Minnesota Family Council

Gambling revenues for electronic pulltabs and bingo-- a moving target.

2012-02-02T10:46:00.004-06:00

Proponents of a new Vikings stadium and supporters of charitable gambling trumpet all the new revenues projected to be generated from installing electronic pull tabs and bingo games to replace the paper ones.

In the fiscal note accompanying the bill last year, the Minnesota Gambling Control Board estimated it would generate a mind boggling $2.5 billion in new gambling dollars from which the state will get a small percentage off the top to pay for the Vikings stadium and other government programs or projects. They estimate by 2014 there would be 3500 gambling sites using the electronic pull tabs and bingo games.

It seems these are moving numbers. The newest revenue projects for the state have increased from around $40 million a year to $72 million. And they say there will only be 2500 gambling sites.

The danger will these moving targets is if the expansion is passed and projected revenues don't materialize, I believe they'll come back to the legislature for more gambling -- slot machines in bars and restaurants.

Major foundation cuts off funding to Planned Parenthood.

2012-02-01T14:18:00.003-06:00

The Susan G. Komen Foundation, a major foundation which funds efforts to fight breast cancer, has cut funding to Planned Parenthood. This comes on the heels of efforts in various states to de-fund Planned Parenthood. To date, 9 states have cut off $61 million in funding to Planned Parenthood in the past year. I think this is reflective of the growing pro-life support among the public and as a result people are less inclined to support one of the chief proponents of abortion, Planned Parenthood.

Edina Presbyterian Church joins group which disagrees with PCUSA's position on homosexual behavior.

2012-01-31T09:53:00.007-06:00

Christ Presbyterian Church in Edina, with its 5,000 members, is joining and leading a group called the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians.

Presbyterians not happy with the denomination's move last year to allow for openly gay and lesbian clergy to serve in the church have formed a new religious body, led by an Edina pastor.

The Rev. John Crosby, pastor of the 5,000-member Christ Presbyterian Church in Edina, will serve as president of the small breakaway movement to be called the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians, according to the Presbyterian News Service.

"This is an uncertain time," said Crosby, the news service reported. "We are not angry, we are determined ... we are not 'after' or 'against' them -- we all need time, space and grace. ... We want to flesh out the options and then let God lead so we have the sense that we're all working together."

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) officially began allowing the ordination of openly gay and lesbian candidates on July 10.

In May, a majority of the denomination's 173 local presbyteries voted to remove language from its constitution stating clergy must be "living in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness."

The Twin Cities presbytery cast the deciding vote. There are at least 75,000 Presbyterians in Minnesota.

More than 2,000 Presbyterians gathered in Orlando last week "to provide support for congregations discontent with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and to officially launch the new church body," according to the Christian Post. "Attendees are weighing whether to join the ECO or remain a faithful witness in the PC(USA)."

The Presbyterian Church, based in Louisville, Ky., is among several mainline Protestant groups, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ, that have liberalized their policies toward gay clergy in recent years.

They join a long list of large mainline, denominational churches leaving the Episcopal, Lutheran (ELCA), and Presbyterian (PCUPSA)denominational groups after they began ordaining individuals engaged in homosexual behavior. These denominations, jettisoning two millennium of tradition and teaching, will continue to hemorrhage in numbers and relevancy.

Strib wants to throw religious freedoms/ rights of conscience out the window regarding health care and contraception.

2012-01-30T17:03:00.003-06:00

The Star Tribune editors think the Obama Administration's decision to require all health plans pay for contraceptives is great even if it means trampling on religious freedoms and rights of conscience.

The Obama administration has reached a sensible but controversial decision on health insurance coverage for contraceptives. In general, an employer's religious beliefs should not dictate the type of drugs or medical procedures covered by their employees' health insurance plans.

Hmm, I presume this also means they shouldn't be able to say no to abortion funding and coverage?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that it will stand firm on requiring many religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and charities to provide coverage for prescription birth control to their covered employees. Under federal health reform, birth control is now part of the preventive services provided at no charge by insurers.

The decision puts the administration at loggerheads with the powerful U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The bishops, noting their institution's long stance against prescription birth control, sought a broader religious exemption from this policy.

Houses of worship are not required to provide birth control in their health coverages, nor should they be. But the Obama administration rebuffed the bishops by declining to exempt religiously affiliated organizations whose primary mission isn't worship.

Critics, such as New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, blasted the decision as an attack on religious freedom. Yet another constitutional challenge to the federal health reform law is likely -- the last thing this embattled law needs.

The Obama administration nevertheless made the right decision. Birth control access is critical for women and children's health, ensuring that kids are born to parents ready for this responsibility. Lost in all the heated rhetoric over this milestone public health measure are several important points.

Critical children's health? I think a very strong case can be made that bombarding kid's with condom promotion has done everything but promote the health of children. The condom mindset and along sexual license has ushered in an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease, abortion, and out of wedlock births.

This policy does not require anyone to use birth control. In addition, courts have already rejected claims by Catholic organizations that requiring contraceptive coverage in employee health plans violates their religious freedom.

Issue isn't forcing people to use birth control but forcing people to subsidize it.

...Religious freedom is one of this nation's most cherished values. The Obama administration's birth control ruling carefully balanced respect for this tradition with concern for equity and public health.

There is no balancing of religious freedom. No, you will pay for this is the order of the day.

Want to eliminate the education achievement gap? The answer is simple: faith and family.

2012-01-27T16:30:00.005-06:00

I sat in on early childhood education hearing. Their ultimate goal is getting kids ready for school and reducing achievement gap. The answer ultimately doesn't reside in new or more government programs. (In fact, they often times make matters worse.)

Here's a study pointing to family and faith as the answer.

Here's the result of Professor Jeynes' study:

One of the most notable findings that emerges from this study is that using the NELS dataset, when African American and Latino children who are religious and come from intact families are compared with white students, the achievement gap disappears.

Note he says, "the achievement gap disappears." Isn't reduced. It disappears. That gets to the heart of the matter.

Who really cares for the less fortunate. Big government liberals or generous small government conservatives?

2012-01-25T10:33:00.006-06:00

There's a lot made over the release of Mitt Romney's tax returns. It shows not only his taxable income but also his charitable giving. It's interesting seeing what the various presidential candidates and incumbents have done with their money.

So what were the headlines? He raked in about $42 million in 2010 and 2011. His effective tax rate was just below 14 percent, lower than that for many American taxpayers. He paid $6.2 million to the taxman and donated a staggering $7 million to charity, including $4.1 million to the Mormon church.

OK, so Mormons are supposed to tithe 10 percent of their income. But it's to Romney's immense credit that he promised to do this in his youth and followed through with that - to the tune of scores of millions (maybe hundreds of millions) of dollars throughout his life.

In fact, in those two years, he paid 16 percent of his income to charity, compared to, er, 2.6 percent by Newt Gingrich.

And what about President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the run-up to their 2008 campaign?

USA Today broke it down here. In 2007, the Obamas gave more than $240,000 to charity, about 5.7 percent of their income. The Bidens gave an average of $369 to charity a year for the decade before he moved to the Naval Observatory - about 0.3 percent of their income. Back in 1997, then veep Al Gore and his then wife Tipper gave $353.

Since becoming veep, Biden hasn't become much more generous. In 2010, he gave $5,350, about 1.4 percent of income. That same year, Romney gave some $3 million. The national average is about three percent.

What's interesting is how much they give to charity. Romney's gifts to charity in 2010 and 2011 were 13.73% and 14.11% respectively.

President Obama made $1.2 million from 2000 to 2004. He gave $10,772 to charity during that time period. Less than 1%. In 2005 and 2006, he earned $2.6 million over the two years. His charitable gifts were $137,622 or less than 5%.

Gingrich gave 2.6% over 2010 and 2011.

Biden gave 1.4% in 2010.

I realize the liberal litmus test for caring for others is how much one is willing to spend other people's money on the less fortunate and poor. But wouldn't a better indicator be what one does with one's own money?

Minnesota Court of Appeals reverses District Court decision upholding state marriage law.

2012-01-24T09:00:00.001-06:00

The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed a Hennepin County District Court judge's decision throwing out a lawsuit changing Minnesota's marriage law.

The need for the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment isn't a theoritical issue. Here's a news story on the decision.

On the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade: "The Unbearable Wrongness of Roe"

2012-01-23T13:04:00.008-06:00

Here's a great commentary on the "unbearable wrongness of Roe", the US Supreme Court's decision "creating" a constitutional right to abortion and striking down laws across the country protecting the unborn child. It's written by St. Thomas law professor, Michael Stokes Paulsen. He writes:

It is almost too much to contemplate: the prospect that we are living in the midst of, and accepting (to various degrees) one of the greatest human holocausts in history. And so we don’t contemplate it. Instead, we look for ways to deny this grim reality, minimize it, or explain away our complacency—or complicity.

It is important, however, to view reality with eyes wide open, focus clear, and gaze not averted. On this thirty-ninth anniversary of Roe and Doe, I would like simply to set forth what Roe and Doe held, in as clear-headed and straightforwardly descriptive legal terms as possible, and to lay out its human and moral consequences. My brief tour of Roe’s unbearable wrongness begins with Roe’s radicalism—its extreme holding creating a plenary right to obtain or commit abortion—proceeds with Roe’s legal untenability, and concludes with Roe’s immorality and the moral problem of our seeming passivity and quiescence in response to the greatest legal and moral wrongs of our age.

Start with Roe’s radicalism, a radicalism that we may no longer grasp because it has become so familiar. Roe created a constitutional right to obtain or commit an abortion of a human life—that is, to terminate the life of a human embryo or fetus. It is important to be clear-sighted about this: abortion kills a living human embryo or fetus. What distinguishes “abortion” from (say)miscarriage is the specific intention to kill a living fetus. What was alive before has been deliberately killed. Abortion takes a life. Further, the life taken is human life. There is really no doubt about that as a matter of biology.

The embryo or fetus belongs to the species homo sapiens. It is a separate, living human being that is killed by abortion.

To be sure, that human being is killed at an early stage in its life cycle, and for a substantial part of that time could not live without direct biological connection to his or her mother (the person in whom Roe vests the right to terminate that human life).

But that does not make the human embryo any less alive, any less human, or any less a separate life from the mother. It just makes the unborn baby more vulnerable and dependent.

The right created by the Supreme Court in Roe is a constitutional right of some human beings to kill other human beings. I do not mean for my description to be provocative, but simply direct—blunt about facts. One need not presume that the human fetus has a right not to be killed in order to recognize that, as a descriptive matter, Roe creates a right for one class of human beings to kill other human beings.

Roe, coupled with Doe, creates a plenary right to kill the embryo or fetus for essentially any reason, at any time throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Distilled to its essence, Roe created a “trimester” framework for abortion. In roughly the first three months of pregnancy, the right of abortion is avowedly plenary: abortion may be had for any reason. In the second three months, government may regulate abortion to protect the life or health of the mother, but again the right to have an abortion remains plenary. In the final three months—after the point of “viability,” when the human fetus could live on his or her own outside the mother’s womb—Roe says that abortion can be restricted or prohibited . . . except where abortion is necessary to protect the “life or health” of the pregnant woman.

This is a big exception. And here is where Doe steps in. On its face, Roe might appear, to the unwary or uninitiated, “moderate”—its trimester-balancing framework a measured, reasonable-sounding, proportionate act of judicial legislation concerning abortion. It is Doe that does a lot of the work, through an indirect and ultimately disingenuous definition of the “health” reasons that always may justify a woman’s decision to have an abortion and trump any interest of society in protecting fetal human life, even when the child could survive outside the mother’s womb. Doe holds that relevant “health” considerations justifying late-term abortions include “all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.” (Doe’s
understanding of “the patient” did not include the fetus; Roe held elsewhere
that the human fetus has no legal rights that any person is bound to respect.)

Roe then cross-referenced Doe’s stylized definition of health and incorporated it into the main holding. The result is that an abortion may be had, under Roe and Doe, for essentially any reason, throughout all nine months of pregnancy, up to the point of birth.

And then he describes it as an immoral legal decision.

Finally, there is Roe’s immorality—the abortion holocaust it unleashed—and the problem of our response to it. Roe is a radical decision and a legally indefensible one. But what really makes Roe unbearably wrong is its consequences. The result of Roe and Doe has been the legally authorized killing of nearly sixty million Americans since 1973. Roe v. Wade authorized unrestricted private violence against human life on an almost unimaginable scale, and did so, falsely, in the name of the Constitution.

It is hard to escape this conclusion, but not impossible—and many certainly try. I will not here belabor the question of whether the intentional killing of innocent, dependent, vulnerable human children is a grave moral wrong. My concluding point concerns the lengths to which we will go to deny the reality of this holocaust, because it is almost unbearable to contemplate and still go on living life as if nothing is terribly wrong. The cognitive dissonance is simply too great. And so we have become, in effect, a nation of holocaust deniers.

Here is the problem, undressed: If human embryonic life is morally worthy of protection, we have permitted sixty million murders under our watch. Faced with this prospect, many of us—maybe even most—flee from the facts. We deny that the living human embryo is “truly” or “fully” human life, adopt a view that whether the embryo or fetus is human “depends,” or can be judged in degrees, on a sliding scale over the course of pregnancy; or we proclaim uncertainty about the facts of human biology; or we proclaim moral agnosticism about the propriety of “imposing our views on others”; or we throw up our hands and give up because moral opposition to an entrenched, pervasive social practice is not worth the effort, discomfort, and social costs. The one position not on the table—the one possibility too hard to look at—is that abortion is a grave moral wrong on a par with the greatest human moral atrocities of all time and that we passively, almost willingly, accept it as such.

All of this should tell us a few more sobering things. It should tell us that, much as we would like to believe that human beings have become more morally conscious, more sensitive to injustice and intolerant of clear evil, it remains the case that we often either fail to recognize it in our midst, or refuse to respond to it decisively, out of self-interest or cowardice. It should tell us that, much as we would like to think that we surely would have stood bravely against slavery, even if embedded in a nineteenth-century society that tolerated and accepted it as a legal right, we might have acquiesced or been tepid in our condemnation. It should tell us that, much as we would like to think we would never have put up with what transpired in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the 1940s, the evidence of our lives in twenty-first century America is that we might have put up with quite a lot.

And it should tell us finally, that, as much as we may claim to admire our governmental and constitutional system, the decisions of the Supreme Court in the abortion cases expose the Court—at least on this matter of life, death, and law—as a lawless, rogue institution capable of the most monstrous of injustices in the name of law. The Court has, with its abortion decisions, surely forfeited its legal and moral legitimacy as an institution. It has forfeited its claimed authority to speak for the Constitution. It has forfeited its entitlement to have its decisions respected, and followed, by the other branches of government, by the states, and by the people. Yet the docility of the American people with respect to Roe and abortion rivals the pliancy of the most cowardly, servile peoples toward ruinous, brutal, anti-democratic regimes throughout world history.

The Supreme Court is empowered by the Constitution to faithfully interpret the Constitution. But it is not alone in that power, and when it exceeds it and violates it, it is the responsibility of other actors in our system to check the abuse. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 49, “the several departments being perfectly co-ordinate by the terms of their common commission, neither of them, it is evident, can pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers.” Moreover, it is “the people themselves” who are “the grantors of the commission” and who “can alone declare its true meaning and enforce its observance.”

The Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade should not be accepted as law, in any sense. It should be resisted by legislatures and it should be refused enforcement by executive officials because it is not the law. It should be resisted by all citizens, with all the resources at their disposal, and perhaps even with resources not (yet) at their disposal. Anything less is holocaust denial.

Creating a false dicotomy. Appropriate evangelical political involvement.

2012-01-19T16:30:00.005-06:00

Religious conservatives involvement in the public arena and in particular political elections causes great angst for some evangelicals. Certainly politics can be a messy business, yet it's no less important for Christians to be involved in the political arena as in business, education or media for example.

Here's a column by David Neff of Christianity Today voicing concern about the meeting of evangelical leaders discussing who they should endorse for president. He said their gathering was dangerous. (That word was included in the title of his article.) Dangerous? Really.

He recommends the James Davison Hunter approach which emphasizes education and persuasion not direct political involvement. I don't think it's a case of one or the other. It's both. Ultimately, changing hearts and minds is key but that doesn't, nor should it, preclude direct political involvement. Going to an extreme in either direction is counter productive.

Personally, I don't think the endorsement of evangelical leaders for a particular candidate is determinative nor necessarily persuasive. Most evangelicals will size up the candidates themselves and vote accordingly, especially when several of the candidates generally hold the same policy positions on core issues.

Is it dangerous? No. What's dangerous is urging evangelicals to withdraw from the public/political square or saying that the ultimate solutions to the problems facing us are political. Both are wrongheaded.

Attack on religious liberties continues. NJ court decision case in point.

2012-01-18T09:49:00.004-06:00

I recently had a blog post on a letter signed by religious leaders voicing concerns about the impact legally redefining marriage would have on religious liberties.

Well, here's a case in point. A New Jersey judge has ruled that a Methodist retreat house does not have control over who uses their premises. In this instance a same sex couple couple which wanted to rent the facility for a same sex union ceremony can't be denied use of the facility.

These sorts of incidences will only grow and hopefully wake up the religious community to the very real threat to religious liberties posed by efforts to legally redefining marriage. As I've said many times, same sex "marriage" advocates don't operate with a "live and let live" mindset when it comes to forcing others to endorse and affirm their unions.

Addicted to gambling - states not just people.

2012-01-17T10:27:00.005-06:00

Here's an article on efforts by Maryland to get into the gambling rush. What this article points out is the addictive nature of predatory gambling and gambling revenues for state governments.

Maryland has struggled to get slots casinos off the ground since they were legalized in a 2008 referendum, while other states in the region have established slots and moved on to legalize casino table games such as poker and blackjack.

The District and New Jersey have upped the ante to fill government coffers by attempting to legalize online gambling, especially after the Justice Department last month gave its approval.

Maryland officials are largely focused on expanding slots and adding table games, but acknowledge that online gambling in nearby states could put them even further behind.

"We're a day late and a dollar short," said state Sen. Richard F. Colburn, Dorchester Republican, who is co-sponsoring a bill to legalize table games. "Even if we get table games, we're still going to be behind the eight ball. Maryland will probably never catch up."

Maryland lawmakers passed legislation in 2007 that paved the way for slots, after years of wrangling between the Democrat-controlled General Assembly and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican and one of the state's most vocal proponents of the machines.

The promised revenues don't materialize.

As it turns out, the rollout has gone slowly. Two casinos have opened, in Cecil and Worcester counties. The Maryland Live casino in Anne Arundel County is scheduled to open in June.

The state has not awarded contracts for its two other planned casinos, in Allegany County and in Baltimore, largely because of a lack of interest from qualified bidders. Still, officials hope to award contracts later this year.

The slow start and other delays have caused revenue to fall short of initial projections.

The two operational casinos brought in $103 million in fiscal 2011, compared with 2007 projections of $157 million during that period, and generated $80 million in the first six months of fiscal 2012, short of the $1 billion that the state initially predicted.

Gambling revenues are down in lots of states.

Maryland is not alone. As competition increases, states across the country are trying to stop declining casino revenue.

Revenue is reportedly down 30 percent since 2006 in Atlantic City, N.J., and Nevada's biggest casinos reported a combined $4 billion loss in 2011.

Delaware, which opened slots at the first of three racetracks in 1995 and added table games in 2009, has switched from expansion plans to considering ways to keep "racinos" from folding. One option on the table is reduced licensing fees. Slots revenue there has declined every year since 2007, when Harrah's opened a casino in Chester, Pa..

They see it as easy money. What they don't see is the destructive, corrosive effects of predatory gambling on individuals and the culture. The social costs are well documented and they far outweigh any benefits. Predatory gambling which is primarily the electronic forms of gambling is the most addictive form of gambling.

It's built on a predatory business model rooted in addiction and indebtednessDuring economically difficult times, more predatory gambling is the last thing we need.

Christian and other religious leaders speak out on marriage and religious liberty.

2012-01-16T11:13:00.005-06:00

Christians leaders from across denominational and religious lines signed an open letter to the American people on the impact of redefining marriage on religious freedoms.

They noted that marriage and religious liberty are goods which stand or fall together.

I think leaders and people in the church are increasingly understanding the impact of redefining marriage on society and in particular on the church.

Here's the text of their letter. Here's a Q & A explaining the letter and answering questions raised by it.

