who will] practice judicial restraint," Horne explains. "Those are the things we look at for whether or not someone would make a fit justice on the Supreme Court."

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contends the position held by Focus on the Family is the equivalent of "moral retreat."

"It's not just the damage caused by Focus on the Family's moral retreat on the issue," Glenn argues. "[That explanation] will be used by homosexual activists and their allies in the media to further marginalize and delegitimize any pro-family organization that continues to take a biblical standard."

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council agrees with Focus on the Family that homosexuality should not be an absolute litmus test for a Supreme Court nominee. He argues in blog comments that "even Supreme Court nominees deserve some zone of privacy, and...there is at least a hypothetical possibility that somewhere in the country there is a judge who has experienced same-sex attractions, but who also respects judicial restraint and the original intent of the Constitution.

"In the real world, however, the chances of finding a highly-qualified judge who fits both of those descriptions are probably about equal to the chances of a camel passing through the eye of a needle," Sprigg concludes. "So don't hold your breath waiting for social conservatives to 'support' a 'gay' judicial nominee."

Gary Glenn's Greatest Battle

Gary Glenn

You have read about Gary Glenn on these pages before.  We believe he is one of America's most promising political leaders.  

Gary was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in November 2014, representing the 98th House District serving Bay and Midland counties. He serves as vice chairman of Michigan's House Energy Policy Committee and on the House Commerce and Trade, Military and Veterans Affairs, and Tax Policy committees.  In 2015, the Michigan Information and Research Service, Lansing's oldest daily legislative news service, selected Gary from among 55 first-term state representatives and senators as its MIRS "Freshman Legislator of the Year".  In the current session of the Legislature, the Republican House Caucus selected him as Associate Speaker of the House Pro Tem.  But it was in this past year, while never missing a vote, committee meeting, or caucus in the state House that Gary, with God's grace and the help of a loving wife, waged the greatest battle of his life.  Following is the story of that battle and the testimony of a valiant soldier of Christ.

Life changed one year ago today, January 15, 2016, when I stopped by Mid-Michigan Medical Center on the way to my son's basketball game for a quick MRI to locate what was expected to be a herniated disk that was causing severe pain in my leg. Never made it to the game, as they walked me from the MRI to the Emergency Room instead after what the MRI found was stage 4 "metastatic" cancer -- specifically, a tumor that had eaten away an entire vertebrae and broken my back.

Further tests indicated that the tumor had originated in my prostate, with a very high PSA score of 348 (anything over a 4 being considered a warning sign of cancer). After five heavy radiation treatments over the next six days, the PSA score had dropped to 100. My personal physician called that a "near miracle."

In the days that followed the front page news of my diagnosis, we know thousands of prayers were offered on my behalf -- from Midland Baptist (my church) to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to a Catholic mass in Washington, D.C., to dozens of other churches in Michigan and beyond that wrote to say they'd put my family and me on their prayer lists.

The House Republican caucus didn't just pray, but laid hands on me and prayed. And five weeks after being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, the University of Michigan Cancer Center told me the cancer was in remission, with a PSA score of 0.2. (If dropping from 348 to 100 was a "near" miracle, what was dropping four weeks later to 0.2?)

The first night in the emergency room, the neurosurgeon said he'd have to perform surgery to insert a titanium cage into my spinal column to replace the destroyed vertebrae, and fitted me with a back brace -- to hold me together? -- in the meantime. But as we watched the X-rays over the next four months, we saw the black hole in my spinal column where a vertebrae used to be start filling in again with white. A new vertebrae has since grown back out of nothing. (Since multiple doctors told me that doesn't happen, and it caught a brain surgeon by surprise, what do we call that?) In May, he told me to take off the brace, work my way back into normal activity, and he didn't need to see me again. A few weeks ago, I played basketball again for the first time in over a year.

But all that was the easy part. After they told me I was in remission, UM Cancer Center said they still wanted me to undergo five months of chemotherapy to help ensure the cancer doesn't start growing again, or least delay the time until it does. That was the brutal part, worse than the cancer itself. Steroids. Hormone drugs. Chemicals whose purpose was to damage and destroy my cells. Incomprehensible weakness. Gaining nearly 60 pounds and ten inches on my waist in three months.