The promotion and protection of marriage—the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife—is a matter of the common good and serves the wellbeing of the couple, of children, of civil society and all people. The meaning and value of marriage precedes and transcends any particular society, government, or religious community. It is a universal good and the foundational institution of all societies. It is bound up with the nature of the human person as male and female, and with the essential task of bearing and nurturing children.

As religious leaders across a wide variety of faith communities, we join together to affirm that marriage in its true definition must be protected for its own sake and for the good of society. We also recognize the grave consequences of altering this definition. One of these consequences—the interference with the religious freedom of those who continue to affirm the true definition of “marriage”—warrants special attention within our faith communities and throughout society as a whole. For this reason, we come together with one voice in this letter.

Some posit that the principal threat to religious freedom posed by same-sex “marriage” is the possibility of government’s forcing religious ministers to preside over such “weddings,” on pain of civil or criminal liability. While we cannot rule out this possibility entirely, we believe that the First Amendment creates a very high bar to such attempts.

Instead, we believe the most urgent peril is this: forcing or pressuring both individuals and religious organizations—throughout their operations, well beyond religious ceremonies—to treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct. There is no doubt that the many people and groups whose moral and religious convictions forbid same-sex sexual conduct will resist the compulsion of the law, and church-state conflicts will result.

These conflicts bear serious consequences. They will arise in a broad range of legal contexts, because altering the civil definition of “marriage” does not change one law, but hundreds, even thousands, at once. By a single stroke, every law where rights depend on marital status—such as employment discrimination, employment benefits, adoption, education, healthcare, elder care, housing, property, and taxation—will change so that same-sex sexual relationships must be treated as if they were marriage. That requirement, in turn, will apply to religious people and groups in the ordinary course of their many private or public occupations and ministries—including running schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other housing facilities, providing adoption and counseling services, and many others.

So, for example, religious adoption services that place children exclusively with married couples would be required by law to place children with persons of the same sex who are civilly “married.” Religious marriage counselors would be denied their professional accreditation for refusing to provide counseling in support of same-sex “married” relationships. Religious employers who provide special health benefits to married employees would be required by law to extend those benefits to same-sex “spouses.” Religious employers would also face lawsuits for taking any adverse employment action—no matter how modest—against an employee for the public act of obtaining a civil “marriage” with a member of the same sex. This is not idle speculation, as these sorts of situations have already come to pass.

Even where religious people and groups succeed in avoiding civil liability in cases like these, they would face other government sanctions—the targeted withdrawal of government co-operation, grants, or other benefits.

For example, in New Jersey, the state cancelled the tax-exempt status of a Methodist-run boardwalk pavilion used for religious services because the religious organization would not host a same-sex “wedding” there. San Francisco dropped its $3.5 million in social service contracts with the Salvation Army because it refused to recognize same-sex “domestic partnerships” in its employee benefits policies. Similarly, Portland, Maine, required Catholic Charities to extend spousal employee benefits to same-sex “domestic partners” as a condition of receiving city housing and community development funds.

In short, the refusal of these religious organizations to treat a same-sex sexual relationship as if it were a marriage marked them and their members as bigots, subjecting them to the full arsenal of government punishments and pressures reserved for racists. These punishments will only grow more frequent and more severe if civil “marriage” is redefined in additional jurisdictions. For then, government will compel special recognition of relationships that we the undersigned religious leaders and the communities of faith that we represent cannot, in conscience, affirm. Because law and government not only coerce and incentivize but also teach, these sanctions would lend greater moral legitimacy to private efforts to punish those who defend marriage.

Therefore, we encourage all people of good will to protect marriage as the union between one man and one woman, and to consider carefully the far-reaching consequences for the religious freedom of all Americans if marriage is redefined. We especially urge those entrusted with the public good to support laws that uphold the time-honored definition of marriage, and so avoid threatening the religious freedom of countless institutions and citizens in this country. Marriage and religious freedom are both deeply woven into the fabric of this nation.

May we all work together to strengthen and preserve the unique meaning of marriage and the precious gift of religious freedom.

Economic Freedom on Decline in US

2012-01-13T09:17:00.003-06:00

The Heritage Foundation released its most recent ranking of nations on their level of economic freedom. The US has dropped to 10th worldwide. The top five countries are Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland.

The United States’ economic freedom score of 76.3 drops it to 10th place in the 2012 Index. Its score is 1.5 points lower than last year, reflecting deteriorating scores for government spending, freedom from corruption, and investment freedom. The U.S. is ranked 2nd out of three countries in the North America region, and its overall score remains well above the world and regional averages.

The U.S. economy faces enormous challenges. Although the foundations of economic freedom remain strong, recent government interventions have eroded limits on government, and public spending by all levels of government now exceeds one-third of total domestic output. The regulatory burden on business continues to increase rapidly, and heightened uncertainty further increases regulations’ negative impact. Fading confidence in the government’s determination to promote or even sustain open markets has discouraged entrepreneurship and dynamic investment within the private sector.

Recent declines are due to President Obama's spending and regulatory policies.

The U.S. economy, the world’s largest, has not recovered fully from the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession. Under Democratic President Barack Obama, the federal system of government, designed to reserve significant powers to the state and local levels, has been strained by the national government’s rapid expansion. Spending at the national level rose to over 25 percent of GDP in 2010, and gross public debt surpassed 100 percent of GDP in 2011. A 2010 health care bill that greatly expanded the central government’s reach has been under challenge in the courts, and the Dodd–Frank financial overhaul bill has roiled credit markets. Although the election of a Republican Party majority in the House of Representatives in late 2010 slowed spending growth, divided government has left U.S. economic policy in flux.

While done in the name of fairness, redistributionist policies ultimately shrink the size of the economic pie and makes society overall worse off. Of course, mismanagement isn't limited to the Obama Administration; it's only accelerated process. Financial and monetary mismanagement hammer the middle class first and foremost. Poverty and mistreatment of the environment are a couple of the conseqeunces of the loss of economic freedom and growth.

Pro-family tax policy proposed by Santorum.

2012-01-12T12:04:00.004-06:00

Rick Santorum has proposed a pro-family tax policy which raises personal deductions and eliminate marriage penalties.

Santorum’s tax proposals would triple the personal deduction for each child and “eliminate marriage tax penalties throughout the federal tax code.” He would retain deductions for charitable giving, home mortgage interest, health care, and retirement - all undertakings that support faith and family formation.

Significantly, he would eliminate all corporate taxes on U.S. manufacturers, from its present 35 percent to zero. The candidate’s native Pennsylvania has lost 127,000 manufacturing jobs 2005-10, and median income has fallen faster than the national average. High-wage manufacturing jobs made it possible to support a family without a college degree. A 2003 study funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation found higher education and the desire for more economic security delayed the age of marriage and family formation later than ever.

The candidate’s promotion of marriage and family led the American Enterprise Institute’s James Pethoukis to write that Santorum is “using tax policy as pro-family, pro-natalism social policy.”

Dr. Allan C. Carlson, president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society told LifeSiteNews.com that Santorum’s economic proposals “are potentially pro-natalist, and that’s a good thing. We could use more babies born in this country.” The U.S. birthrate fell below replacement level in 2008, hitting its lowest level in a century in 2010.

Santorum believes marriage and childbirth are pivotal to a healthy society. “It’s important to value the institution of marriage,” Santorum said in a recent stump speech. “Because the institution of marriage is where men and women bond together for the purposes of having and raising children, and giving children their birthright, which is a mom and a dad…that has an intrinsic value that is better than every other relationship.”

Nearly 41 percent of America’s children are born out of wedlock in 2010. American taxpayers spent $300 billion on welfare programs for single-parent families, 75 percent of all welfare expenditures for families with children.

Surveys prove children raised within traditional marriages become more economically productive citizens and suffer fewer of the pathologies of crime and poverty associated with children in single-parent or cohabiting parent homes. But economic anxiety has caused many couples to postpone childbirth.

The marriage penalty embedded in the tax code may discourage marriage by taxing married couples at higher rates than single people. Santorum’s plan would equalize the tax burden by doubling the size of tax brackets for married families and eliminating other penalties for those who tie the knot...

Many believe healing America’s crumbling hearths requires bold measures. In July, Charles A. Donovan, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, called for “a Marshall Plan to rebuild shattered American homes.” Congresswoman Michele Bachmann made “family formation” the center of her tax plan before exiting the race. Others emphasize that the proposal is a political winner. Robert Stein, a former deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury, writes, “Such an approach would also be very popular with a vital political constituency - middle-class parents.”

Dr. Carlson, who has promoted a pro-family tax policy for decades, said family formation has been at the heart of the income tax code since the Revenue Act of 1948, which “generously increased personal exemptions for children, eliminated the marriage penalty that existed in the tax code, and made having a family and children a tax shelter.” He suggested the Parents Tax Relief Act of 2007 as model legislation, but believed it would have a chilly reception in some quarters of Capitol Hill.

“The Democrats, under the influence of the feminist bloc, don’t want to give any recognition to stay at home parenting, because they fear - rightly so - that women may like it,” Dr. Carlson said.

His proposal does raise concerns among some conservatives that it will remove individuals from the tax rolls which means they'll have less incentive to be concerned about taxes.

William McBridge, an economist with the Tax Foundation, observed that Santorum’s plan “might spur growth, or it might just spur child making.” However, it would “push more taxpayers off the tax rolls such that likely a majority of tax filers would pay no tax. That last one’s a serious concern in a democracy controlled by majority rule.”

I think it’s a good idea,” Dr. Carlson replied. “I’m for a progressive tax system that has generous tax exemptions tied to it. It does mean that more people raising children will be allowed to keep more of their money.”

I think it's appropriate for the tax code to recognize the family as the foundational social and economic unit of society and therefore is worthy of special recognition. Frankly, if we don't have more children, our economy will suffer and there will be more pressure to raise taxes on the fewer taxpayers in society.

Ugh. Moral relativism at work. The danger of teaching kids to not make right judgments.

2012-01-11T14:08:00.005-06:00

Here's an excerpt from a powerful commentary by Chuck Colson on moral relativism in education. He quotes from an Education Journal article.

Dr. Stephen Anderson teaches philosophy at A.B. Lucas Secondary School in Ontario, Canada. His students had just finished a unit on metaphysics and were about to start one on ethics.

To jump start the discussion and to “form a baseline from which they could begin to ask questions about the legitimacy of moral judgments of all kinds,” Anderson shared with them a gruesome photo of Bibi Aisha, a teenage wife of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. When Bibi tried to get away from her abusive husband, her family caught her, cut off her nose and ears, and left her to die in the mountains. Only Bibi didn’t die. Somehow she crawled to her grandfather’s house, and was saved in an American hospital.

Writing in Education Journal magazine, Anderson relates how he was sure that his students, “seeing the suffering of this poor girl of their own age, [they] would have a clear ethical reaction,” one they could talk about “more difficult cases.”

But their response shocked Anderson. “[He] expected strong aversion [to it], … but that’s not what I got. Instead, they became confused . . . afraid to make any moral judgment at all. They were unwilling to criticize,” as he said, “any situation originating in a different culture. They said, ‘Well, we might not like it, but maybe over there it’s okay.’”

Anderson calls their confusion and refusal to judge such child mutilation a moment of startling clarity, and indeed it is. He wonders if it stems not from too little education, but from too much multiculturalism and so-called “values education,” which is really just an excuse for moral relativism.

Anderson writes, “While we may hope some [students] are capable of bridging the gap between principled morality and this ethically vacuous relativism, it is evident that a good many are not. For them, the overriding message is ‘never judge, never criticize, never take a position.’” Anderson wonders whether in our current educational system, we’re not producing ethical paralytics? Well, if the horrifying example of the students’ reaction in this case is any indication, Anderson already knows the answer.

We are and will be reaping the whirlwind of moral relativism and multiculturalism in our educational institutions.

Tebow and the 3:16 phenomena

2012-01-10T17:06:00.002-06:00

The talk of the sports world is quarterback Tim Tebow and his most recent football victory. This time over the perennial powerhouse Pittsburgh Steelers.

His strong expressions of faith have got everybody's attention.

He has had CBS sport's commentators "tebowing" and now his passing for 316 with an average of 31.6 yards a catch have drawn attention to the famous Bible verse John 3:16.

• The fact that Tebow had 316 yards passing and averaged 31.6 yards per pass in the game didn't escape notice on Sunday night. Tebow wore "John 3:16" on his eye black in the 2009 BCS Championship game and has since become identified with the famous Bible message. The coincidental stats caused millions of fans to perform Google searches on the Bible passage in the past 24 hours. Here's one more unbelievable stat: John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reports that the final quarter-hour television rating for the Broncos-Steelers game was, you guessed it, 31.6.

(John 3:16 reads: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.")

Is New York City embracing a culture of death?

2012-01-09T11:59:00.004-06:00

The New York City Department of Health has released numbers showing that 40% of all births end in abortion. That sounds like a culture which is rejecting life and embracing radical individualism and even death, even if it's not consciously understood.

It's pointed out that in the Bronx, it's upwards of 50%. In the African America community, 60% of pregnancies end in abortion. And for teenagers, it's 63%. And nationally, 23% of births end in abortion, nearly a quarter of all pregnancies.

With the highest abortion rate in the nation, nearly double the 23% national average, New York continues to be a place that babies in the womb cannot love.

New York City Department of Health released data that shows that 83,750 abortions were performed in New York City in 2010, which translated to 40% of all pregnancies, down from 41% in 2009.

The Bronx saw a staggering 48% of pregnancies end in abortion. The city lost 38,574 African-Americans babies to abortion, a dumbfounding 60% of the city’s African-American pregnancies.

The abortion rate among NY teens as a whole was 63%, 12,139 abortions to 7,207 live births. That means that for every 1,000 babies born among New York City teens, 1,684 were aborted.

A ray of light is many New Yorkers realize they have a problem and are open to addressing it.

According to a citywide poll conducted last year by McLaughlin & Associates and released by The Chiaroscuro Foundation, two-thirds of New Yorkers (64%) think that too many babies are aborted in New York City every year. More than half of city residents (51%) would support a 24-hour waiting period before the abortion procedure. About 63% of city residents would support a parental consent initiative for girls under 18 years of age to abort her baby.

Societies can't survive if they embrace the abortion mindset for very long.

Liberal talk show host Ed Schultz impressed by Santorum

2012-01-06T14:47:00.005-06:00

Here's a couple of interesting videos by liberal, talk show host Ed Schultz. He followed Santorum around Iowa and was impressed. Didn't agree with his views but was impressed by him as a candidate.

This segment is done before the caucuses and this segment was done in response to liberal critics of his comments.

All right, so last night I'm on the coverage (of Iowa caucuses) on MSNBC and all of a sudden I start getting all of these tweets from liberals who think that I am eating Santorum's salad or I'm a turncoat and emails are coming in, Ed, wha, wha, wha, wha -- shut up!

Look, I went to Iowa as an objective reporter to bring the story to you on what's happening on the ground. And I came back and I said, you know what, this Samtorum guy (yes -- "Samtorum"), he's going to win. Why is he going to win? Because he's absolutely an ace at retail politics. And yes, whether you like it or not, he's as good as President Obama with a crowd. I know, I saw it, OK?

I, on the air, on "The Ed Show," I talked about why he's good. Because he looks right at people and gives them a direct answer and then gets into detail. He doesn't get off into the weeds with bullet points and he doesn't dismiss people, OK? There is a certain genuine quality about this guy. Has nothing to do with how radical his positions are on gay marriage or the family or, you know, the bridge to nowhere or whatever! But I want to tell you, it kind of pissed me off!

Could/would new federal anti-terrorism law be used to detain prolifers by characterizing them as "terrorists"?

2012-01-05T13:16:00.008-06:00

Pro-life, public interest lawyer John Whitehead believes a new federal law that permits the detention without trial of individuals and, some think American citizens, suspected of terrorist ties could be applied to prolife activists.

In a LifesitesNews story:

“This law can apply to pro-lifers, yes,” said John W. Whitehead, a constitutional attorney and founder of The Rutherford Institute. Whitehead told LifeSiteNews.com the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) “would allow the military to show up at your door if you’re a ‘potential terrorist,’ and put you in military detention where seeing a lawyer is difficult.”

The NDAA, which President Barack Obama signed on December 31, allows the president to hold enemy combatants in military detention facilities without trial until the end of hostilities, if the person “substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” The law allows the president to determine which groups may be considered terrorists without judicial or congressional oversight, although Secretary of Defense is required to “regularly brief” Congress about “covered persons.”

Sen. Carl Levin, D-MI, said the Obama administration specifically asked senators for the power to permanently detain American citizens without trial and to “remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”

Although Section 1022 states, “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States,” many contend the law allows detention as an option for Americans captured abroad. Glenn Greenwald of Salon summarized, “For foreign nationals accused of being members of Al Qaeda, military detention is mandatory; for U.S. citizens, it is optional.”

Dana Cody, president and executive director of Life Legal Defense Foundation, said pro-life activists “already are classified as domestic terrorists on some FBI lists.” She said that on one occasion the manager of a Kansas City, Kansas, abortion clinic slammed her client, Mary Ann Sause, to the ground and told the peaceful pro-life demonstrator he was photographing her license plate so he could report her to the FBI.

Cody, who told LifeSiteNews.com her organization is currently studying the NDAA, added that the law states “enemy territory is anywhere.” The Senate rejected an amendment from Dianne Feinstein limiting permanent detention to those captured “abroad.”

“If it’s within the discretion of the government under the National Defense Authorization Act, of course it will be used by the government to intimidate and silence pro-life people, especially those who are in the public forum,” Cody said.

....Whitehead said one of his clients, street preacher Michael Marcavage, has become the target of an FBI terrorist investigation. Whitehead wrote a letter to FBI director Robert Mueller asking why Marcavage is being investigated for preaching the Gospel. The FBI has not responded.

Under this administration, the Department of Homeland Security has listed pro-life organizations as potential domestic terrorists and held joint training sessions with the FBI to monitor pro-life websites.

An April 2009 DHS report entitled “Rightwing [sic.] Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” identified as likely terrorists “groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” or who would be “antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues.” Such groups, the report concluded, “are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.” The DHS later pulled the report.

However, last August DHS and FBI agents attended a terrorism training seminar hosted by Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation, and the Feminist Majority Foundation that equated free speech and distributing literature with violence. An 84-page resource guide listed three pages of potential extremist websites including Priests for Life, National Right to Life, the American Life League, Concerned Women for America, Human Life International, the American Center for Law and Justice, and the Christian Broadcasting Network.

In 1994-6, the Clinton administration’s Justice Department subpoenaed longtime pro-life activists in hopes of uncovering a terrorist conspiracy to kill abortionists. The Violence Against Abortion Providers Conspiracy (VAAPCON) program compiled a vast database of information on anti-abortion groups and individuals, including the National Right to Life Committee, the late John Cardinal O’Connor of New York, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Concerned Women for America, the Christian Coalition, Feminists for Life, and the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, which condemned the secret database.

Whitehead warns the NDAA is “a threat to anybody causing trouble – that means exercising your rights.”

One never knows all the consequences of new laws until they're in place.

What will the coming presidential campaign look like?

2012-01-04T12:35:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting analysis of the upcoming presidential campaign between President Obama and the Republican nominee by Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard.

We are a little over 10 months from Election Day, and the Christmas hope of many conservatives is that voters next November will deliver a decisive rebuke to President Barack Obama. Obviously, a lot can happen in 10 months. Nevertheless, many of the fundamentals of the race are already in place. And the news is not good for the president.

Horse race polls are of limited value this far from Election Day. The 10 to 15 percent of the electorate in the middle—the slice of voters who swing elections—aren’t paying much attention. Sometimes these voters do not make a decision until the very last minute, as was the case in the 1980 campaign between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

Still, the polls offer some guidance. The RealClearPolitics.com average of them shows Obama earning just 43 percent when matched against an unnamed Republican, and only 46 percent when matched against Mitt Romney. This is bad for the president because public opinion about an incumbent is pretty firm and difficult—though not impossible—to move, absent shifts in the broader political context.

And what to make of that context? Each presidential election is fought over a series of shifting national concerns, and the issues of the 2012 cycle are the least favorable for an incumbent president since 1992, and maybe even since 1980. And we know what happened to the incumbents in those elections.

Three issues in particular dominate the discussion, and none of them favors Obama. The most important is the economy, which has been struggling through a decade of weak growth. Consider that between 1951 and 2000, the American economy grew by an average of 37 percent every decade. Between 2001 and 2010, the pace of growth was less than half that, at just 15 percent.