Not only pretty devastating physically, but certainly a lifestyle shock to a guy who'd kept in shape, worked out, chopped wood for weeks every fall, played basketball twice a week, and otherwise held the old man body at bay through age 57. But, praise the Lord, at least I'm still standing. And I hope to call back the mental toughness and discipline of Army basic training and football and track practices of years past to work my way back to the condition I was before.

Through all the above, I never missed a vote, committee meeting, or caucus in the state House, but only because my wife Annette drove me back and forth to Lansing for five months when I was, literally, unconscious. The steroid high of the chemotherapy would keep me on my feet for the legislative session days Tuesday through Thursday, then I'd crash hard when the steroids wore off, Annette would drive me home to go to bed each Thursday night, and I wouldn't get up again until the following Tuesday morning to go back to Lansing. Only by God's grace and provision of strength, "lest any man should boast" -- and Annette's sacrifice of the time she'd planned to spend at home with our youngest child the last year he'll be living with us -- was I able to continue to do the job to which I'd been elected.

Now, six months after the last chemo treatment in late July, my hair is growing back, my strength is slowly returning, I've lost some of the weight and inches, and the PSA score is now less than 0.02, the lowest it's been yet.

I'm thankful. To my wife. To my children. To my mother and sisters. To my friends. To my pastor and my church. To legislative colleagues who helped hold me up. To all of you who prayed for and encouraged us over the last twelve months. To all the doctors and nurses and technicians at Mid-Michigan Medical Center and the UM Cancer Center.

And most of all, for the healing power of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, called down by thousands of prayers on my behalf, Whose faithfulness sustained and strengthens me for the challenges ahead. I look forward to discovering whatever work for which He's kept me this side of heaven, because I believe we are all here for a purpose, and so long as the Lord gives me breath, I intend to fulfill mine.

Please continue to keep my family and me in your prayers, and may God bless and keep us strong for the fight!

Glenn Hits Hoekstra on Right to Work at Conservative Confab in South Carolina

Pro-Right to Work Senate candidate addresses business and political leaders in Charleston, site of Boeing plant at center of national debate

Michigan Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glenn, a champion of Right to Work legislation for three decades, Monday will seek campaign support from business and political leaders from throughout the Southeast, telling them they can't trust former nine-term Congressman Pete Hoekstra to support state and national Right to Work laws if elected to the United States Senate.
 

Glenn will address The Charleston Meeting, a conservative conference in Charleston, S.C., the site of a new 1,000-job Boeing jetliner manufacturing facility that became the focal point of a national debate after Obama appointees to the National Labor Relations Board filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Boeing for locating the new plant in a Right to Work state, where compulsory union membership or financial support is prohibited by law.

Michigan GOP US Senate Candidates' Debate

 
Mich. tea partiers seek consensus Senate pick

From The Examiner

By Kathy Barks Hoffman

Many of Michigan's tea party activists are trying to coalesce behind one of the eight Republicans running for the chance to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, but the infighting over whether a unified effort is the way to go could harm GOP chances to deny Stabenow a third term.

The movement is patterned on successful efforts by Indiana tea party groups that have rallied behind Richard Mourdock as the tea party challenger to Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar. In Michigan, more than 50 tea party groups have joined under the name Michigan 4 Conservative Senate, or MI4CS for short, to try to avoid dispersing their clout in a field crowded with conservatives.

The group is sponsoring a Senate debate Saturday at Central Michigan University and plans to return to the Mount Pleasant campus on Feb. 25 to hold a straw poll and decide which candidate will get the group's backing leading up to the August GOP primary.

Gary Glenn Addresses 9-12 Group

Things are getting exciting in Michigan for supporters of Tea Party patriot Gary Glenn.  A few days after the above address to the Lenawee 9-12 group, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glennn won the straw poll following Saturday night's Tea Party-sponsored debate in Gull Lake by double digits.  He did even better in a separate poll taken of students in attendance who are still too young to vote in next years election:  Glenn 68 percent, Randy Hekman 23, and Clark Durant 9.  No other candidate received student votes.

This is going to be a great victory for all those who care about freedom, states' rights, fiscal responsibility, the right-to-work, family values and the restoration of our republic on the Constitution of the United States.