This has generated an enormous “output gap”—the difference between what the economy would ideally produce and what it has actually done. Over the last decade, the size of this gap is a yawning $2.5 trillion. The average American has felt the effects in stubbornly high unemployment and stagnant real incomes, and the effort of the Federal Reserve to generate growth by cutting interest rates to the bone means that people who save their pennies earn virtually no interest for their scrimping.

Barack Obama certainly doesn’t deserve all the blame, but he will pay a high political price for three reasons. First, he overpromised to an absurd degree when he entered office. He claimed that the stimulus bill would reignite the American growth machine and keep unemployment under 8 percent. Neither happened, so Obama will pay for his unjustified optimism.

Second, he failed to form a bipartisan coalition to tackle the economic problem. The many comparisons made between Barack Obama and Franklin Roosevelt in the heady days of winter 2009 always seemed to overlook the fact that FDR’s New Deal, at least in its early stages, was bipartisan, framed as a national response to a national emergency. Obama’s approach was to breezily tell congressional Republicans, “I won.” Because the stimulus manifestly failed to deliver the growth that the president promised, Obama and congressional Democrats must bear the weight of that failure all by themselves.

Third, Obama turned his attention away from the economy far too quickly. This points to another difference between Obama and Roosevelt. FDR essentially threw everything at the Depression, including the kitchen sink; the legislating of 1933 and 1934 was relentlessly focused on the economy, and voters had no choice but to conclude that Roosevelt was, at the very least, doing everything he could think of. Not so with Obama. Having passed their stimulus, this president and his allies in Congress turned their attention to grander social welfare ambitions, something FDR did not begin to do until 1935, when the economy had already started growing at a robust rate.

Thus, the only real question is how big a price Obama will pay. The December survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal found that, on average, they expect 2012 annual GDP to come in at 2.3 percent, far below the postwar average, unemployment to be stuck at or above 8.5 percent for the whole year, and home prices to be flat. No incumbent president since FDR has been reelected when the economy still has so much slack.

Obama’s record on the economy is so dismal that, all by itself, it should be sufficient for an able Republican to defeat him. Yet this president faces other daunting challenges. The next big one is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. It contributed mightily to the GOP wave of 2010, and if the Republicans play their cards right, it will defeat Obama next year.

At this point, given our economic and financial problems things look tough for President Obama. Yet lots can happen between now and November. The economy could improve significantly. Paul runs as a third party candidate. Or the Republican candidate makes major mistakes. Even in 1980, when Reagan beat Carter, things didn't shake out until the final weeks of the campaign. It's a big election.

Is it just about the economy? Will the "leave me alone" mindset suffice?

2012-01-03T17:25:00.006-06:00

Columnist Star Parker goes after Ron Paul and more broadly those she perceives as wanting to avoid the values questions and exclusively focus on the economy. She said she's hearing this refrain more frequently on college campuses among students.

When I first started lecturing early in the 1990’s, leading heroes of Republican youth were Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley, Jr.

Individual freedom, respect for constitutional limitations on government, and traditional values was the message. There was a sense of purpose. America as a “shining city on a hill,” quoted so often by Reagan, taken from the Puritan pilgrim John Winthrop, captured the picture.

Now, increasing numbers of my campus hosts ask that I not talk about “values.” Leave out the stuff about marriage, family, and abortion, please, and just talk about the economy.

The materialism and moral relativism that created our left wing culture is now infecting our youth on the right. Young Republicans may be pushing back on government, but too often now their motivation is like their left wing contemporaries. A sense of entitlement and an interest in claiming rights with little interest in corresponding personal responsibilities.

David Yepsen, who directs the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, recently described Ron Paul's success as a "resurgence of the libertarian and isolationist wings of the Republican Party," resulting from "hard times and unpopular wars."

As for the values question, it can't be avoided even in the economic debates. It's always there, under the surface. In conservative circles, this avoidance is associated with libertarianism which is rooted, often times, in a radical individualism, e.g. I'm accountable to no one or standard beyond myself and what I want to do.

While I agree with libertarians on many of their limited government, free market prescriptions, I believe "radical individualism" which guides some folks is ultimately a dead end and destructive to the individual and society as a whole. We live in moral universe which we didn't create nor do we have the power to recreate it.

The Walker Art Center's bizarre performance.

2011-12-30T12:42:00.007-06:00

The Walker Art Center is sponsoring a performance by the Young Jean Lee's Theater Company entitled, "Out There". I think a more apt description would be "Out of control" or "Lost in space". Come up with your title after reading the description below.

THEATER / YOUNG JEAN LEE'S THEATER COMPANY

Thursday-Jan. 7: Each year at this time, Walker Art Center manages to convince four of the world's most innovative, cutting-edge theater artists and companies to come to Minneapolis in January and be part of the "Out There" series. This year's invitees hail from New York, Tokyo, Beirut and Buenos Aires. The first to arrive is the New York-based Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, which presents "Untitled Feminist Show," a new piece commissioned by the Walker that examines what life might be like without traditional gender categories. Expect some nudity. No, check that: Expect a lot of nudity. 8 p.m. Thursday-Jan. 7; McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Mpls.; $22-$15; 612-375-7600 or walkerart.org.

I wonder if the Walker receives taxpayer dollars.

New tests on Shroud of Turin say it's not a medieval forgery.

2011-12-29T09:00:00.002-06:00

A new study of the Shroud of Turin say it couldn't have been the result of an elaborate medieval forgery. The technology wasn't available then. Where did it come from? While scientists won't make nonscientific conclusions, the evidence clearly points to the traditional claims that it was the burial cloth of Christ.

Italian scientists have conducted a series of advanced experiments which, they claim, show that the marks on the shroud – purportedly left by the imprint of Christ's body – could not possibly have been faked with technology that was available in the medieval period.

The research will be an early Christmas present for shroud believers, but is likely to be greeted with scepticism by those who doubt that the sepia-coloured, 14ft-long cloth dates from Christ's crucifixion 2,000 years ago.

Sceptics have long claimed that the shroud is a medieval forgery, and radiocarbon testing conducted by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona in 1988 appeared to back up the theory, suggesting that it dated from between 1260 and 1390.

But those tests were in turn disputed on the basis that they were skewed by contamination by fibres from cloth that was used to repair the relic when it was damaged by fire in the Middle Ages.

The new study is the latest intriguing piece of a puzzle which has baffled scientists for centuries and spawned an entire industry of research, books and documentaries.

"The double image (front and back) of a scourged and crucified man, barely visible on the linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin, has many physical and chemical characteristics that are so particular that the staining ... is impossible to obtain in a laboratory," concluded experts from Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development.

The scientists set out to "identify the physical and chemical processes capable of generating a colour similar to that of the image on the Shroud." They concluded that the exact shade, texture and depth of the imprints on the cloth could only be produced with the aid of ultraviolet lasers – technology that was clearly not available in medieval times.

While the study doesn't claim that it was the burial cloth of Christ. Eliminating the argument that it was a medieval forgery eliminates a significant opposing argument.

Some skeptics will continue to argue against the idea that it was Christ's burial cloth because they don't believe Jesus is who He said He is. But for those open and/or struggling with doubts it offers interesting evidence in support of Christ's humanity.

The Vatican has never said whether it believes the shroud to be authentic or not, although Pope Benedict XVI has said that the enigmatic image imprinted on the cloth "reminds us always" of Christ's suffering.

For Star Tribune editorial writers, all roads lead to social issues

2011-12-28T12:17:00.008-06:00

Both in their discussion of past Senate Majority leader Amy Koch and her successor Senator Dave Senjem, all roads lead back to social issues. In the former instance, the Marriage Protection Amendment was targeted and in the latter it was "divisive social measures", in particular ones which might also end up on the ballot. They of course are fearful that ones they disagree with, yet have strong public support, might end up getting passed into law.

Why are millennials leaving church?

2011-12-22T13:05:00.004-06:00

Here's an interesting article on the reasons young people are giving for leaving church.

Reason #1 – Churches seem overprotective.
A few of the defining characteristics of today's teens and young adults are their unprecedented access to ideas and worldviews as well as their prodigious consumption of popular culture. As Christians, they express the desire for their faith in Christ to connect to the world they live in. However, much of their experience of Christianity feels stifling, fear-based and risk-averse. One-quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” (23% indicated this “completely” or “mostly” describes their experience). Other perceptions in this category include “church ignoring the problems of the real world” (22%) and “my church is too concerned that movies, music, and video games are harmful” (18%).

Reason #2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.
A second reason that young people depart church as young adults is that something is lacking in their experience of church. One-third said “church is boring” (31%). One-quarter of these young adults said that “faith is not relevant to my career or interests” (24%) or that “the Bible is not taught clearly or often enough” (23%). Sadly, one-fifth of these young adults who attended a church as a teenager said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” (20%).

Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science.
One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity and science. The most common of the perceptions in this arena is “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” (35%). Three out of ten young adults with a Christian background feel that “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%). Another one-quarter embrace the perception that “Christianity is anti-science” (25%). And nearly the same proportion (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.” Furthermore, the research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.
Five Myths about Young Adult Church Dropouts

Reason #4 – Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.
With unfettered access to digital pornography and immersed in a culture that values hyper-sexuality over wholeness, teen and twentysometing Christians are struggling with how to live meaningful lives in terms of sex and sexuality. One of the significant tensions for many young believers is how to live up to the church's expectations of chastity and sexual purity in this culture, especially as the age of first marriage is now commonly delayed to the late twenties. Research indicates that most young Christians are as sexually active as their non-Christian peers, even though they are more conservative in their attitudes about sexuality. One-sixth of young Christians (17%) said they “have made mistakes and feel judged in church because of them.” The issue of sexuality is particularly salient among 18- to 29-year-old Catholics, among whom two out of five (40%) said the church’s “teachings on sexuality and birth control are out of date.”

Reason #5 – They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.
Younger Americans have been shaped by a culture that esteems open-mindedness, tolerance and acceptance. Today’s youth and young adults also are the most eclectic generation in American history in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, technological tools and sources of authority. Most young adults want to find areas of common ground with each other, sometimes even if that means glossing over real differences. Three out of ten young Christians (29%) said “churches are afraid of the beliefs of other faiths” and an identical proportion felt they are “forced to choose between my faith and my friends.” One-fifth of young adults with a Christian background said “church is like a country club, only for insiders” (22%).

Reason #6 – The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.
Young adults with Christian experience say the church is not a place that allows them to express doubts. They do not feel safe admitting that sometimes Christianity does not make sense. In addition, many feel that the church’s response to doubt is trivial. Some of the perceptions in this regard include not being able “to ask my most pressing life questions in church” (36%) and having “significant intellectual doubts about my faith” (23%). In a related theme of how churches struggle to help young adults who feel marginalized, about one out of every six young adults with a Christian background said their faith “does not help with depression or other emotional problems” they experience (18%).

I'd summarize this as the church isn't real and relevant to their lives generally. And there's the issue of whether they want to embrace it when they clearly understand it. The first reasons need to be addressed and lead to changes in the church's activities and message. The second one can't be addressed. Ultimately there is a choice involved on the part of the individual.

Tebow and antipathy towards Christianity

2011-12-20T10:00:00.000-06:00

There's been a lot of attention paid to Tim Tebow and "tebowing"; his practice of kneeling and saying a prayer after scoring a touchdown. Lots of players have done this but never revoked such a strong reaction.

I think Chuck Colson gets at the heart of the situation -- it's antipathy towards Christianity.

Colson points to the scandalous behavior of some athletes:

A few weeks ago, the college basketball game between Cincinnati and Xavier ended in a bench-clearing brawl. The fight got so bad that the referees decided not to play the last nine seconds. The media and fans were rightly appalled and demanded harsh measures.

This debacle came only a week after the NFL announced that eleven players had failed drug tests. Two of the players, from the Washington Redskins, were suspended for the rest of the season because this was their third offense. The media and Redskins fans were appalled and wondered how anyone could be so foolish and irresponsible.

These stories represent the tiniest tip of a huge iceberg. It seems that no news cycle is complete without a story about some athlete getting into trouble both on and off the field.

Then he points to the probably the most controversial athlete in America who does what? Prays.

Yet, by many accounts, the most controversial athlete in America is a God-fearing man who grew up serving the poor overseas and whose teammates would walk through fire for.

I’m speaking of course of Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. A recent piece in the Atlantic Monthly named him as one of the “15 Most Divisive Athletes in Recent History.” Others on the list included Michael Vick, Barry Bonds, Dennis Rodman, Pete Rose and O.J. Simpson.

So, let’s see . . . that’s one man convicted of animal cruelty, another of obstruction of justice, yet another of tax evasion and banned from baseball for betting on games, someone who probably killed his ex-wife, and a guy who appeared at a book signing wearing a dress.

Why's he controversial?

What did Tebow do to make this august list? Essentially, he is upfront about his Christian faith and that he made an ad saying that he was glad that his mother didn’t abort him.

Even with this, the controversy over Tebow is hard to understand. After all, he’s hardly the only Christian football player or even quarterback. Players kneeling on the sidelines in prayer is almost as much a part of the NFL as cheerleaders.

...Ultimately, what makes Tebow “divisive” and “controversial” has little, if anything, to do with what he does on the field. It’s all about our increasing intolerance of faith in public life. Tebow isn't trying to “impose” anything on anyone besides himself.

Yet, even that is too much for some people. I can’t help but suspect that our generation is getting the kind of athletes it deserves. So, maybe, Tebow should just wear a wedding dress . . .

What other renowned person was viciously attacked and simply couldn't please some people?

When you add the appalling, often-criminal, behavior of many athletes, calling Tebow “divisive” brings to mind the words of Jesus denunciation of the Pharisees for their hypocrisy. It also brings to mind the story He told about, “we played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.”

There is nothing that Tebow can do, it seems, that will really please people. And that’s ironic because there’s never been a time when people wanted more good role models for their children.

I guess they want the role models — especially religious ones — to be silent, however, about what motivates them.

It's a sign of our times and a bit scary when morally upright guys get viciously attacked for being religious.

Washington Post columnist supports marriage but also wants to undercut it.

2011-12-19T10:40:00.007-06:00

The intellectual confusion over marriage was evident in two recent columns by Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus. First, she calls for the redefinition of marriage in a December 8th column, because its supposedly good politics. And then in a December 19th column she bemoans the drop of marriage rates and rise in cohabitation as the source of significant social problems, e.g. growing economic inequality and poverty.

If current trends hold, within a few years less than half the U.S. adult population will be married.

This precipitous decline isn't just a social problem -- although it is that, too -- it's an economic problem. Specifically, it's an income-inequality and economic-mobility problem.

The steadily dropping marriage rate both contributes to income inequality and further entrenches it.

How can she come up with contradictory positions? If you read the column, her focus is almost exclusively on the impact it has on adults. Children are only briefly mentioned relative to the instability of cohabiting and divorced households. There's less stability. And in the case of divorce, greater poverty.

Why does she fail to see that the importance of family structure includes the inclusion of the man and woman in the marriage relationship? I suspect, because she's lost sight of the importance of children. Marriage has become the proverbial "loving committed relationship between two adults" which exists to satisfy the desires of adults whatever those desires might be. If children are important to fulfill those desires then by all means have children. If they're not, then definitely don't have kids.

Of course, this attitude is leading towards a crisis in the West - birth rates well below the replacement rate. This will lead to a significant socil crisis over the next few decades.

Who's the biggest threat to the country? Big government, big business, or big labor?

2011-12-16T11:53:00.008-06:00

If you believe big government is the biggest threat to our nation in the future, you share company with lots of Americans, 64% of Americans to be exact. That's the finding of a recent Gallup poll. It's one point shy of the all-time record set in 2000. It's up from 35% in 1965.

Business dropped from 32% in 2009 to 26% today. And labor is at 8%. Pretty much unchanged. It was at 29% in 1965.

Maybe the biggest surprise were the numbers among Democrats. 48% of Democrats see government as the greatest threat to our nation, higher than the 44% who see big business as the biggest threat.

Almost half of Democrats now say big government is the biggest threat to the nation, more than say so about big business, and far more than were concerned about big government in March 2009. The 32% of Democrats concerned about big government at that time -- shortly after President Obama took office -- was down significantly from a reading in 2006, when George W. Bush was president.

By contrast, 82% of Republicans and 64% of independents today view big government as the biggest threat, slightly higher percentages than Gallup found in 2009.

The question remains - will this concern translate into efforts to rein in government's power.

Marriage rate drops. Signs of big social problems if continues.

2011-12-15T13:47:00.005-06:00

For many the drop in marriage rates to all time lows is not a big deal. Even relevant to their lives. If they're married so what? If they're single and don't want to be married, it's again so what? Who cares?

A Pew Research Center analysis of census data finds:

Barely half of all adults in the United States—a record low—are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides (26.5 years) and grooms (28.7), according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.

In 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married; today just 51% are. If current trends continue, the share of adults who are currently married will drop to below half within a few years. Other adult living arrangements—including cohabitation, single-person households and single parenthood—have all grown more prevalent in recent decades.

The Pew Research analysis also finds that the number of new marriages in the U.S. declined by 5% between 2009 and 2010, a sharp one-year drop that may or may not be related to the sour economy...

In the United States, the declines have occurred among all age groups, but are most dramatic among young adults. Today, just 20% of adults ages 18 to 29 are married, compared with 59% in 1960. Over the course of the past 50 years, the median age at first marriage has risen by about six years for both men and women.

It is not yet known whether today’s young adults are abandoning marriage or merely delaying it. Even at a time when barely half of the adult population is married, a much higher share— 72%—have been married at least once. However, this “ever married” share is down from 85% in 1960.

Public attitudes about the institution of marriage are mixed. Nearly four-in-ten Americans say marriage is becoming obsolete, according to a Pew Research survey in 2010.1 Yet the same survey found that most people who have never married (61%) would like to do so someday.

Why is this a big deal, more people not getting married? For one it will mean fewer children who are the next generation. Fewer people will have enormous implications for the economic health of society.

Marriage also has a "civilizing" influence on people, men in particular. It channels one's energies in productive activities and enterprises. (That's doesn't mean all single people are "uncivilized". But men, as George Gilder points out in his book, "Men and Marriage", are more productive and do much better when married.)

It means, to some degree, cohabitation is more common. These relationships are less healthy on the whole than married relationships.

And as marriage becomes less practiced and is viewed as obsolete, it won't be held in high esteem by the broader culture which will only worsen the trend.

Marriage and family are the foundation of society. When they breakdown, broader society will as well.

If you're pro-marriage does that mean you need not apply for a position with Hamline business school?

2011-12-14T12:08:00.005-06:00

It's reported that Hamline business school officials decided to back out on an agreement it reached with former state rep and Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer because he's, among other things, not as supporter of same sex "marriage".

In a Pioneer Press news story:

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer is accusing Hamline University officials of caving to faculty opposition and reneging on an agreement for him to teach at its business school.

Emmer said Tuesday that the St. Paul school agreed to hire him for the job and to fill an "executive in residence" position earlier this fall. But, he said, the school backed away after a small group of staff, including business school professor David Schultz, objected to his political views, including his opposition to same-sex marriage....

In a letter to Hamline President Linda Hanson, Emmer said, "Madam President, is there a requirement that every faculty member at Hamline conform on the issue of marriage? Is there only one point of view allowed? Is there no political or religious freedom recognized at Hamline? I thought the 'mission' at Hamline University was to educate - not to inculcate.

Another example of intolerance and narrow mindedness on the part of the left?

Gingrich, Churchill, Ed Koch, and the presidency

2011-12-14T09:43:00.003-06:00

Here are a couple of interesting articles on Newt Gingrich.

One is by Steve Hayward on Gingrich comparing him in some respects to Churchill. Not that Gingrich is a Churchill but he is a very bright, even brilliant man in some respects who's being dismissed as legitimate presidential candidate. Similarly, Churchill a brilliant man was dismissed as ever being Prime Minister of England during World War II. He was viewed as impulsive, rash and temperamentally not suitable to be the prime minister. Similar to what some are saying about Gingrich today. Yet as we enter uncharted times, some wonder whether Gingrich and his unique skills might be the man of the hour. Will that happen? Hayward said the next several months of the campaign season will sort that out. Will Newt't temperament prove unsuitable and he self destructs or will he keep gaining momentum.

Here's what Hayward says:

The next couple of months may well prove out the unplanned logic of our long campaign process. The debates, Newt’s strong suit so far, are about to give way to real voting, and to the week-by-week ground game that requires focus and consistency. Newt has a chance to prove conservative skeptics wrong about his constancy — the chance to win over skeptics in the face of so much evidence against him. The course of John Colville’s evolving assessment of Churchill in the 1940s is suggestive. Colville wrote in his diary the night Churchill became prime minister on May 10, 1940: “He may, of course, be the man of drive and energy the country believes him to be and he may be able to speed up our creaking military and industrial machinery; but it is a terrible risk, it involves the danger of rash and spectacular exploits, and I cannot help fearing that this country may be maneuvered into the most dangerous position it has ever been in.”

And there's this article by former Democrat mayor of New York City Ed Koch who's going to vote for President Obama next year. He says this about Newt.

Democrats who are supporters of President Obama and are hoping that he will face Newt Gingrich as the Republican candidate are mistaken in their belief that he will be easy to beat.

Gingrich is appealing to the anger in this country toward all politicians, particularly those in Congress. The country is looking for a leader, unafraid to tell the truth, and many think that Newt Gingrich is that person.

Is Newt a rising star or a shooting star? We'll see in the coming months.

"Better" early childhood isn't the answer to the family crisis - in fact it could make matters worse.

2011-12-12T14:28:00.006-06:00

The breakdown of the family is the biggest crisis facing society. A strong statement but I think it's true when one realizes that society as a whole is built on the family. And when the foundation crumbles, the rest of the structure will crumble as well.

Those who see government as the answer to the family crisis and the ills of society usually, in my estimation, make matters worse by prescribing the wrong medicine to the sickness facing us.

It began in earnest in the 1960s with the Great Society programs which sought to reverse the laws of nature and abolish poverty in total. (I think Jesus was right, "The poor you will always have with you." That doesn't mean we do nothing. But if one starts with an Utopian belief it can be eliminated, the resulting solution is usually out of whack as well.)

They set in place a massive welfare system which would lift people above the poverty line by direct cash benefits and programs. Those in poverty and targeted by these programs were largely single women who had children and were without a job.

The altruist desire of ameliorating their blight in fact made the situation worse. It subsidized out of wedlock births and made fathers as bread winners obsolete. The result? More single moms and a future dissolution of the family. Today, out of wedlock births are at record highs - 40% and rising.

Another example is the government's provision of child care and day care which, in effect, pays parents to sent their children to other people to raise them.

In this content there's been a debate at the state Capitol over the direction of early childhood programs. Duane Benson, executive director of Minnesota Early Learning Foundation, in a Star Tribune opinion piece bemoans the inertia over efforts to reform the current government preschool system.

I would agree with Duane the current system doesn't work, but the answer isn't trying to make government more efficient and competitive. Rather it's restoring parental responsibility and authority for raising kids.

Ultimately, parents raise kids not government programs or government subsidized private programs. Failure to realize this will only take us further down the road away from the right answers. If we were to achieve all of Duane's goals of implementing a government quality rating system for preschool programs, ensuring that child care programs used best practices, and expanding the resources so all low-income kids could access a "high quality early education", we wouldn't get at the fundamental need - parents raising their own kids.

In fact, it only takes us further down the wrong path -- substituting the government or another third party for the parents in kids lives -- and leaving people with the feeling that they've accomplished something without bringing us any closer to "righting" the family ship. And it makes matters worse by further embedding the notion in the minds of the public that "high quality" government preschool programs are the answer.

The Moral Confusion of Barak Obama's Foreign Policy - Gay Rights International Priority

2011-12-09T13:00:00.002-06:00

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced yesterday that gay rights is now an international priority of the Obama Administration. As this headline from the BBC points out gay rights are now human rights and an international priority.

In response, I thought Rick Perry hit the nail on the head when he said, "promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America's interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers' money".

This foreign policy tack is in the same league with the Clinton Administration's promotion of abortion internationally in the 1990s. Both policies undermine rather than elevated America's moral leadership in the world.

Another hurdle to gambling funding a new Vikings stadium -- State Constitution

2011-12-07T15:21:00.003-06:00

At the Senate Tax Committee hearing, a number of folks testified in favor of expanding gambling to fund a new Vikings stadium.

Proponents trotted out a legal memo written on behalf of the racetracks by former Minnesota Chief Justice Eric Magnuson who said it wouldn't be a violation of the constitutional provision which authorized a state lottery.

Yet an op/ed in the Star Tribune authored by former legislators Gene Merriam and Dennis Ozment suggests another problem even if new casinos don't violate the constitution -- that's the constitutional requirement that 40% of the proceeds go to an environmental fund. If that's the case then they have a problem because the gambling proposals for the stadium funding earmark the lion's share of the proceeds to the stadium.

As legislators look for ways to proceed, the likelihood of a drawn out lawsuit and constitutional questions and problems should give them another reason to pause before proceeding down this road.

The Welfare State's Day of Reckoning.

2011-12-07T09:00:00.001-06:00

Here's an interesting piece by Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson on the economic problems we're facing, brought on to a significant degree by our love affair with the welfare state. It's not working out but breaking up is a hard thing to do.

Our problems parallel those facing European countries.

We Americans fool ourselves if we ignore the parallels between Europe's problems and our own. It's reassuring to think them separate, and the fixation on the euro -- Europe's common currency -- buttresses that mindset. But Europe's turmoil is more than a currency crisis and was inevitable, in some form, even if the euro had never been created. It's ultimately a crisis of the welfare state, which has grown too large to be easily supported economically. People can't live with it -- and can't live without it. The American predicament is little different.

Government expansion was one of the 20th century's great transformations. Wealthy nations adopted programs for education, health care, unemployment insurance, old-age assistance, public housing and income redistribution. "Public spending for these activities had been almost nonexistent at the beginning of the 20th century," writes economist Vito Tanzi in his book "Government versus Markets."

The rise of the welfare state has exploded during the 20th century.

The numbers -- to those who don't know them -- are astonishing. In 1870, all government spending was 7.3 percent of national income in the United States, 9.4 percent in Britain, 10 percent in Germany and 12.6 percent in France. By 2007, the figures were 36.6 percent for the United States, 44.6 percent for Britain, 43.9 percent for Germany and 52.6 percent for France. Military costs once dominated budgets; now, social spending does.

The prerequisites for the welfare state state - strong economics and demographics - aren't there anymore in Europe.

To flourish, the welfare state requires favorable economics and demographics: rapid economic growth to pay for social benefits; and young populations to support the old. Both economics and demographics have moved adversely.

The great expansion of Europe's welfare states started in the 1950s and 1960s, when annual economic growth for its rich nations averaged 4.5 percent compared with a historical rate since 1820 of 2.1 percent, notes Eichengreen. This sort of growth, it was assumed, would continue indefinitely. Not so. From 1973 to 2000, growth settled back to 2.1 percent. More recently, it's been lower.

Demographics shifted, too. In 2000, Italy's 65-and-over population was already 18 percent of the total; in 2010, it was 21 percent, and the projection for 2050 is 34 percent. Figures for the European Union's 27 countries are 16 percent, 18 percent and 29 percent.

Until the financial crisis, the welfare state existed in a shaky equilibrium with sluggish economic growth. The crisis destroyed that equilibrium. Economic growth slowed. Debt -- already high -- rose. Government bonds once considered ultra-safe became risky.

The situation is similar in the US.

Switch to the United States. Broadly speaking, the story is similar. The great expansion of America's welfare state (though we avoid that term) occurred in the 1960s and 1970s with the creation of Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps. In 1960, 26 percent of federal spending represented payments for individuals; in 2010, the figure was 66 percent. Economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s averaged about 4 percent; from 2000 to 2007, the average was 2.4 percent. Our elderly population was 13 percent in 2010; the 2050 estimate is 20 percent.

What separates the United States and Europe is that (so far) we haven't suffered a backlash from bond markets. Despite high and rising U.S. government debt, Treasury securities still fetch low interest rates, about 2 percent on 10-year bonds. Will that last? It's true that cutting spending too quickly might threaten a fragile economic recovery. But President Obama and Congress can't be accused of making this mistake. They do little and excel at blaming each other.

Now we're at a historical turning point.

The modern welfare state has reached a historic reckoning. As a political institution, it hasn't adapted to change. Politics and economics are at loggerheads. Vast populations in Europe and America expect promised benefits and, understandably, resent any hint that they will be cut. Elected politicians respond accordingly. But the resulting inertia poses an economic threat, one already realized in Europe. As deficits or taxes rise, the risk is that economic instability will increase, growth will decline, or both. Paying promised benefits becomes harder. Or austerity becomes unavoidable.

Samuelson's paradox is spot on.

The paradox is that the welfare state, designed to improve security and dampen social conflict, now looms as an engine for insecurity, conflict and disappointment. Facing the hard questions of finding a sustainable balance between individual protections and better economic growth, the Europeans have spent years dawdling. The parallel with our situation is all too obvious.

Yes, we're entering a time of great uncertainty and insecurity, because of our desire to rely on government to eliminate uncertainty and insecurity in life. The libertarian view of some is man not the state should be relied on. I believe that's still misplaced. We need to ultimately rely on God not the state or man.

Good news is there's a budget surplus. Bad news is more budget deficits projected down the road.

2011-12-06T09:00:00.001-06:00

Last week the state announced that instead of facing a budget deficit for the next biennium it is projected to have a surplus of $874 million. Legislators and other politicos were surprised, thinking we'd face more deficits given the state of the economy. They weren't looking forward to the prospect of another face off with the governor over more budget cuts or tax increases.

What was interesting is they are projecting a budget deficit of $1.3 billion in the 2014-15 biennium. That says to me there is still a structure spending problem which still has to be resolved. To reach a compromise about not raising taxes while not cutting as much as necessary the proverbial can was kicked further down the street without making the tough, structural changes in government spending. That's what happens when one has either a governor or legislature which would rather raise taxes.

One consequence of the surplus is the possibility of an even shorter than usual legislative session. It starts the end of January and usually goes until the constitutional ending day in the middle of May. I think there's actually a good possibility the House and Senate will agree to adjourn early.

Tebow mania and the religious animus of some of his detrators.

2011-12-05T14:06:00.006-06:00

Here's a funny sport's Pioneer Press piece by Tom Powers on Tim Tebow's detractors. He points out, a bit irreverently, that Tebow's detractors go nuts because of his mention of God.

Just to be up front, I wish the Vikings had 44 Tim Tebows.

I wish they had 44 solid, respectful, genuine, caring human beings. I wish they had 44 winners.

"I'll say this: The guy wins," Denver coach John Fox noted after his team's 35-32 victory over the Vikings. "He does it with his feet. He does it with his arm. He's young, and he's going to get better."

And,yes, after Tebow's postgame news conference he thanked everyone for attending and dropped a quick "God bless" as he stepped from the podium. For whatever reason, that will get people all shook up. It continues to get him labeled as being controversial. For some, that's simply being too far over the top.

Well, it's better than being the type of fellow who gets arrested for DUIs, domestic assault and/or drug possession. Maybe people are angry because he comes into their town and kicks the bejesus (no pun intended) out of their team. Against the Vikings, he delivered his most shocking performance in season filled with shocking performances. He played the role of conventional quarterback.

"It's crazy," he said with a laugh. "I try to do whatever they ask of me, whether it's sit in the pocket or make a play."

Tebow is considered something of a wild man on the field, almost always running instead of passing and rarely even trying to avoid big hits from the defense. But the Broncos'old-time option offense was nowhere to be found Sunday. That's because the Vikings' secondary is so horrible that it made a pocket passer out of Tebow.

"However you can win, that's what we'll go with," he said.

Tebow last week carried 22 times, an NFL single-game record for a quarterback. His 468 rushing yards this season mark a franchise record for a quarterback. Yet against the Vikings he ran just four times for 13 yards. Instead, he either handed off in the traditional manner or operated out of the pocket. He did scramble a few times, but no more than Christian Ponder.

He completed 10 of 15 passes for 202 yards and two touchdowns. His quarterback rating was an astronomical 149.3. It was his best passing day of the season, yet afterward he took no credit.

"I know I had a lot of help," he said. "The offensive line did a great job, and the receivers stepped up and made me look better than I am."

"I would have bet my paycheck that he would not have beat us passing the ball," Vikings defensive end Jared Allen said.

But he did. This guy has taken a lot of knocks, but it should be noted that on Sunday the Broncos moved into first place in the AFC West. They've won six of seven since he took over at quarterback. And, again, they were behind for most of the game. Tebow gets them in the end zone when he has to.

"I don't know if we're thriving on it," he said of the comeback victories. "We'd like to have been ahead a lot earlier."

With regards to yet another comeback victory, Fox said: "Thank the Lord for some big-hearted guys."

Uh-oh, it's spreading. Get out the brickbats. Another guy has gone over the top! Another fanatic is on the loose. And it's likely Tebow's fault. There is no room in sports for this sort of talk. Keep the criminals in jail and the religious in churches, damn it.

"He is a miracle maker," said Broncos receiver Eric Decker, a former Gopher.

Now I'm beginning to read religious references into everything. Just exactly what does Decker mean by "miracle maker?"

"He's the comeback kid," Deck er said. "That's what we call him. He brings this attitude about him. He's so positive and always optimistic. That does rub off on guys. ... If we have a chance to win, we're going to win."

As for the Vikings, there just isn't much to say. They were in control of the football for 37:51 of the 60 minutes and still gave up a ton of points. They are just very, very bad. The next highlight for Vikings fans will be the draft party in April.

Meanwhile, some guys just know how to win. I find myself becoming an admirer of Tim Tebow. People who take shots at him because of his beliefs can go to hell.

Over the top? If that's what makes a decent person, everyone should be over the top. Anyone who has a problem with him should redirect their concern to the ultra-religious who strap themselves with explosives and blow up shopping malls. Then they'd have a legitimate gripe.

Tebow is the ideal role model. Morally upright guy. Helps the poor and less fortunate. Yet for some, it's that religion thing. They can't stand that.

Ramsey County judge issues temporary restraining order on unionization vote by child care workers.

2011-12-05T13:11:00.005-06:00

A Ramsey County judge issued a temporary restraining order today stopping implementation of Governor Dayton's executive order calling for a unionization vote by child care providers which receive state subsidies.

The judge asked the Attorney General's representative who was representing Governor Dayton, why not go through the legislature to do this? The simple answer, which the AG's attorney didn't give, is because the legislature is controlled by Republicans who won't allow this to go anywhere.

Why the big push for unionization? Follow the money is my best guess. I'm told the unions would reap hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in union dues if they were to unionize child care workers. That's in addition to further politicizing the job of raising children by injecting union politics into the process.

Dealing with income inequality -- answer isn't raising taxes on high income earners.

2011-12-02T09:00:00.002-06:00

With economic stagnation continuing, the middle class is getting hammered. The result is calls for higher taxes on the wealthy to reduce it.

It turns out the biggest government contributor to income inequality are medicare and social security transfer payments not a tax code which is too regressive.

Columnist Michael Barone points to a study released by Rep. Paul Ryan which found the Reagan and Bush tax cuts aren't the reason for income inequality.

Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, makes the point that the government redistributes income not only through taxes but also through transfer payments, including Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, and unemployment benefits. The CBO study helpfully measures income, adjusted for inflation, after taxes and after such transfer payments.

Many may find the results of the CBO study surprising. It turns out, Ryan reports, that federal income taxes (including the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit) actually decreased income inequality slightly between 1979 and 2007, while the federal payroll taxes that supposedly fund Social Security and Medicare slightly increased income inequality. That’s despite the fact that income tax rates are lower than in 1979 and payroll taxes higher.

Perhaps even more surprising, federal transfer payments have done much more to increase income inequality than federal taxes. That’s because, in Ryan’s words, “the distribution of government transfers has moved away from households in the lower part of the income scale. For instance, in 1979, households in the lowest income quintile received 54 percent of all transfer payments. In 2007, those households received just 36 percent of transfers.”

In effect, Social Security and Medicare have been transferring money from low-earning young people (who don’t pay income taxes but are hit by the payroll tax) to increasingly affluent old people.

The Democrats, perhaps following the polls and focus groups, have been protecting these entitlement programs, which have done more to increase income inequality than the Reagan and Bush tax cuts put together.

What can be done?

Ryan makes three more points that may strike many as counterintuitive.

First, reductions in some transfer payments haven’t hurt the living standards of most low-earners. The prime example is the welfare reform act of 1996, which reduced transfers to single mothers but induced many of them to find jobs that left them better off economically and, probably, psychologically.

Second, Americans aren’t trapped in one segment of the income distribution. A Tax Journal analysis of individual income-tax returns found that 58 percent of those in the lowest income quintile in 1996 had moved to a higher income segment by 2005. This comports with common experience. We move up and down the income scale in the course of a lifetime.

Finally, the inflation adjustment used in the CBO analysis was the Consumer Price Index. But that tends to overstate inflation — as any index tends to do, since it measures the cost of a static market basket of goods and services. A study by Chicago economist Christian Broda found that prices for goods purchased by low-earners have been rapidly decreasing, while prices for goods of high-earners have increased. Kids’ school clothes may be cheaper at Walmart than they were years ago, while prices at Neiman Marcus keep increasing.

So if the question is how to compensate for increasing income inequality, higher tax rates on high-earners won’t do much — and could be counterproductive if they diminish economic growth.

A better way is suggested by supercommittee Republicans: Limit future increases in transfer payments to affluent households, and cap deductions for home-mortgage interest and state and local taxes, which are hugely lucrative for high-earners and worthless for low-earners who don’t pay income tax.

These proposals won’t eliminate income inequality. Much of the increased inequality comes from the huge increases for those in the top 1 percent of earners. But we wouldn’t be better off if Steve Jobs had never existed.

Keeping entitlements as they are and raising tax rates on high earners is a recipe for European-style stagnation. Ryan and the supercommittee Republicans point toward a better way.

Where to build a new Vikings stadium - Arden Hills, Minneapolis?

2011-12-01T09:00:00.001-06:00

The Senate Tax Committee held hearings on where a new Vikings' stadium should be built. Vikings want Arden Hills because, among several reasons, it will allow for lots of real estate development around the new stadium. Others, particularly Minneapolis politicians, would like to keep it in Minneapolis. Minneapolis has the advantage of costing less because infrastructure to accommodate the stadium is already in place.

What's interesting is the funding discussion did not include much talk about using gambling monies. Though that will change in the Senate tax hearings next week when funding ideas will be discussed.

Planned Parenthood had "most difficult year ever" and losing government funding.

2011-11-30T09:00:00.000-06:00

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told supporters in a Thanksgiving note that this has been “the most difficult year in our history".

Why's it been so difficult?

They're losing public monies and had a string of bad PR setbacks.

In February an historic amendment to defund Planned Parenthood passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. House, but was ultimately defeated in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Immediately prior to the votes on that amendment, the pro-life organization Live Action had released several devastating undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood employees aiding sex traffickers and covering up the sexual abuse of minors...

According to the SBA List State by State Scoreboard, Planned Parenthood has lost over $61 million from 9 states after they cut tax-based funding to the abortion giant. The states include Florida, Indiana, Kansas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

In the wake of these defunding efforts, numerous Planned Parenthood clinics have been forced to shutter their windows in several states.

Another blow hit Planned Parenthood in September when Congress announced an investigation into the abortion organization over alleged sex-abuse cover-ups and the mishandling of federal funds.

And former Planned Parenthood employees are reviewing the inner workings of the organization.

Topping the cake has been the increasing number of former Planned Parenthood employees who have crossed lines and begun to speak out against the abortion giant. Some of these individuals, such as Abby Johnson, Ramona Trevino, and Sue Thayer have proven to be highly effective spokespersons for the pro-life cause.

Another former Planned Parenthood worker, Catherine Anthony Adair, penned a column that appeared just this week in the Washington Examiner, titled “Planned Parenthood lies about itself.“ Adair writes that during her time spent with the abortion organization, she was not encouraged to focus on prenatal care to pregnant women, or providing counselling, or on providing basic health care services to women.

“Instead, I spent my days urging women to terminate their pregnancies. My superiors constantly reminded me of our abortion-centered business model: abortions first, everything else came second.”

Adair says she knows that many people are “fooled” by Planned Parenthood’s “sound bites and statistical manipulations” that make the organization sound like it is “pro-woman.”

“It is pro-abortion. It does not stand for women. It stands for ending our pregnancies. Women are treated as commodities, not as human beings.

Good news. Abortion clinic in Regions Hospital closes down.

2011-11-29T11:35:00.003-06:00

A couple of days ago, Regions Hospital in St. Paul announced it was closing down it's abortion clinic.

The hospital said it is stopping doing abortions for business reasons. Pro-lifers say protests and negative publicity also entered into the decision.

Either way, it's closing is a good sign. Abortions are down in Minnesota and public attitudes are shifting against abortion.