A Coalition of Michigan TEA Parties Demonstrate Power of 'We the People'

MI4CS TEA Parties put Glenn on top with historic petition drive for U.S. Senate

By Cindy Gamrat

With an entire grassroots volunteer crew, Michigan TEA Parties led the way in collecting over 27,000 Nominating Signatures in just a few short months. Glenn filed 27,227 signatures at the Bureau of Elections to gain a spot on the ballot for the United States Senate primary on August 7th. Although many were saying he would not gather enough signatures to even make it on the ballot, at the time of filing, Glenn led the pack by filing the most signatures of any of the Republican U.S. Senate Candidates.

Signatures for Glenn’s petitions were collected as the result of dedicated and selfless efforts of hundreds of grassroots supporters and TEA Party Patriots from all 14 congressional districts and all 83 counties throughout Michigan. Signatures were collected in every county and at least 500 signatures were collected in each district to show the statewide grassroots strength behind Glenn.

Michigan 4 Conservative Senate (MI4CS) helped assemble the all-volunteer coalition of TEA Parties and individuals from around the State of Michigan. These volunteers were trained through conference calls, one on one, and personal phone calls. "We have been told over and over that there is no way that we could gather the required signatures through an all grassroots effort in such a short time. We've been told that it has never been done before. Well, we just did it! We are Americans and we are serious about our freedoms! The TEA Party was integral to the foundation of this country, and will also be vital in saving it."

MI4CS credits the successful framework of the Hoosiers 4 Conservative Senate and the Indiana TEA Parties strong defeat of 36 year incumbent Dick Lugar. According to Freeland TEA Party activist Catherine Zemanek, “The grassroots supporters of Richard Mourdock blazed the trail for the people of Indiana to take back their government, and we strongly believe that if it can happen in Indiana, it can happen here in Michigan. The people in the Midwest are speaking up loud and clear, and we want our values represented by true Conservatives. We are going to save this country, one state at a time.”

Utilizing the framework of the Indiana TEA party effort, MI4CS TEA Parties vetted all of the Republican candidates prior to choosing one candidate to endorse and support. Glenn won the vote and endorsement, providing the "Boots on the Ground" necessary for the petition drive, the upcoming primary, and the ultimate defeat of incumbent Senator Debbie Stabenow in November.

“Politicians from both political parties have demeaned and slandered Patriots and Conservatives repeatedly with homosexual slurs, lies, and labels such as radicals and terrorists. But in reality, we’re just concerned citizens with traditional values that nearly all Americans lived by and took for granted as normal in the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Our parents raised us to be law-abiding, fiscally-responsible people just like most other Americans then and now, and we expect our elected representatives to act that way as well,” said Mi4CS 11th Congressional District Rep Tim Bos. “The status quo is unacceptable, and we’re willing to make the sacrifices required to change it. Getting a win for Richard Mourdock, and more than enough nominating signatures for Gary Glenn is further proof that we are not alone, we are not “dead”, we are not marginal, and indeed, we are a force to be reckoned with”. 

Cindy Gamrat is founder and facilitator of Michigan 4 Conservative Senate.

Being Annoying Could Become Costly

From OneNewsNow
By Charlie Butts

Brighton, Michigan, apparently wants to stop "annoying" free speech.

The Brighton City Council recently passed a strict code for public conduct, and those who violate the law, including those who annoy someone else, could be cited and fined. LivingstonDaily.com reports Brighton Police Chief Tom Wightman issued the ordinance. Even though the edict features the word "annoy" at least twice, he contends it "is not for somebody that says something annoying" but rather for "some course of action for repeated acts."

Gary Glenn, head of American Family Association of Michigan, disagrees. "I think this ordinance in Brighton is clearly unconstitutional in that it attempts to restrict people's exercise of their free-speech rights based on the content of their speech," he says. "That's clearly viewpoint discrimination."

Police Chief Wightman says the ordinance would apply more to verbal interactions than an upsetting or annoying T-shirt, for example. However, Glen believes it could have a negative effect on individuals and pro-family groups.

"If someone dared, in a public place in Brighton, expressed their sincere religious conviction -- for example, that homosexual behavior is sinful -- obviously if someone was offended or insulted or even 'annoyed,' as the ordinance says, they might try to bring charges against somebody for merely expressing their sincerely held Christian beliefs," he points out.

The town is ripe for a lawsuit, says Glenn, if officials try to enforce the new decree.

RedState Interviews Gary Glenn

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan and one of the primary candidates in next year’s Senate race in Michigan was recently interviewed by RedState.  Gary is actively seeking the Tea Party vote and has been endorsed by Mike Huckabee.