Big player in embryonic stem cell research bails out.

2011-11-25T10:09:00.000-06:00

One of the biggest companies currently involved in embryonic stem cell research is getting out.

This was a major surprise and may impact the future of embryonic stem cell research.

A story posted on LifesitesNews notes:

Out of nowhere the Geron Corporation announced last week it was not only halting the first clinical trial of embryonic stem cell treatment on humans but getting out of the embryonic stem cell business altogether.

To understand how big a blow to the embryonic stem cell industry this was, you first must know it was Geron that funded the University of Wisconsin Madison’s original research back in 1995, which resulted in the first cultures of embryonic stem cells. It was Geron that started this whole mess.

Geron went on to comprise one-third of the triune that controlled which company or university got access to embryonic stem cell lines, along with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

In its position of power Geron grabbed the “exclusive commercialization rights” to the three most lucrative areas of embryonic stem cell research if treatments are ever found – spinal cord injury, heart disease, and diabetes.

Geron’s juggernaut culminated last year with the FDA’s first approval of embryonic stem cell treatment on human spinal cord injured patients, “triggering a wave of ebullience from scientists, investors and patient advocates,” according to the California Stem Cell Report.

...In all, Geron invested 15 years and a whopping $150 million into embryonic stem cell research.

Only to abruptly dump it? What a difference a year makes. The value of Geron’s stock in the past year has fallen 70%, and since last week’s announcement it has only sunk lower. It is laying off 38% of its workers.

Why are they getting out?

But I am not alone in sensing something more is afoot. One speculation, according to Science Magazine:

The development of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are adult cells genetically reprogrammed to resemble embryonic ones, means that Geron’s exclusive licenses may be worth less.

Or worthless, hopefully – obsolete. iPS cells are skin cells thought to have the same ability as embryonic stem cells to grow a variety of ways 1) without the controversy; and 2) without the potential for rejection, since iPS cells come from a patient’s own body and not someone else’s, such as cells from embryos.

Another possibility, quoting ABC News:

“This company would not walk away from this trial in the absence of an unexpected complication or safety concern, if there was any evidence that it was working,” said Dr. Daniel Salomon, associate professor in the department of molecular and experimental medicine at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.

I spoke with Dr. David Prentice (pictured right) of Family Research Council today. Dr. Prentice is an expert in the field of stem cell research.

Dr. Prentice also speculates something went wrong with the spinal cord trials, which will eventually come to light if true.

“Note the phrase that always shows up,” said Dr. Prentice, “that there are no ‘serious‘ adverse events,” a red flag he thinks.

This is true. Quoting the Associated Press: “So far, the treatment… has been tolerated well without any serious side effects, the company said.”

...Dr. Prentice suspects Geron’s embryonic stem cell department has become a “hot potato” it will now find difficult to dump. The very fact it is halting embryonic stem cell research for economic reasons makes it economically unappealing to buyers.

What impact will this have on embryonic stem cell research in general?

Some say Geron’s decision may have dealt a death knell to embryonic stem cell research altogether, “wonder[ing] whether the field of embryonic stem cell research has been abandoned in the U.S. completely,” according to ABC.

That may be true of investors, but there’s always government funding,
i.e., money belonging to you and I.

The Pope, AIDS, and Sex Education

2011-11-23T09:00:00.000-06:00

Pope Benedict released a lengthy statement to African Catholics addressing a wide range of topics. From husbands and wives to children and the elderly. Ecology. Migration. Globalization. Church practices and so forth. Out of 170 plus paragraphs, addressing different issues, the media of course zeroed in on his discussion of AIDS and the need for morally responsible behavior, e.g. abstinence and fidelity. Of course, this a huge issue in Africa and certainly is an appropriate topic to address.

Here's what he said on the topic:

72. Serious threats loom over human life in Africa. Here, as elsewhere, one can only deplore the ravages of drug and alcohol abuse which destroy the continent’s human potential and afflict young people in particular.[113] Malaria,[114] as well as tuberculosis and AIDS, decimate the African peoples and gravely compromise their socio-economic life. The problem of AIDS, in particular, clearly calls for a medical and pharmaceutical response. This is not enough, however: the problem goes deeper. Above all, it is an ethical problem. The change of behaviour that it requires – for example, sexual abstinence, rejection of sexual promiscuity, fidelity within marriage – ultimately involves the question of integral development, which demands a global approach and a global response from the Church. For if it is to be effective, the prevention of AIDS must be based on a sex education that is itself grounded in an anthropology anchored in the natural law and enlightened by the word of God and the Church’s teaching.

He says the problem "clearly calls for a medical and pharmaceutical response. This is not enough, however: the problem goes deeper. Above all, it is an ethical problem." He's absolutely correct. Most, all of our social problems are ethical at their core.

And practically, to prevent AIDS what's needed is "sex education that is itself grounded in anthropology anchored in the natural law and enlightened by the word of God and the Church's teaching." While the Pope is talking in the context of Catholic sex education and the Church, those teaching sex education in our public schools could learn something from his comments. They could appropriate and look at sexuality and sex "grounded in an anthropology anchored in the natural law." Show there's a meaning and purpose to sex. It's not a leisure sport where we can make up the rules as we go along.

Pope Benedict is to be highly commended for bringing to the fore, once again, the ethical dimension of society's problems.

The grisly face of the abortion industry.

2011-11-22T10:38:00.003-06:00

The attorney general of Michigan shut down two abortion clinics following an investigation which arose after the remains of 17 aborted babies were found in a dumpster in early 2010.

The investigation found that the abortion clinics were run by unlicensed medical professionals.

This link to the story shows a picture of the remains of the aborted babies. It's another reminder of what abortion is all about.

Some legislators say it's "obvious" we should fund a new stadium with new gambling monies. I don't think so.

2011-11-21T11:44:00.005-06:00

There was an opinion piece in the Star Tribune signed by a handful of state legislators who support expanding gambling by building new casinos at the horse tracks.

The title for the piece is: "It's obvious: Fund stadium with racinos"

I don't think it's so obvious when you look a bit closer at what they're proposing.

For one it's definitely a tax increase contrary to their assertion it isn't. The revenues that will be coming to the state from new taxes.

Second, much of the money raised will be coming out of main street. Some might come from the existing casinos but certainly large amounts will be coming from more and new gambling. (If you question this, ask yourself why Burger King, Wendy's and McDonald's build restaurants right next to each other. It's so they can attract more people. The same is true with car dealerships. It's a not a zero sum game.)

Third, it will increase the social problems and pathologies which accompany the tens of thousands of Minnesotans will gambling problems. The answer isn't, "Well, let the problem gamblers get help"; help after they've already lost their life savings, stolen money to feed their habit, lost their families, or so forth. The problems of gambling addiction affect us all. Studies show the cost significantly outweigh the benefits.

Does Minnesota want to become the Las Vegas of the Midwest? I don't think so.

Stunning indictment of Obama's $800 billion stimulus -- hurts growth of economy and piles up more debt.

2011-11-18T10:42:00.003-06:00

Here's the head of the Congressional Budget Office Doug Elmendorf testifying before the US Senate regarding the economic effects of the economic stimulus package triumpeted by President Obama and passed on Congress a few years ago. Elmendorf said that the net effect of the $800 billion stimulus package in ten years will be negative. In other words, if Congress had done nothing the economy would be in a better place in the long run.

The effects are even worse because of the interest we'll be paying on the increasedl debt for years to come.

The reason for the stimulus was a quick boost to the economy which certainly hasn't been much of a boost. It really typlifies the problem with our Washington DC political culture. A short term mindset ignoring the long range impact of their actions. Plus irresponsible use of other people's money.

Ultimately, these are deeply moral problems. Our political culture, which also reflects back on the general culture, is acting without restraint and responsibility. This can't and won't go on forever. Just as we can't defy the law of gravity, we can't deny the laws of economics and finance. As the old muffler commercial said, "You can pay now or you can pay later." We're opting for the second alternative which will only make things more painful.

Corporate welfare. Tax breaks for some corporations and not for others.

2011-11-17T14:34:00.004-06:00

It's stunning that GE didn't pay a dollar of federal taxes on profits of over $14 billion.

According to a Weekly Standard story:

General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn't pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.

Congressman Paul Ryan says this points out the need for tax reform. Close loopholes and lower the tax rates for all businesses rather than picking winners and losers.

"GE was able to utilize all of these various loopholes, all of these various deductions--it's legal," Ryan said. Nine billion dollars of GE's profits came overseas, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. tax law. GE wasn't taxed on $5 billion in U.S. profits because it utilized numerous deductions and tax credits, including tax breaks for investments in low-income housing, green energy, research and development, as well as depreciation of property.

...Ryan used the data point to underscore the irrationality of the corporate income tax code. He also contrasted GE with UPS to make the point that the corporate income tax code doesn't make sense. "UPS paid a 34 percent effective tax rate," while its biggest foreign competitor, DHL, paid a 24 percent tax rate, Ryan said.

This highlights the lobbying power of some to benefit themselves by ingratiating themselves to those in power whether Republican or Democrat.

The problems with the corporate taxes occur because "Republicans and Democrats, both parties, sit in Congress and they're picking winners and losers," Ryan said. The solution, according to the Wisconsin congressman: "Get rid of those loopholes and lower tax rates by a corresponding amount. Don't lose revenue, but for every loophole you pull out, and deny a company from being able to get this little carveout, you can lower the rates so we can be more competitive with our competitors overseas. We want to stem the bleeding of jobs going overseas, of foreign companies buying U.S. companies and taking headquarters overseas."

In this instance, GE benefitted from some policies liked by those on the liberal side of the aisle -- low income housing and green energy.

Unionization of child care. Follow the money.

2011-11-16T11:21:00.006-06:00

Governor Dayton issued an order for a vote of child care providers on whether they want to unionize. State Senators say the action is clearly illegal because state law gives the governor no such authority.

The state's largest unions have been pushing for this for some time, because it will expand their power and financial resources.

Two of the state's largest unions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Service Employees International Union, have spent years attempting to unionize child care workers and now will launch a full-blown persuasion campaign that could be met by legal action from opponents.

Dayton's executive order stops well short of the mandated unionization that some governors have ordered and which unions here sought. Nevertheless, it touched off strong reactions among Senate Republicans.

Beyond being an effort to further politicize the raising of young children, it's arguably a violation of state law.

"There is nothing in Minnesota law that provides the governor with the power to do the things he says he is going to do," said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie.

"The real question for us is: What do you do with a governor who won't follow the law? ... We are going to do everything in our power to make sure he is not able to proceed. We think it's against the law."

Dayton said that even if child care workers vote to unionize, those who don't wish to belong will be able to opt out. Union membership would be voluntary, he said, and no one would be forced to pay dues.

What's interesting in the story is Dayton says a yes vote only allows the unions to "meet and confer" with state officials and "would not usurp the legislature's power". Why do they want the power to just meet? I'm told it will mean lots of money added to their coffers.

But Dayton and administration officials say a yes vote would simply give AFSCME nd SEIU the right to represent those workers in meetings with state agencies. The unions would be allowed only to "meet and confer" with state officials and would usurp the Legislature's power of the purse, they said.

Who would vote? Those receiving government monies. Another example of government strings attached to receiving tax dollars.

Of the state's 11,000 licensed child care workers, only 4,300 are registered to accept children whose families receive child care subsidies. That means the election will be open to fewer than half the child care workers in the state.

Dayton said his executive order will not affect any child care providers that do not take state subsidies because "they are operating their own businesses outside the realm of government."

"60 Minutes" on predatory gambling aka video gambling

2011-11-14T11:10:00.000-06:00

Here's the "60 Minutes" story on predatory gambling. It's a very revealing story on the nature of the video gambling and how politicans see it as easy money for more government spending. This is a story all policy makers should watch before embracing more predatory gambling as the solution to their budget shortfalls.

Gambling winnings isn't about luck but mathematics

2011-11-11T09:00:00.002-06:00

Here's a discussion about the addictive qualities of video gambling and how the brain works. The video gambling industry takes advantage of this. They arrange the games so there's a greater likelihood people will keep playing. Of course, this is devastating for people with gambling problems. Again taken from a "60 Minutes" follow up story on predatory gambling which is what video gambling is.

States become addicted to gambling just like individuals.

2011-11-10T09:00:00.002-06:00

Here's an interview with an individual who knows people who are personally addicted to gambling and analogies it to states which become addicted to gambling dollars for revenue purposes.

This is an important message which Minnesota legislators need to hear when contemplating expanding gambling to pay for a new Vikings football stadium.

It's an excerpt from a broader story on gambling aired on "60 Minutes" this past January.

Church attendance and political ideology among Republicans and Democrats

2011-11-09T12:32:00.007-06:00

Gallup polling gives insights into the religious and ideological make up of the Republican and Democrat parties. Democrats are less likely to go to church than Republicans and more liberal.

The polling found that 52% of Democrats seldom or never go to church. 27% weekly and 20% said nearly every week or monthly. That compares to 38% of Republicans who never go to church, 40% who go weekly and 21% go weekly or monthly.

46 percent of Americans say they seldom or never went to church, while 20 percent said they went to church nearly weekly or monthly, and 33 percent said they went weekly.

On political philosophy, among all Americans, 42% identify themselves as conservative and only 21% liberal, which is a two to one difference. Since 2008, conservatives gained 2 percentage points while liberals lost one point.

The parties are not surprisingly also split on political ideology. Among Democrats, 20% say they're conservative, 42% moderate and 37% liberal. Among Republicans 68% say they're conservative, 26% moderate and 6% liberal.

The thing that surprises me is liberals aren't the largest segment among Democrats. It's those who identify themselves as moderate. And not so suprising is there's movement to the right nationally

Funding stadium with predatory gambling donors is fantasy football Bernie Madoff style.

2011-11-07T09:29:00.005-06:00

The push to fund a new stadium with new predatory gambling donors is on. Ideas bandied about are a block E casino in downtown Minneapolis, racinos at the horse tracks and expansion of electronic pulltabs in bars and restaurants. I think the assumptions underlying use of gambling is it's the easiest way to raise taxes. Least pain for legislators.

Problem is it will cause the most pain to society. Predatory gambling, and by that I mean electronic forms of gambling, is dependent on creating on more gambling addiction and encouraging more people to go into debt. So in fact, it's the tax increase which will maximize pain for individuals with gambling addictions and increase the enormous social costs to society.

Think of it from a product liability perspective. If we new a product in the store was making making 50 or even 100 people very sick we'd immediately pull that item from the selves. Well, here we have a product, predatory gambling which is significantly harmful to thousands of people, tens of thousands of people. And what do we do? We don't pull it from the shelf instead we encourage more poeple to use it. Kind of puts things in perspective.

Here's a release we sent out on the issue.

“Funding Viking Stadium with predatory gambling dollars is fantasy football, Bernie Madoff style”

Group says expanding predatory gambling will drive Minnesota families deeper into debt and create thousands of new gambling addicts.

Minneapolis – Tom Prichard, President of the Minnesota Family Council (MFC), today said proposals to fund a new Vikings’ stadium with predatory gambling monies would be a disaster for the state.

“The governor’s suggestion that we fund a new Vikings’ stadium with predatory gambling dollars is fantasy football, Bernie Madoff style,” said Prichard. “It will only drive more Minnesota families deeper into debt, and create thousands of new gambling addicts.”

Governor Dayton has rejected use of a sales tax increase in Ramsey County as the means of funding a new stadium and instead is suggesting that expanding video or electronic gambling might be the best way to go.

“Predatory gambling is a failed business product. It’s built on personal debt and addiction. For the state to pay for a new Viking’s stadium with predatory gambling dollars means the state will be preying on the citizens it’s supposed to be protecting,” added Prichard.

The eminicity of the gambling addiction problem is shown by a study out of our neighbor Wisconsin. A 2011 report found that average gambling debt of the over 14,000 people who called a Wisconsin problem gambling help line was nearly $44,000. It’s estimated that 338,000 people, nearly 7% of Wisconsin’s population are problem or compulsive gamblers.

“Expanding predatory, electronic gambling, the most addictive form of gambling, would be a social disaster for Minnesota,” concluded Prichard.

Minnesota congressional delegation lines up as expected on pro-family issues.

2011-11-02T10:00:00.000-06:00

The Family Research Council's scorecard on legislative votes lined up as expected on Congressional votes so far in 2011. They considered 10 votes in the House and 7 votes in the Senate.

Senators' Franken and Klobuchar received zeroes. Representative Walz scored a zero in the House. Colin Peterson scored a 60%. Reps Kline and Paulsen scored 90% and Bachmann 100%. Ellison and McCollum received 10%. The vote Ellison and McCollum scored correctly according to FRC was a continuing resolution that included funding for DC abortions and planned parenthood.

Just say no to more predatory gambling.

2011-10-31T09:00:00.000-06:00

Here's a follow up story by Doug Grow of MinnPost to the legislators' press conference opposing the expansion of gambling to fund a new Vikings' stadium.

He notes the suggested expansion of "charitable" gambling.

Best bet on a special session?

Dayton will call it. There will be a piece of legislation — calling for a myriad of user taxes to be applied to the stadium — and it will be voted down. There will be a series of amendments, proposing such things as gaming to fund the project.

A source for charitable gaming said today that he thinks that one form of gambling — pull tabs in bars and bar bingo — could slide through. The charitable gambling crowd believes it could substantially improve its business and therefore its contribution to the state if a bill allowing electronic pull tabs and bingo was passed.

Currently, charitable gaming puts about $40 million annually into the state general fund. Supporters of electronic forms of the old games believe that amount could double.

Even though this measure has support from a handful of powerful legislators, it seems unlikely it could wiggle through a special session.

Gambling interests want to expand gambling whether the Vikings stadium is in play or not. Again, Minnesota needs less gambling not more. Expanding gambling to pay for the stadium simply creates more social problems. Legislators should find some other revenue source if they want to help the Vikings build a new stadium.

Baby Trafficking and Surrogacy

2011-10-28T09:00:00.000-06:00

CNN ran a story on designer babies and IVF/surrogacy. Two reproductive law attorneys were charged in an illegal surrogacy business.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Sandra Endo this week reported on the surrogacy business of Hilary Neiman and Theresa Erickson, two of the most prestigious reproductive law attorneys in the world, who impregnated surrogates before adoptive parents were found. If the baby survived to the second trimester, the attorneys auctioned him or her off to the highest bidder, up to $180,000 per baby.

Theresa Erikson was caught heading-up an illegal baby-selling ring.The line between legal and illegal surrogacy is not always clear: the CNN story notes that the attorneys offered “designer babies in race and gender,” an option advertised by several U.S. IVF clinics legally. The business’s only legal foul was its non-compliance with California law requiring adoptive parents to sign up before the baby - already created in a laboratory - was implanted in a surrogate, instead of after.

“Trafficking in human life without having a parent ahead of time is really, I think, quite troubling,” FBI agent Keith Slaughter told CNN.

The problem is with the underlying use of surrogacy and money which invariably involves "baby selling." Transfer of children from birth mother to another person for money.

But Jennifer Lahl, the founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, said the chilling aspects of Neiman and Erickson’s “baby trafficking” don’t only belong to illegal fertility operations. “Ms. Erickson and her co-conspirators violated a legal distinction without a difference,” said Lahl.

“Erickson broke the law by having the surrogate impregnated before the contracts were signed. But commercial surrogacy, whether done legally or Erickson’s way, is still selling babies. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it ethical.”

Lahl pointed out to LSN that the particular California statute violated by Neiman and Erickson was not universal, and that the loose network of surrogacy laws around the world “change[s] all the time.”

“Babies are being bought and sold. Women are being exploited. Non-traditional families are being made with no consideration for the children created by these technologies,” said Lahl. “And in this specific case, we see that greed trumps all.”

The IVF industry operates with a presumption that babies prior to viability are expendable, a viewpoint found in the CNN story: one surrogate mom complained that she wanted out of the deal, but could not end the situation because she was near viability.

“I wanted to separate myself form the situation and you can’t do that when you’re pregnant—with a baby that’s almost viable,” she said. “She’s kicking, she’s moving, she’s a constant reminder.’

Lahl is the creator of Eggsploitation, a documentary on the victims of underregulation in the fertility industry, a movie which Erickson had strongly attacked as agenda-driven against fertility treatments before she was arrested.

“She has hammered me personally again and again in her TV show, because she put herself forward as such an ethical, above-board person,” Lahl told LifeSiteNews.com in a telephone interview this week.

“The truth has now come out and as it turns out, it is Erickson who has been doing the lying,” she wrote in August. “The public relations damage to the industry has been done, and who better to do it than the industry darling.”

Lahl told LSN that prior to Erickson’s arrest, “everybody wanted her on their board, and the moment she was busted everybody pretended they didn’t know her.” “Needless to say, the fertility industry is reeling,” she said.

This issue has come up repeatedly at the state legislature. It started out years ago as an option for infertile married couples. It immediately morphed into a for money, hire by anybody not just married couples. I think it's problematic even for married couples where compensation isn't present. It breaks down the birth mother/child bond and injects a number of other problematic factors into the equation, like "embryo destruction" which another name for abortion.

Group of legislators say no to gambling expansion for new Vikings stadium.

2011-10-27T11:10:00.002-06:00

A bipartisan group of legislators held a press conference to voice their opposition to an expansion of gambling to pay for a new Vikings stadium.

The group included Republican senators' David Hann, Warren Limmer and David Thompson, Democrat senators' Scott Dibble and Tony Lourey, and Democrat reps Ann Lenczewski, Diane Loeffler, and Frank Hornstein.

It attracted a lot of media attention because it's a hot issue, e.g. Vikings stadium, possible session on the issue and it brought together such an eclectic group of legislators.

It just goes to show how legislators one day will agree on one issue and the next will be on opposite sides of another issue.

Senator Hann pointed out that gambling revenues isn't free money but causes a lot of damage along the way.

In recent years, almost every budget challenge we’ve faced has been met with a call for more casinos,” said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie. “The proponents of gambling describe this as harmless fun, entertainment and, in effect, free money.

“None of that is true. In fact, casino gambling is highly destructive to individuals, [and] to families,” he said.

I think it will be hard to pass a new stadium funding plan in a November special session. Some legislators don't want a special session period. Others oppose the gambling. Others oppose the stadium. And others are nervous about spending hundreds of millions on a new stadium when the state is likely to face additional budget shortfalls.

Disclosure of names on controversial issues means less free speech

2011-10-26T08:46:00.005-06:00

Here's a very good summary of why the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board's overreach with disclosure of donors on ballot issues will hinder free speech.

Anthony Sanders, earlier this summer points out that

The First Amendment protects anonymous speech. This is especially true when that speech is controversial. When a citizen comments on an issue, but fears retribution from those who disagree, it is that citizen’s right to be free from the government publicly “outing” her identity. That’s something the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, from the NAACP not having to disclose its donors in 1950s labama, to anonymous pamphleteers remaining anonymous in the 1995 case McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. These cases follow from the obvious proposition that disclosure chills speech.

The Campaign Finance Board is now changing the rules of the game midstream.

The Minnesota Campaign Finance Board, unfortunately, has chosen the opposite view. The board had a long-standing policy of not requiring organizations who donate to ballot campaign committees (committees that spend money to support or oppose ballot issues) to disclose their donors. The organizations’ donations are already disclosed by the campaign committees they give to, but the donor—the organization—did not have to say where it got its money from.

Until now. The board just announced it will adopt a new approach where nonprofit corporations who donate over $5,000 to ballot campaign committees must disclose donors of over $1,000. It is not a coincidence that this accompanies a very controversial ballot issue that Minnesotans will vote on in the 2012 elections: whether to adopt a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.

The rule will undoubtedly chill speech on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate. Many people may want to give to organizations who may in turn contribute to groups campaigning on the issue, but will chose not to because they don’t want their private political views broadcast on the internet (which is what disclosure means in this day-and-age).

And of course this raises the question of what purpose the rule services beyond a fixation with where individuals stand on the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment. None really.

What purpose does this rule serve? Voters can decide where they stand on the issue without knowing where others stand, and they have no more right to know who is financially backing speech about the amendment than they have a right to know which way anyone will vote on it. But that’s the whole point--outing people who disagree with you on the issue. Proponents of the disclosure law want to be able to demonize those on the other side, and they can’t do that without forcing them to disclose their identities.

Criticizing those who disagree with you is perfectly valid in a free society. What’s not is the government forcing people to disclose information, including their identities, that they’d rather keep private.

Protest groups and "Railing Against Reality"

2011-10-20T14:15:00.003-06:00

Here's an interesting piece "Railing Against Reality" by Victor David Hanson on the protests taking place around the world and in the US in response to our current economic malaise. While the situation is certainly more complex than can be addressed in a short article, he does make a number of interesting points.

He suggests there is a common denomination among all the protest movements. Frustation.

In the current left and right anger — somewhat analogous to the upheavals of 1848 or the 1930s — the common denominator is frustration that Western upward mobility of some 60 years seems to be coming to an end. In response, millions want someone or something to be held accountable — whether Wall Street insiders, or wasteful and corrupt governments, or the affluent, who have more than others.

He notes the inability of politicans to address the problems.

Unfortunately, political leaders — unwilling to risk their careers by irking the people — have offered few explanations for the root causes of all the various unrest. Instead, they assure us that Social Security is solvent, or that pensions and wages can remain sacrosanct, or that billionaires and millionaires are alone culpable. Sometimes they exploit race and class divisions in lieu of explaining 21st-century realities.

His explanation suggests government and people have lived beyond their means and the bills are now coming due.

So here goes an explanation for the multifaceted unrest. For the last six decades, constant technological breakthroughs and growing government subsidies have given a billion and a half Westerners lifestyles undreamed of over the last 2,500 years. In 1930, no one imagined that a few pills could cure life-threatening strep throat. In 1960, no one planned on retiring at 55. In 1980, no one dreamed that millions could have instant access to civilization’s collective knowledge in a few seconds through a free Google search.

Yet, the better life got in the West for ever more people, the more apprehensive they became, as their appetites for even more grew even faster. Remember, none of these worldwide protests are over the denial of food, shelter, clean water, or basic medicine.

None of these protesters discuss the effects of 2 billion Chinese, Indian, Korean, and Japanese workers’ entering and mastering the globalized capitalist system, and making things more cheaply and sometimes better than their Western counterparts.

None of these protesters ever stop to ponder the costs — and ultimately the effect on their own lifestyles — of skyrocketing energy costs. Since 1970 there has been a historic, multitrillion-dollar transfer of capital from the West to the Middle East, South America, Africa, and Russia through the importation of high-cost oil and gas.

None seem to grasp the significance of the fact that, meanwhile, hundreds of millions of Westerners were living longer and better, retiring earlier, and demanding ever more expensive government pensions and health care.

Something had to give.

And now it has. Federal and state budgets are near bankrupt. Countries like Greece and Italy face insolvency. The U.S. government resorts to printing money to service or expand entitlements. Near-zero interest rates, declining home prices, and huge losses in mutual funds and retirement accounts have crippled the middle classes.

Bigger government, marvelous new inventions, and creative new investment strategies are not going to restore the once-taken-for-granted good life. Until “green” means competitive renewable energy rather than a con for crony capitalists, we are going to have to create and save capital by producing more of our own gas and oil, and relying more on nuclear power and coal.

Westerners will have to work a bit longer and more efficiently, with a bit less redistributive government support. And they must confess that venture capitalists, hedge funds, and big deficit-spending governments are no substitute for producing themselves the real stuff of life that millions now take for granted — whether gas, food, cars, or consumer goods.

Otherwise, a smaller, older, and whinier West will just keep blaming others as their good life slips away. So it’s past time to stop borrowing to import energy and most of the things we use but have given up producing — and get back to competing in the real world.

He sees rising energy costs as an important factor. I'm not sure about that. I'd accent the rising debt and ballooning size of government and unsustainable rising cost of government programs.

Will the violent protests in Europe come to America? Certainly, if the economy stays in the doldrums, unemployment remains high, and people with an entitlement mindset start seeing their government social, welfare benefits cut back. This will cause people to lash out.

Problems with Obamacare - Running into Reality

2011-10-18T07:09:00.003-06:00

Obamacare is running into reality. It's effort, through government fiat, to expand access to healthcare without increasing costs won't actually work. The CLASS Act is one specific example.

One of the law’s more blatant gimmicks just died after the administration ran smack into the adamantine rules of basic accounting, and one of the law’s central provisions might be overturned by the Supreme Court. The Obama administration’s signature legislative accomplishment is a standing testament to the foolishness of saying and doing anything to pass a bill as complex and sensitive as one remaking the American health-care system.

The expiring budgetary gimmick is the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, or CLASS, Act. This new entitlement for long-term care was going to collect premiums for five years before paying out benefits. In the highly theoretical bookkeeping of the Congressional Budget Office, this made it a deficit-reduction measure; the program would collect $70 billion over the first ten years of Obamacare, the window for CBO estimates. Thereafter, it would pay out benefits at an unsustainable clip.

Only in Washington could lighting a fuse on an exploding entitlement be considered an act of fiscal rectitude, but the CLASS Act accounted for almost half of the official deficit reduction of Obamacare. Everyone knew it was shameless legerdemain. In 2009, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee pronounced the CLASS Act a “Ponzi scheme of the first order.” The actuary for Medicare warned during the drafting of the program, “Thirty-six years of actuarial experience lead me to believe that this program would collapse in short order and require significant federal subsidies to continue.”

The Obama administration persisted anyway. The long-term-care program had been a cherished priority of the late Ted Kennedy, and besides, it helped with the numbers. Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services wrestled to make the program workable before giving up last week. An HHS official with a gift for understatement explained that putting the program on a sound actuarial footing during the next 75 years and implementing it as written were goals in “some tension.”

To work, the CLASS Act needed a mandate. Otherwise, young and healthy people wouldn’t sign up for it, and the cost of premiums would spiral out of control. This is why, more broadly, the individual mandate is so important to Obamacare. Without it, the health-insurance system will experience the same “death spiral” that prospectively doomed the CLASS Act.

The basic problem is reality. Government is simply incapable of making the millions, billions of health care decisions individuals need to make. The only way to truly control costs is by having individual American's make these decisions. Government has distorted our health care market for generations through mandating services and expanding government health care programs. To dramatically expand government control of health care during a time of economic difficulties will only make the situation far worse.

Power Grab by Minnesota Campaign Finance Board

2011-10-14T11:31:00.003-06:00

Here's a great article highlighting efforts by the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board to rewrite state law on ballot question disclosure, circumventing the state legislature.

It points out opponents of the Board's actions aren't opposed to disclosure.

Nobody disagrees that voters are entitled to know who contributes to the marriage campaign. But the changes the Campaign Finance Board proposes are not authorized by law and would mislead the public, resulting in the disclosure of people who did not contribute to the campaign.

Nonprofit organizations, including churches, raise money from supporters who agree with their missions. If "Sally," a member of Meadowside Church, contributes money to support the work of her church, and Meadowside Church decides to contribute to the marriage-amendment campaign, it is wrong to claim that Sally has contributed to the marriage campaign. She has not; Meadowside Church has. The church's contribution should be disclosed, but it should not be attributed to Sally or any other individual church member. How the board is changing the rules of game midstream, after they failed to obtain legislative changes in the law.

For at least the past 15 years, this is how Minnesota law was regulated by the Campaign Finance Board, and it was the regulatory scheme in place for several other past constitutional amendments. Now that the marriage amendment has qualified or the ballot, the board is suddenly trying to change the rules, despite the fact at there has been no change in state disclosure laws....

An additional issue regarding the Campaign Finance Board's new regulations is that the board simply does not have the legal authority to arbitrarily change Minnesota campaign reporting laws. That is the job of the Legislature.

For almost a decade, the board has been asking the Legislature to expand or change the definition of "association" to be able to regulate nonprofit corporations in this manner, and the Legislature refused to grant it. The board has acted illegally in claiming legal authority it does not possess.How outlandish and intrusive their demands for disclosure have become.

Let's look at this issue a different way. The Star Tribune published the editorial I'm writing about. The paper has hundreds of employees, paid through a revenue stream from thousands of subscribers and advertisers. Isn't it enough that the public knows the Star Tribune has spoken out about this issue, or should the Star Tribune be forced to disclose which of its employees wrote the editorial and which of its advertisers' revenue paid for the publishing of the editorial?

The consequences of the sort of disclosure the Board is expecting.

Not only is the public misled when it is reported that Sally has contributed to the marriage campaign, but we know from experience that Sally will very likely be subjected to harassment as a result of the erroneous claim that she contributed to the campaign. The Heritage Foundation produced a report documenting the extensive harassment that supporters of California's marriage amendment (Proposition 8) faced, including loss of employment, death threats and property destruction. Regrettably, some gay-marriage activists have seen that intimidation can be an effective campaign tactic, and it has become standard fare in any marriage campaign.

The group "Knowthyneighbor.org" has published private information about traditional marriage supporters in numerous states and advocated that they be confronted with "uncomfortable conversations." In California, the group "eightmaps.com" published Google maps showing the home addresses, donation amounts and employers of contributors to Proposition 8 -- all of which they obtained from campaign finance reports. Evidence in various court proceedings document case after case of harassment -- phone calls at home and work, calls and e-mails to employers, boycotts of someone's employer, calls to clients, etc.

Not only are the Board's actions outside the scope of their legal authority but are also likely violations of the US Constitution.

Star Tribune editorial board and secular, liberal orthodoxy.

2011-10-12T14:17:00.004-06:00

Secular, liberal orthodoxy reared it's head recently when a Star Tribune editorial attacked the Catholic Church for having the temerity to take a public stand in support of marriage and the Marriage Protection Amendment which will be on the ballot in Minnesota in November 2012.

Some Catholic leaders, both locally and nationally, are actively campaigning against gay marriage; they consider it a direct assault on church teaching that defines marriage as only between heterosexuals.

Framing gay marriage as a civil right, they say, can cause discrimination against Catholic believers.

But church doctrine and federal laws are two separate considerations. In a country with free religion and speech, any religious group can adopt its own rules. It cannot, however, impose those rules on civil society.

And though some church leaders hold antigay views, there is significant dissent even among their own parishioners. According to Catholics for Marriage Equality MN, a recent poll of local Catholics showed that a majority favored equal marriage rights.

It's interesting how the Star Tribune seeks to redefine free speech and religious freedom. You're free to speech but just not in public, only in the privacy of your church.

And it approvingly mentions the efforts of Catholics who oppose the church's position, presumably it's alright for them to speak out publicly in support of marriage redefinition.

What drives the anti-freedom speech, anti-civic involvement of conservative, religious groups is of course ideology. The Catholic Church's position in favor of marriage is at odds with the left's efforts to redefine a fundmental social institution - marriage between a man and a woman.

The suggestion that religious voices have no right to be voiced in the public square is of course selective. It's targeted at religious voices espousing views at odds with secular, liberal orthodoxy. You won't hear them take after religious voices on the left. Like for instance, religious groups which support the redefinition of marriage or abortion.

Of course, the Star Tribune's hostility to involvement of the Catholic Church in the public square is at odds with the principles underpinning our Constitution and founding and historical precedent. The founders understand the fundamental importance religious principles played in our nation's establishment and well-being. Some of our nation's most important social reform movements were motivated by religious sensibilities. Just look at the anti-slavery and civil rights movements which were given impetus by religious voices.

Disclosing donors -- Infringing on free speech.

2011-10-11T11:12:00.003-06:00

There's been an ongoing debate with the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board over their changing financial disclosure requirements for nonprofits organizations and ballot question committees.

Here's a good opinion piece in the Star Tribune by Peter Nelson of the Center of the American Experiment on the topic which makes several good points. One is the proposed changes are so ambiguous they'll be hard for groups to comply with. And second, requiring nonprofits to disclose their donors will infringe on their free speech rights. It will subject some people to harrassment and threats which will have a chilling effect on free speech.

Donor disclosure regulations can infringe on First Amendment rights in at least two ways. First, compliance with the regulations can be so burdensome that people decide any effort to organize people to speak out isn't worth the hassle. Reporting requirements can be expensive, complicated and just plain intimidating.

In Minnesota, any "political committee" -- meaning two or more people supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot question -- receiving more than $100 must file a number of reports. Imagine filing your own taxes five times a year and then imagine a nosy neighbor looking for mistakes to report. These disclosure requirements pose particular burdens on small organizations unable to afford a campaign finance attorney.

Second, disclosure can expose people to public harassment, economic reprisal, loss of employment and even violence. Just the threat of these responses poses a substantial burden on the exercise of First Amendment rights.

Peter also points out the distinction between candidates and ballot questions, issue advocacy. With the former there's potential for corruption, buying votes. That concern doesn't exist with ballot questions. People are simply stating their view on an issue which they support or oppose.

In Buckley v. Valeo, a landmark Supreme Court campaign finance case, the court did cite a government interest in providing the electorate with information on donations "in order to aid the voters in evaluating" candidates.

However, evaluating candidates is different than evaluating issues. As the court explained, disclosure of donations to candidates helps voters "place each candidate in the political spectrum more precisely" and "alerts voters to the interests to which a candidate is most likely to be responsive."

In the case of a ballot question, there is no lack of precision. The issue is
spelled out on the ballot.

Despite the heavier burden on First Amendment rights and the smaller government interest in disclosure, contributions to ballot questions are treated just like contributions to candidates under Minnesota's campaign finance disclosure requirements. The fact that Minnesota law does not distinguish a difference suggests the law, as it relates to ballot questions, is unconstitutional.

Few socially liberal republicans oppose MN Marriage Protection Amendment -- no new news.

2011-10-07T10:28:00.006-06:00

The press conference by some socially liberal Republicans who came out against the marriage amendment is really no news. Representatives' Kriesel and Kelly have made known their opposition this past session. And Wheelock Whitney is know for his pro-gay positions. And Susan Kimberly had a sex change so Susan's opposition comes as no surprise as well.

Representative Kelly was quoted as saying that opposing the amendment is the conservative thing to do. Nothing could be further from the truth. Redefining marriage will only usher in a greater expansion of government to address the needs of greater family and marriage dissolution resulting from the devaluing and watering down of marriage. And government will grow as it seeks to impose upon society, an unnatural understanding of marriage on the rest of an unwilling society. This isn't about allowing a miniscule number of gay couples to get married but the rather redefinition of marriage for all society.

Representative Kelly is certainly free to hold whatever position he wants on the marriage protection amendment. But he needs to know that redefining marriage is anything but conservative.

Dependency on government. Part of reason for problems we're facing.

2011-10-06T05:45:00.005-06:00

One of the reasons we have massive government deficits and difficulty cutting spending is nearly half the US population lives in a household where somebody receives government benefits. Up from just under 30% in 1983.

A Wall Street Journal story notes:

Nearly half, 48.5%, of the population lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010, according to Census
data. Those numbers have risen since the middle of the recession when 44.4% lived households receiving benefits in the third quarter of 2008.

The share of people relying on government benefits has reached a historic high, in large part from the deep recession and meager recovery, but also because of the expansion of government programs over the years.

Means-tested programs, designed to help the needy, accounted for the largest share of recipients last year. Some 34.2% of Americans lived in a household that received benefits such as food stamps, subsidized housing, cash welfare or Medicaid (the federal-state health care program for the poor).

Another 14.5% lived in homes where someone was on Medicare (the health care program for the elderly). Nearly 16% lived in households receiving Social Security.

High unemployment and increased reliance on government programs has also shrunk the nation’s share of taxpayers. Some 46.4% of households will pay no federal income tax this year, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. That’s up from 39.9% in 2007, the year the recession began.

This is part of the reason we're running up our massive deficits. It's too difficult politically to cut back on massive social programs because so many people are dependent on some form of government benefit.

"Modern economies 'rise and fall' based on family"

2011-10-05T11:39:00.004-06:00

That's a quote from a new study pointing out the fundamental importance marriage and intact families play in society. The study takes aim at cohabitation, easy divore and too few children as detriments to the economy.

If the wealth of a nation is tied to both the quality and the quantity of its people, then modern trends toward cohabiting instead of marrying, easy divorce and fewer children born to couples will have sweeping economic consequences, a new report says.

The "long-term fortunes of the modern economy rise and fall with the family," the Social Trends Institute says in its new report, "The Sustainable Demographic Dividend: What Do Marriage and Fertility Have to Do With the Economy?"

This is because economic growth, viability of welfare programs, size and quality of a workforce, and profitability of large sectors of an economy - health care and food, for instance - are intertwined with the family decisions of the populace, says the report, which is co-sponsored by six international institutions and the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

Countries should strive for "sustainable fertility" of at least two children per woman or a total fertility rate of 2.1, the report says. Among developed countries, it adds, the U.S. is an "outlier" with its relatively stable 2.0 fertility rate. Elsewhere, "the average woman in a developed country now bears just 1.66 children," New America Foundation scholar Phillip Longman writes in the report.