Gary's campaign website is here.

Holland, Michigan School District Violates Christian Student's Free Speech Rights

Family Group: Holland schools violate Constitution by censoring Christian valedictorian's "life lesson"

Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals: "The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state."

HOLLAND, Mich. -- West Ottawa Public Schools Superintendent Patricia Koeze's censorship of a Christian high school senior's valedictory address -- planned for graduation ceremonies Sunday -- is a "clear, outrageous, and unconstitutional violation of the student's First Amendment free speech rights," a statewide family values group said Saturday.

The American Family Association of Michigan blasted Koeze's censorship of planned remarks by West Ottawa High School valedictorian Jed Grooters, who included quotations from the New Testament book of Corinthians. AFA-Michigan President Gary Glenn, Midland, said Koeze's action "is a clear case of unconstitutional discrimination based on the content of the student's speech, propped up by some obviously very poor legal advice from the school district's attorneys."

"Since the U.S. Supreme Court long ago prohibited school officials from unconstitutionally forcing students to surrender their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door," Glenn said, "Supt. Koeze's heavy-handed intolerance and discrimination toward this student's expression of his Christian worldview is an engraved invitation for a First Amendment free speech lawsuit against the school system for which local taxpayers would have to foot the bill for attorneys fees and damages."

The Grand Rapids Press Saturday reported that Grooters -- a 4.0 GPA student and eight-time varsity athlete who won the sportsmanship award in three different varsity sports this year -- was asked by school officials to give a valedictory address Sunday talking about a "life lesson" he wished to share with fellow students.
http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/06/west_ottawa_valedictorian_aske.html

But upon submitting a draft of his speech to school officials, Grooters was told he would not be allowed to speak unless he removed his speech's references to the Bible. The student refused, and the matter was referred to Koeze.

According to the Press, Koeze labeled Grooters' comments "a religious speech" and insisted that allowing him to present it during the school's graduation ceremonies would violate the so-called "separation of church and state."

Glenn said the federal Appeals Court which acts on all federal court decisions originating in Michigan has ruled exactly opposite of Koeze's faulty interpretation of the First Amendment.

He cited a April 2006 case in which the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals -- by a vote of 19 to 5 -- upheld a three-judge panel of the court's earlier rejection of the American Civil Liberties Union's claim that a Kentucky courthouse violated the First Amendment by displaying a copy of the Ten Commandments found in the Old Testament of the Bible.
http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/06a0146p-06.pdf

In its ruling, the Sixth Circuit went beyond the specifics of the Kentucky case, issuing a broad statement of the Constitution's original intent, dramatically declaring that religious speech is protected by, not at odds with, the First Amendment.

"The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state," the three-judge panel had unanimously ruled in December 2005 in an opinion authored by Senior Judge Richard Suhrheinrich of Williamston, a graduate of Michigan State University-Detroit College of Law and a full-time faculty member at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing.

The Suhrheinrich-authored decision further characterized the American Civil Liberties Union's repeated references to the so-called "separation of church and state" as "extra-constitutional" and "tiresome."

See page 13 of the Court of Appeals panel's December 2005 decision: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/05a0477p-06.pdf

"To quote the same Appeals Court that will eventually rule on any free speech lawsuit that results if Supt. Koeze continues to censor Jed Grooters' quotation of the Bible, the superintendent's false claim that the First Amendment requires her to do so is both 'extra-constitutional' and 'tiresome,'" Glenn said. "In fact, the First Amendment requires school officials to both respect and allow Jed to fully practice his First Amendment free speech rights."

Glenn said if the school district refuses to back off its unconstitutional censorship of Grooters' speech Sunday, "Christian legal defense foundations across the country will be waiting in line to provide free legal representation to this courageous, principled young man and his family."

"The question Supt. Koeze and West Ottawa school board members should ponder is how school district taxpayers are likely to feel about being forced to pay attorneys fees and damages when the federal courts reject her blatant violation of Jeb Grooters' First Amendment free speech rights," he said.

The American Family Association of Michigan's mission is to promote and defend traditional Judeo-Christian family values, Glenn said.

****

The American Family Association of Michigan is asking supporters to contact West Ottawa Schools Superintendent Patricia Koeze to voice their objection to the district's censorship and persecution of Christians:

Supt. Patricia Koeze

Phone: 616-738-5700

E-mail: KoezeP@westottawa.net