Marriage also matters, the report says. Children raised in married, mother-father homes are the most likely to acquire the skills and behaviors conducive to becoming a "well-adjusted, productive" workforce. Also, "men who get and stay married work harder, work smarter, and earn more money than their unmarried peers."

Married couples with children are also economic "drivers" because they consume many services and goods, especially in child care, groceries, health care, home maintenance, household products, insurance and juvenile products, says W. Bradford Wilcox, associate sociology professor at UVa. and director of the National Marriage Project.

Married parents outspend childless singles and single parents in all these categories, and outspend married-but-childless couples in all but one category - "pets and toys," adds Mr. Wilcox. That's "probably because they are laying down big bucks for Fido."

The new report urges countries to find ways to encourage strong marriage and family cultures as an economic strategy, and, as if on cue, the Obama administration Monday announced grants of $119 million to promote "healthy marriage" and "responsible fatherhood."

"A strong and stable family is the greatest advantage any child can have," said George Sheldon, acting assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency awarded about $60 million to 61 marriage-strengthening groups, and $59 million to 59 fatherhood programs, including some that assist men leaving prison.

Frankly, marriage should be a top priority for policy makers. They shouldn't try to take over parenting or marriage counseling but they should eliminate policies which penalize people who marry and protect the commitments people make when they do marriage. And they should promote the positive message that marriage is good. The direct opposite from what we see in the entertainment world.

Another brewing crisis? Health care and out of control cost increases.

2011-10-04T09:00:00.003-06:00

We didn't need another economic related crisis, we have another one with Obamacare -- the attempt to expand government control and relationship of our nation's health care system, which is about 18% of our nation's economy.

Obamacare house of cards is crumbling before our eyes. The Obama administration’s signature piece of legislation brings a sixth of the U.S. economy under federal control, and the writing is on the wall: Obamacare will collapse under the weight of its own false promises. The only mystery left is whether we will allow America to go down with it.

Remember when President Obama claimed over and over again that his health care plan would “bend the cost curve downward”? He even declared resolutely that he would not otherwise sign the bill. Well, add that to the growing list of Obamacare lies.

This is going to be a bumpy flight.

The nonprofit and nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation recently released the results of a survey that shakes the president’s health care law right down to its core. Health insurance premiums rose in 2011 to more than $15,000 per family for the first time in American history. Not surprisingly, Obamacare itself is to blame for much of the increase. The forced requirement to include adult “children” on their parents’ insurance up to the age of 26, as just one example, contributed to 20 percent of the increase.

Before Obamacare, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) projected annual health care spending would increase an average of 6.1 percent per year over the next decade. Despite the promises, after Obamacare passed, CMS recalculated its projections upward to 6.3 percent. Huh? Now the Kaiser survey shows that the actual results for the first year amounted to a 9 percent increase. Mr. Obama bent the cost curve all right - upward.

Are the increased costs justified, even if it does break the president’s cost-curve promise because, after all, Obamacare finally was going to provide insurance for 46 million uninsured people? Brace yourself. According to Gallup, the percentage of adults in America without health insurance has increased since Mr. Obama took office and since he signed Obamacare into law.

Please return your seat backs and tray tables to their full upright position. We are hitting some major turbulence now.

OK, so health care costs are going up because of Obamacare, and more adults are uninsured since it began - mostly because of Obamanomics (that’s another story) - but at least Mr. Obama promised it would reduce the deficit, right? Well, that was then, and this is now. Administration officials are quietly abandoning the so-called CLASS Act portion of Obamacare, supposedly meant to provide long-term elderly care. In reality, this was the mother of all accounting gimmicks, which counted 10 years of tax revenues but just five years of expenditures to give a false sense of fiscal sanity. Democratic senator and Obamacare supporter Kent Conrad of North Dakota called this “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.” Absent the accounting gimmicks, the Congressional Budget Office now acknowledges that Obamacare actually increases the national deficit by $540 billion over the next 10 years.

Should we be surprised that a promise of more health care, lower costs and no addition to our federal deficits is resulting in higher health care costs, higher taxes, and additions to our government's deficit? Some would argue this was the known outcome from the get go. It would lead to a greater crisis with calls for more government to solve it. But that's a topic for another day.

Fewer divorces, reconciliation and the reasons for divorce.

2011-10-03T09:00:00.002-06:00

The economic hard times are keeping more married couples together and causing many to reconsider. This was pointed out in a recent USA Today story:

The Census bureau counted 65,000 fewer divorces in 2010 than in 2008, a 7% drop. The Census bureau counted 65,000 fewer divorces in 2010 than in 2008, a 7% drop. Observers say tough economic times mean many delay divorce; it's expensive to maintain separate households and pay attorney costs. It also may be difficult to sell the house to divide assets.

Observers say tough economic times mean many delay divorce; it's expensive to maintain separate households and pay attorney costs. It also may be difficult to sell the house to divide assets.

Also, 12% of parties in the process of divorce are still interested in reconciliation.

Doherty's survey of 2,484 parents who filed for divorce in Minnesota offers new insight into how people decide whether to call it quits or try again. About a quarter of those surveyed thought there was still hope for the marriage; in 12% of a subset of 329 couples, both partners independently indicated interest in reconciliation.

It was interesting seeing that the top reason for divorce wasn't abuse or infidelity but simply "growing apart". It points out the lack of commitment to marriage from the get go. From an understanding that marriage is a lifelong commitment to a relationship that can be discarded because "I've moved on".

Additional surveys in 2009-10 of 886 Minnesotans who filed for divorce dug deeper into contributing factors. "Growing apart" was the top reason, cited
by 55%, followed by "not able to talk together" (53%). Infidelity was cited
by 34%, the same percentage who cited "not enough attention."

Doherty says lack of attention from one's spouse and in-law problems were among reasons associated with partners thinking the marriage could be saved. Also, infidelity wasn't a factor in whether someone was open to reconciliation, he says.

Alan Hawkins, a professor of family life at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, says there's a lot of research on factors that predict divorce but "virtually no research on the thinking process."

Iris Krasnow interviewed more than 200 women for her book, The Secret Lives of Wives: Women Share What It Really Takes to Stay Married. "Splitting up crosses people's minds more than I imagined," she says. And "those on second marriages were not any happier than they were in their first. Many times, you're trading in one set of problems for another."

I've been saying the biggest long term crisis facing American society is the breakdown of marriage and families. If this continues unabated, the future of nation is at stake, because marriage and family are the foundation of society.

Census numbers on gay households and impact on marriage debate.

2011-09-30T13:39:00.003-06:00

Interesting story on the number of gay couples in Minnesota. Census Bureau's earlier numbers of around 13,718 couples were revised down to 10,207 couples with about 1,300 of those claiming to be married.

Significance for the marriage debate? What comes to mind is why redefine the institution of marriage for the benefit of only .65 percent of Minnesota households. Again the redefinition of marriage to a genderless institution isn't about letting a few gay couples get married but redefining the institution for all of society, such that the man/woman connection is completely eliminated. And as a result, the state will have an legal interest in promoting and imposing it's new definition of marriage on the rest of society.

These numbers also point out what a small percent of households gay couples comprise. Around one half of one percent. This of course is contrary to public perception. A Gallup poll in May found that a majority of Americans believe that 25%of Americans are gay or lesbian. I wonder what they came up with that idea? The media and entertainment industry where gay or lesbians characters are disproportionally portrayed.

It was interesting reading a Gallup interpretation of the numbers. They note there is "little reliable evidence" about the actual number of gays and lesbians because it's a fluid label.

There is little reliable evidence about what percentage of the U.S. population is in reality gay or lesbian, due to few representative surveys asking about sexual orientation, complexities surrounding the groups and definitions involved, and the probability that some gay and lesbian individuals may not choose to identify themselves as such. Demographer Gary Gates last month released a review of population-based surveys on the topic, estimating that 3.5% of adults in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, with bisexuals making up a slight majority of that figure. Gates also disputes the well-circulated statistic that "10% of the males are more or less exclusively homosexual."

While perception becomes reality for some people, it still doesn't change reality.

What does the AFL-CIO and gay activists have in common? Opposition to marriage.

2011-09-28T09:00:00.001-06:00

The marriage protection amendment is producing an interesting alliance of groups on the left.

A coalition of groups have publicly stated their opposition to the Marriage Protection Amendment on the ballot in November 2012.

OutFront, Project 515, and Human Rights Campaign naturally headline the groups opposed to the amendment. Then there's the ACLU, NOW, MPIRG, and a litany of DFL associated groups like DFL Party, DFL Feminist Caucus, DFL Veteran's council, and DFL Senate Districts 38, 62.

Then several religious groups: Unity Unitarian Church, Shir Tikvah Jewish Synagogue, Lutherans Concerned, Catholics for Marriage Equality, and First Univeralist Church of Minneapolis. Their opposition to the amendment neutralizes the left's efforts to marginalize involvement of religious conservatives.

Then the Green Party, Libertarian Party and Independence Party of Minnesota.

The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits which tries to portray itself as nonpartisan.

And let's not forget the pro-abortion NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota.

And of course the Minnesota Atheists.

And then there's the labor unions. Minnesota AFL-CIO, MAPE, St. Paul Federation of Teachers, AFSCME-Minnesota Council 5, and SEIU. Here's a good reason for the public and union members to become disillusioned with organized labor. They're not just concerned with work place conditions and issues but promoting a leftist social agenda.

Who's on the other side of the issue? The majority of Minnesotans.

Morgan Freeman, Tea Party, and Herman Cain

2011-09-27T09:00:00.001-06:00

Morgan Freeman the actor had some rather disparaging things to say about the Tea Party, accusing it of being a racist motivated bunch. Herman Cain the African American Republican candidate who's attempting to win the Republican nomination so he can unseat Obama basically came to the defense of the Tea Party in an interview on Fox News.

NEIL CAVUTO: Morgan Freeman, the actor, has been very critical of Tea Parties,and said that what they’re doing is racist based, and going after and unseating Obama has at its underpinnings racism. I’m paraphrasing here, but what do you make of that argument?

HERMAN CAIN: Well, first of all, I doubt if Morgan Freeman, with all due respect, who is a great actor, has he ever been to a Tea Party? Most of the people that are criticizing the Tea Parties, Neil,about having a racist element, they have never been to a Tea Party.

CAVUTO: But wait a minute, wait a minute. He has played, wait, wait,wait. He has played a President of the United States.

CAIN: Oh. Great, yeah, in a movie. This is real life out here on the campaign trail, man. This is not a movie.

CAVUTO: So, are you offended by that?

CAIN: No, I’m not offended by it. I just, I just think that it is sad that they’re so
short-sighted in really understanding what the whole Tea Party citizen movement is all about. I’m not offended by it, because it doesn’t slow down my momentum. It doesn’t slow down the reaction that I get from people. They know that I bring my message from the heart and the head, and they’re responding to it. So, name calling is something that’s going to continue in this because they don’t know how to stop this movement. And this movement is making a big difference in politics, because a lot of the traditional Democrats are moving to the center or moving over to vote for conservatives. They’re taking another look at a Herman Cain.

What's interesting about the Tea Party is it's anything but a party. It's a movement. Disparate Individuals brought together by their frustration over growing, intrusive government actions - the signature one being Obamacare. By and large the movement is made up of middle class, patriotic, God fearing, working folks who don't like government encroaching on their freedoms.

The left and Hollywood is apoplectic because it threatens to derail their liberal agenda. Suggestions of racism, absent evidence, reveals what I think many liberal elite think about the average American.There's a strain of racism lurking not too far beneath the surface.

Herman Cain makes a good point; Morgan Freeman has probably had zero personal exposure to people involved with the Tea Party.

Political center is shifting to the right.

2011-09-26T09:00:00.001-06:00

Here's an interesting article by William Galston, one time member of Clinton Administration and current policy person at left of center Brookings Institution.

He looks at the latest Pew Research poll on American's attitudes towards politics and the parties and the center has shifted dramatically from 2005 when the electorate tilted towards the democrats which I presume was Bush and Republican fatigue.

It's interesting how quickly the shift has gone the other direction.

In mid-2005, as disaffection with the Bush administration and the Republican Party was gathering momentum, the Pew Research Center asked American to place themselves and the political parties on a standard left-right ideological continuum. At that time, average voters saw themselves as just right of center and equidistant from the two political parties. Independents considered themselves twice as far away from the Republican Party as from the Democrats, presaging their sharp shift toward the Democrats in the 2006 mid-term election.

In August of this year, Pew posed a very similar question (note to survey wonks: Pew used a five-point scale, versus six in 2005), but the results were very different. Although average voters continue to see themselves as just right of center, they now place themselves twice as far away from the Democratic Party as from the Republicans. In addition, Independents now see themselves as significantly closer to the Republican Party, reversing their perceptions of six years ago.

There’s another difference as well. In 2005, Republicans’ and Democrats’views of their own parties dovetailed with the perceptions of the electorate as a whole. Today, while voters as a whole agree with Republicans’ evaluation of their party as conservative, they disagree with Democrats, who on average see their party as moderate rather than liberal. So when Independents, who see themselves as modestly right of center, say that Democrats are too liberal, average Democrats can’t imagine what they’re talking about.

The shift to self described conservatives is interesting.

Compounding the problem, the American people are gradually polarizing. According to Gallup, twenty years ago, as Bill Clinton began his presidential campaign,self-described moderates formed the plurality of the electorate—43 percent; conservatives were 36 percent, liberals 17 percent. By the summer of 2011, the conservative share had risen to 41 percent and liberals to 21 percent, while moderates declined to 36 percent, surrendering their plurality status to conservatives. Because nearly all conservatives now vote for Republicans and liberals for Democrats, the share of the shrinking pool of moderates that Democrats need to build a majority is now larger than ever.

The drop in public confidence in government is huge and could last a long time. I don't see us government restoring the public's confidence in its ability to solve society's problems any time soon - whether democrats or republicans are in office. Why? Government is incapable solving the intractible social problems facing society. Government can't be replicate a family though it can help provide an environment favorable to families and marriages. But that's much different than trying to take over the tasks of parents.

Another Gallup finding that should alert Democrats is the ongoing collapse of public confidence in government. A survey released earlier this week found that Americans now believe that the federal government wastes 51 cents of every dollar it spends, the highest estimate ever recorded. Twenty-five years ago, that figure stood at only 38 cents. While estimates of waste at the state and local level remain lower than for the federal level, they have also risen by double digits in recent decades.

Overall, it’s hard to avoid concluding that the ideological playing-field heading into 2012 is tilted against Democrats. This reality only deepens the strategic dilemma the White House now confronts. The conventional strategy for an incumbent is to secure the base before the general public gets fully engaged and then reach out to the swing voters whose decisions spell the difference between victory and defeat. By contrast, the Obama team spent most of 2011 in what turned out to be a failed effort to win over the Independent voters who deserted Democrats in droves last November, in the process alienating substantial portions of the base. To rekindle the allegiance and enthusiasm of core supporters, the president now finds himself having to draw sharp ideological lines, risking further erosion among Independents and even moderate Democrats. Tellingly, a number of at-risk Democratic senators up for reelection in 2012 have already refused to go along with key elements of the president’s recent proposals.

Granted, ideology isn’t everything. Political scientists have long observed that Americans are more liberal on particulars than they are in general—ideologically conservative but operationally liberal. (Surveys have shown majority support for most individual elements of the president’s jobs and budget packages.) And the Republicans could undermine their chances by nominating a presidential candidate who is simply too hard-edged conservative for moderates and Independents to stomach.

In the face of widespread skepticism and disillusion, it will be an uphill battle for Democrats to persuade key voting blocks that government can really make their lives better. But if they fail, the public will continue to equate public spending with waste, the anti-government message will continue to resonate, and Democrats will be in dire straits when heading into what is shaping up as a pivotal election.

Political correctness and homosexuality in a high school German class in Texas.

2011-09-23T08:12:00.005-06:00

Here's an interesting example of the homosexual activism and intolerance of a German class teacher in Fort Worth, Texas. A 14 year old student was given an in school suspension for simply saying he believed homosexuality was wrong.

The teacher brought up the subject of homosexuality and the student commented to a fellow student that it's wrong. The result? The student, Dakota Ary, was given an in school suspension which the school quickly backed away from once the student's parent called an attorney.

Dakota was in a German class at the high school when the conversation shifted to religion and homosexuality in Germany. At some point during the conversation, he turned to a friend and said that he was a Christian and “being a homosexual is wrong.”

“It wasn’t directed to anyone except my friend who was sitting behind me,” Dakota told Fox.

“I guess [the teacher] heard me. He started yelling. He told me he was going to write me an infraction and send me to the office.”

Dakota was sentenced to one day in-school suspension – and two days of full suspension. His mother was flabbergasted, noting that her son had a spotless record, was an honor student, volunteered at his church and played on the school football team.

Officials at the high school did not return calls for comment. However, the Fort Worth Independent School District issued a statement that read:

“As a matter of course, Fort Worth ISD does not comment on specific employee or student-related issues. Suffice it to say that we are following district policy in our review of the circumstances and any resolution will likewise be in accordance with district policy.”

After a meeting with Pope and her attorney, the school rescinded the two-day suspension so Dakota would be allowed to play in an upcoming football game...

Krause called the incident “mind blowing” and said the teacher had frequently brought homosexuality into ninth grade classroom discussions.

“There has been a history with this teacher in the class regarding homosexual topics,” Krause said. “The teacher had posted a picture of two men kissing on a wall that offended some of the students.”

Krause said the picture was posted on the teacher’s “world wall.”

It looks like the teacher is the one with the ideological agenda. No wonder parents are concerned with homosexual activism in the classroom.

Consequence of redefining marriage -- loss of religious liberties

2011-09-20T09:51:00.001-06:00

Here's a story which highlights the consequences of legalizing same sex marriage or giving marriage-like legal status for same sex couples - loss of freedoms for religious-based foster care providers which believe placing children in households headed up by a married man and woman is in the best interest of children.

Since Illinois passed a law creating same-sex civil unions this year, faith-based groups that place children into foster care homes have increasingly found themselves left out in the cold.

Last week, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) informed the Evangelical Child and Family Agency (ECFA) — a 61-year-old group that has been contracting with the state to place foster children in homes since 1965 — that its contract will not be renewed in the new fiscal year, since the agency won’t place kids with same-sex couples.

ECFA is one of several faith-based groups that have had to make such a choice this year. Like Lutheran Child and Family Services, ECFA’s policy is to only place foster children with married couples; another group announced this summer it would change its policy in order to continue contracting with the state. Catholic Charities has chosen to fight the matter in court, but has not met with success so far. The civil unions law took effect on June 1.

“They’re saying all agencies that contract with DCFS need to be an ‘agent of the state,’” said ECFA Executive Director Ken Withrow. “Til now, the understanding was that we would be partners with the state — in our case,recruiting evangelicals to become foster care parents.”

Though DCFS cited the state’s civil unions law to ECFA, Withrow said it’s just a cover.

“We tend to disagree with that, because the act says nothing in it will
interfere with religious organizations. They prefer only to contract with
secular agencies,” he explained.

Yes, there would be significant ramifications to redefining marriage in Minnesota.

New study points out importance of fathers being involved with kids - it benefits dads and society.

2011-09-19T08:52:00.003-06:00

A recent news story on testosterone levels points to the impact of parenting in the lives of children.

Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children - changing diapers, jiggling the kid on his knee, reading "Goodnight Moon" for the umpteenth time - the lower his testosterone drops.

So says the first large study measuring testosterone in men when they were single and childless and several years after they had children. Experts say the research has implications for understanding the biology of fatherhood, hormone roles in men and even health issues like prostate cancer.

"The real take-home message," said Peter Ellison, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard not involved in the study, is that "male parental care is important. It's important enough that it's actually shaped the physiology of men."

"Unfortunately," he added, "I think American males have been brainwashed" to believe lower testosterone means that "maybe you're a wimp, that it's because you're not really a man. My hope would be that this kind of research has an impact on the American male. It would make them realize that we're meant to be active fathers and participate in the care of our offspring."....

"This is part of the guy being invested in the "This is part of the guy being invested in the marriage," said Carol Worthman, an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta who also was not involved in the study. Lower testosterone, she said, is the father's way of saying, " 'I'm here,I'm not looking around, I'm really toning things down so I can have good relationships.' What's great about this study is it lays it on the table that more is not always better. Faster, bigger, stronger - no, not always."

This study reminds me of George Gilder's book, "Men and Marriage" which talks of the civilizing influence of marriage and family in the lives of males. When those influences aren't present we get the fall out of males without responsibility in their lives. They're listless, directionless, and often drift into activities which aren't helpful for society.

More evidence on the importance of men being and staying married.

Marriage played important role in defeat of NYC democrat who supported same-sex "marriage"

2011-09-17T09:00:00.002-06:00

Here's an interesting article showing the importance of the marriage issue in the defeat of the democrat congressional candidate in NYC. If it can impact the outcome of a race in NYC, it could have an even greater impact in more conservative legislative districts.

To win in a Democratic district, Turner needed Democratic votes. The two issues that seem to have helped drive some of the district's traditionally Democratic voters to cast their ballots for Turner were Obama's Israel policy and Weprin's vote for same-sex marriage. Former Democratic New York City mayor Ed Koch endorsed Turner primarily to send a message to Obama on
Israel. Democratic state senator Ruben Diaz backed Turner because of Weprin's vote on marriage. Democratic state assemblyman Dov Hikind says both issues, as well as dissatisfaction with Obama's failed economic policies, were "overriding" factors that led him to support Turner.

"This is an underlying issue that is an extremely powerful issue," Hikind says of Weprin's vote for same-sex marriage. Weprin didn't merely vote for the bill. He got on the floor of the assembly and compared voting against same-sex marriage to "outlawing marriages between Jews and non-Jews or interracial marriages.”

"The fundamental message was 'I'm an orthodox Jew and gay marriage is perfectly fine,'" Hikind says of his Democratic colleague's speech. "To me, when he did that, he crossed every single line." Forty orthodox rabbis declared that orthodox Jews could not support Weprin.

"I can tell you this is a real serious issue among Jews, among orthodox Jews, among Catholics," Hikind says. A PPP poll from last week showed that 29% of voters in the district said marriage is "very important," and a plurality (45% to 41%) said same-sex marriage should be "illegal."

Good news and bad news on marriage.

2011-09-16T09:00:00.002-06:00

The good news on marriage as Chuck Colson points out is divorce rates are down. The bad news is cohabitation rates are up. Why is that bad news? Because cohabitation is now the alternative in the minds of many to the lifelong commitment of marriage.

And what's wrong with cohabitation? The relationships are less stable and less healthy not only for the couple but also children living in a household headed up by cohabiting parents.

The health and well-being of individuals and society is dependent on the well-being of marriages.

Marriage Amendment on 2012 ballot in North Carolina

2011-09-15T10:00:00.002-06:00

The North Carolina state Senate followed the action of their state House by voting to put on their statewide ballot in May of 2012 a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Minnesotans will be voting in November 2012 on a state constitutional marriage amendment. The action in North Carolina is another indication that there strong support for protecting marriage in various states. A Opinion Strategies poll in North Carolina found 61% of people "definitely for" the marriage amendment while only 23% were "definitely against" the amendment.

Passage of the amendments in Minnesota and North Carolina would bring the nationwide total to 32 states with state constitutional protections for marriage.

Marriage plays role in defeat of democrat candidate for Congress in NYC

2011-09-14T01:30:00.007-06:00

In the upset victory by a Republican congressional candidate over the democrat candidate in a strongly democrat district, one issue which played a role was marriage. The democrat candidate David Weprin is a state legislator who voted in favor of redefining marriage in New York state earlier this year.

While voter discontent with President Obama's policies were a major concern, marriage did play a role.

The marriage issue will not go away.

Time to take a deep breath and practice real religious tolerance

2011-03-16T16:37:00.004-06:00

It’s time for us all to take a big breath and tolerate the expression of our religious faith in the public square.

The recent news regarding the objection, by some state senators, to a Minnesota Senate opening prayer containing multiple references to Jesus is a good example of how tolerance can be used to be intolerant. And how we have completely lost sight of the original intent of the founding fathers to encourage expressions of faith - all faiths - in the public square.

We are living in denial of the accurate historical record. Clearly, the founding fathers “were firm in their conviction that American liberties were a gift from God not man. They were equally convinced that our continued political liberty would be tied to our continued religious liberty.”

That the founding fathers had no problem with religious expression in government can be found all over our nations capitol.

One example is the United States Supreme Court. It’s covered with religious symbolism. In fact, Moses, the great Hebrew leader and the one who God gave the Ten Commandments figures prominently as do the Ten Commandments.

So do Solon, Confucius, and Mohamed.

The Capitol Rotunda resounds with religious expression. A quick glance at the life size paintings covering the walls depicts a prayer meeting, baptism and two bible studies. Another captures the 59 signers of the Declaration of Independence; 29 of which had seminary degrees.

The founders understood that religion was very important and should be practiced in the public square. They just didn’t want the government preferring one religion to another or establishing one government religion

The Minnesota Senate "invites leaders from numerous faith traditions to pray and notifies them that the Senate members come from a diverse background."

This seems the best way to practice religious tolerance. Let's keep it that way.

That's why Minnesota needs a Marriage Protection Amendment

2011-03-11T15:28:00.006-06:00

Giving her perspective on the dismissal of Marry Me Minnesota's lawsuit challenging Minnesota's DOMA law, attorney Chris Tymchuck reports a comment by Judge Mary DuFresne in her decision that not so subtley affirms advocates' strategy for legalizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota...

The Judge wrote that until Baker v. Nelson is overruled or Minnesota’s “mini-Doma” law is repealed, “Same-sex marriage will not exist in this state.”

Tymchuck's perspective is reinforced by Minnesota Independent's Andy Birkey, reporting on the response of Doug Benson, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit...

The couples plan to appeal shortly, Benson said. He added that the decision amounted to a pass by the lower court which thinks the Minnesota Supreme Court will have to decide the case. The highest court had weighed in almost four decades ago in Baker v. Nelson, which ruled that the state could ban gay marriage. The plaintiffs are hoping that enough laws and attitudes have changed that the court would overturn that precedent. (Emphasis added.)

Dismissal of the Marry Me Minnesota lawsuit does not eliminate the threat to marriage. It only buys a little more time to protect the definition of marriage in Minnesota's state constitution.

Schools should avoid "program dejour" bullying curricula

2011-03-08T11:35:00.018-06:00

Minnesota Bullying Summit warns schools to avoid "program du jour" curricula

One thing is very clear, national research shows that focusing on a "whole school environment" is considered "best practice" to prevent bullying. The Minnesota Bullying Summit also stressed parent education and involvement as an important part of prevention efforts.

Click here to view the Olweus bullying prevention program featured at the Summit.

Conversely, the conference encouraged schools to avoid "simple, short term solutions" and "program du jour approaches."

MFC believes that "Welcoming Schools" developed by the nations largest homosexual lobbying group, the Human Rights Campaign Fund is a perfect example of the kind of "program du jour approach" that the conference said to avoid as it crosses the line from addressing bullying words and behavior to targeting the values and beliefs of students and undermining the authority of parents.

In 2008, MFC examined "Welcoming Schools" when it was introduced in a handful of Minneapolis elementary schools under the guise of anti-bullying. MFC found it had very little to do with stopping bullying and more to do with changing children's behavior to affirm same-sex marriage and homosexual behavior. "Welcoming Schools" immediately ignited enormous controversy, and vicious attacks on a diverse group of parents who peacefully objected to its content and methods.

Lessons included reading controversial books like "The King and King", and "Both of My Moms' Names are Judy", to elementary school children. It included a video, "It's Elementary" that showed an eight-year-old receiving praise from her teacher for saying people who believed what the Bible says about homosexuality are "stupid." This video and others were so clearly geared towards homosexual advocacy that significant portions of the curricula were pulled by the Minneapolis school district because the parental outcry was so great.

Concerned parents told the Minneapolis School Board that "Welcoming Schools" encouraged children to "question the moral authority of their parents and created conflict between child and teacher, child and parent, and parent and teacher." We are concerned that efforts to introduce "program du jour approaches" will do the same while not addressing the concern of bullying.

Instead of forcing one-sided "homophobia" curricula on students and parents, MFC recommends examining more fair and objective alternatives that focus on the "whole educational environment," welcomes parental involvement and is inclusive of all children who are at high risk of being bullied such as children with allergies, disabilities and obesity, etc...

(This post contains excerpts from MFC's editorial in the Star Tribune.)

Minnesota Summit on Bullying Empasizes "whole environment" not just the characteristics of the victim

2011-03-07T17:08:00.005-06:00

Today, MFC attended the first Minnesota Summit on Bullying. The Summit was a sell-out with over 400 teachers and school officials attending.

MFC was encouraged that the summit emphasized the importance of focusing on the whole school environment, including bystanders, staff and parents. The summit did not emphasize programs that focused strictly on the characteristics of the victim – like “Welcoming Schools” developed by the Human Rights Campaign.

In fact, the Summit showcased the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. The Olweus program has over 35 years of research and acknowledges, “that bullying isn’t limited to the student who bullies and the student being bullied.” Olweus uses the Bullying Circle where “students are able to identify their role in an incident and determine what they can do to stop it from escalating.”

Last year, MFC called on parents and students to join with their school officials and stand up to the bullies in their schools.

MFC was particularly interested in the “Best Practices in Bullying Prevention” presented by Marlene Snyder, Ph.D. Clemson University. Snyder research emphasized the Top 10 Strategies for effective bullying prevention.

Focus on the whole school environment
Assess bullying at your school
Garner staff/parent support
Form a group at school to coordinate bullying prevention/intervention activities
Provide training for ALL staff members
Establish and enforce school rules and policies regarding bullying
Increase adult supervision in “hot spots” for bullying
Intervene consistently and appropriately in bullying incidents
Focus some classroom time on bullying preventions and intervention
Continue efforts over time

The event was sponsored by the Hazelden Foundation, Minnesota Elementary School Principals’ Association, MN Assoc. of Secondary School Principals, MN Dept of Education, MN Dept. of Health, MN School Social Workers Assoc. and the National Assoc. of Elementary School Principals.

Predatory Gambling - MN legislatures' next move?

2011-03-04T12:37:00.007-06:00

60 Minutes story reveals the predatory nature of state endorsed gambling.

The gambling industry is designing machines that are addicting innocent people - and taking their paychecks.

Is this good fiscal policy for Minnesota?

CBS’s 60 Minutes shows us the dangers of adding more casinos in "Slot Machines: The Big Gamble."

CLICK HERE to see video story.

House Defense of DOMA - Trust but Verify

2011-02-28T15:07:00.006-06:00

More information on Speaker Boehner's statements about intervening to defend DOMA, because of President Obama's dereliction of duty, suggests that a House defense of DOMA may not be a sure thing. This from a TPM post this morning:

"I'd be very surprised if the House didn't decide that they were going to defend the law," Boehner said. Surprisingly, he suggested that the move was likely beneficial to Democrats in the next election.
"It strikes me as something that's just as raw politics as anything I've seen knowing that a lot of people who believe in DOMA are probably not likely to vote for him and pandering to the other side on this issue," he said.

As President Reagan used to say, "Trust but verify."

Our view on kids: When unwed births hit 41%, it not right

2011-02-17T14:10:00.005-06:00

Our view on kids: When unwed births hit 41%, it's not right
USA Today

We can't escape the failure of the sexual revolution of the 1960's. However, too many adults are in denial and turn to sex ed programs and early education programs rather than assume the responsibility of raising their children.

In 2009, 41% of children born in the USA were born to unmarried mothers (up from 5% a half-century ago). That includes 73% of non-Hispanic black children, 53% of Hispanic children and 29% of non-Hispanic white children. Those are not misprints.

Some children of unmarried parents, of course, turn out just fine, particularly if the parents are economically secure or in committed, long-term relationships, or if the single parent is particularly strong and motivated. And as married parents will tell you, wedlock does not guarantee untroubled kids.

Even so, evidence is overwhelming that children of single mothers — particularly teen mothers — suffer disproportionately high poverty rates, impaired development and low school performance.

New Legislature, New Session, New Priorities

2011-02-15T10:17:00.001-06:00

While many things have changed, many things have stayed the same in our Minnesota legislature. But how can we help get our message across?

We Haven't Seen the Worst from Roe v. Wade

2011-02-07T20:35:00.003-06:00

Following the horrific story recently of butchery by an abortionist in Philadelphia (To Live and Die in Philadelphia), and President Obama's mention of the gruesome story on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing women's legal right to obtain abortions, a Lake Charles, LA, pastor wrote the following thought-provoking letter to the editor of his local newspaper. His letter leads to the inescapable conclusion that, unless we find a way to "dream greater dreams" than what Obama articulated in his remarks commemorating Roe v. Wade, we haven't yet seen the worst to come from what that decision unleashed.

Here's the pastor's letter:

The January 23rd issue of American Press included two stories relating to abortion that should trouble all readers. "Lax abortion scrutiny stuns ex-gov." (p. A7) details the horrific acts of Pennsylvania abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell. He has been charged with murdering seven "viable babies born alive and killed with scissors to the spine." He has also been charged with murdering a woman who had come for an abortion. Here is a doctor who clearly violated the ancient Hippocratic Oath's pledge to "do no harm." Pennsylvania officials are lamenting the tragedy and investigating failures at multiple levels of regulatory oversight.

As the trial and investigation proceed, we should all remember that under current law it is just a matter of timing and location that made Gosnell's alleged acts criminal in nature. If he had used surgical instruments to dismember those babies while they were still in the womb, he would have been acting with the full protection of the courts. Thanks to Roe v. Wade and other rulings, the killing of unborn babies is viewed as a constitutionally-protected right.

That brings us to the other article, "Obama marks Roe v. Wade anniversary" (p. A3). Our president chose to mark the anniversary of the infamous 1973 Supreme Court decision by declaring his commitment to maintain abortion as a constitutional right. He wishes to ensure "our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams." Apparently, the president believes a woman has the right to kill her unborn child if she thinks bringing the baby to term would keep her from fulfilling her dreams.

There is so much that is wrong with this picture. It reflects a radical individualism that views a woman's relationship to her baby with no consideration for the father of the child. It thus downplays the mutual responsibility that should inform all sexual activity and subverts the place of the family as a basic building block of culture. Furthermore, such thinking places a woman's right to fulfill her dreams above a baby's right to life. Surely this is a tragically deficient moral calculus.

It is my hope and prayer that the president (and all Americans) would come to see that the rights, freedoms, and opportunities he wishes to extend to our daughters and sons should be extended to them even before birth. How can we claim to care about our children's dreams if we are willing to kill them in order to fulfill our own dreams? Maybe it is our dreams that need to change. Perhaps we could dream of a society that honors life at every stage, acknowledges the importance of mutual responsibility in the sexual realm, and extols the virtues of family life. If we as a nation could embrace such a dream, then we could begin to do the hard work that would be needed to make it a reality.

The gruesome news from Pennsylvania should convince us that we are in need of fresh moral and spiritual reckoning. Will we have the courage to acknowledge the mistakes of our past in order to pursue a better future? Will we have the vision to dream greater dreams?

Rev. Steven Wright
Bethel Presbyterian Church

What Pastor Wright didn't say, but could have, is that once we've made the decision that the lives of unborn children are expendable for the dreams of the mother, than there's no logic by which to say that the life of the mother, or anyone else, cannot be expendable for the dreams of anyone on whom they are dependent.

The monster Gosnell is guilty only of taking the logic of Roe v. Wade to the next level. The devaluing of human life by abortion diminishes all human lives. Unless the moral and spiritual slide set in motion by Roe v. Wade is reversed by a better vision and "greater dreams", we haven't seen the worst yet.

Biden says gay "marriage" inevitable in America. Evidence suggests otherwise.

2010-12-27T09:00:00.000-06:00

With the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", Vice President Biden and gay activists are spinning it to suggest gay "marriage" is inevitable. I wouldn't be so quick to draw that conclusion.

The precedential removal of three Iowa Supreme Court justices for judicially imposing gay "marriage" on Iowans, efforts in other state's to repeal gay "marriage" laws and the potential for passing state marriage amendments in other states would suggest momentum is in other direction.

Frankly, the more the issue is debated and discussed the better. People will realize the nature and purpose of marriage. It's more than a "loving relationship" between two people. Instead it's profoundly connected to procreation, the raising of children, and the unique, complementary relationship of a man and a woman.

Reagan's 1981 Christmas Address to the Nation

2010-12-24T14:18:00.004-06:00

Here's a powerful address to the nation given by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. It 's a simple but touching message on the true meaning of Christmas. It's easy to be sentimental for the days of his moral leadership of our nation.

Public education is in trouble and change is coming. Whether teachers' union likes it or not.

2010-12-09T09:00:00.010-06:00

Here's an interesting article in Newsweek, that bastion of conservatism by the outgoing chancellor of public schools in DC, Michelle Rhee, who was known for trying to reform public education and lost her job because the teacher's union defeated her boss, the mayor, in his bid for re-election.

She points out what she did and the battles she faced improving the quality of education in the district.

When I started as chancellor in 2007, I never had any illusions about how tough it would be to turn around a failing system like D.C.’s; the city had gone through seven chancellors in the 10 years before me. While I had to make many structural changes—overhauling the system for
evaluating teachers and principals, adopting new reading and math programs, making sure textbooks got delivered on time—I believed the hardest thing would be changing the culture. We had to raise the expectations that people had about what was possible for our kids.

I quickly announced a plan to close almost two dozen schools, which provoked community outrage. We cut the central office administration in half. And I also proposed a new contract for teachers that would increase their salaries dramatically if they abandoned the tenure system and agreed to be paid based on their effectiveness.

Though all of these actions caused turmoil in the district, they were long overdue and reaped benefits quickly. In my first two years in office, the D.C. schools went from being the worst performing on the National Assessment of Educational Progress examination, the national test, to leading the nation in gains at both the fourth and eighth grade in reading as well as math. By this school year we reversed a trend of declining enrollment and increased the number of families choosing District schools for the first time in 41 years.

She talks about the state of public education in America, which isn't very good compared to the rest of the world.

After stepping down, I had a chance to reflect on the challenges facing our schools today and the possible solutions. The truth is that despite a handful of successful reforms, the state of American education is pitiful, and getting worse. Spending on schools has more than doubled in the last three decades, but the increased resources haven’t produced better results. The U.S. is currently 21st, 23rd, and 25th among 30 developed nations in science, reading, and math, respectively. The children in our schools today will be the first generation of Americans who will be less educated than the previous generation.

And finally she says the major impediment to reform is the teacher's union which believes it has a vested interest in the status quo.

Education is no different. We have textbook manufacturers, teachers’ unions, and even food vendors that work hard to dictate and determine policy. The public-employee unions in D.C., including the teachers’ union, spent huge sums of money to defeat Fenty. In fact, the new chapter president has said his No. 1 priority is job security for teachers, but there is no big organized interest group that defends and promotes the interests of children.

You can see the impact of this dynamic playing out every day. Policymakers, school-district administrators, and school boards who are beholden to special interests have created a bureaucracy that is focused on the adults instead of the students. Go to any public-school-board meeting in the country and you’ll rarely hear the words “children,” “students,” or “kids” uttered.
Instead, the focus remains on what jobs, contracts, and departments are getting which cuts, additions, or changes. The rationale for the decisions mostly rests on which grown-ups will be affected, instead of what will benefit or harm children.

The teachers’ unions get the blame for much of this. Elected officials, parents, and administrators implore them to “embrace change” and “accept reform.” But I don’t think the unions can or should change. The purpose of the teachers’ union is to protect the privileges, priorities, and pay of their members. And they’re doing a great job of that.

What that means is that the reform community has to exert influence as well. That’s why I’ve decided to start StudentsFirst, a national movement to transform public education in our country. We need a new voice to change the balance of power in public education. Our mission is to defend and promote the interests of children so that America has the best education system
in the world.

I think change is in the air. For one, we, as society, don't have the money to keep throwing at public education. In Minnesota, K-12 education constitutes roughly 40% of our state budget. When facing a $6 billion deficit, changes will be demanded in public education. I also think technological changes will force to public schools to change. The online revolution is and will continue to dramatically change how education is done.

I compare it to the state controlled economy of the Soviet Union. On the surface, it seemed to be doing fine. But inside the system was rotten and ready to collapse. Same is true with our current public education model. It's unsustainable as it currently stands.

A rebuttal to repealing, "Don't ask, Don't Tell"

2010-12-08T09:00:00.001-06:00

Here's a clip on the head of the military testifying on repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". It presents a different picture from what we generally hear in the media about the issue. They don't think it's a good idea.

And here's a good rebuttal, by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, for those who think, gays in the military works fine for Britian, why not the US.

Americans may have defeated the British, but there are still people who think we should take our cues from Her Majesty's Forces. On yesterday's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour" on ABC, a panel of mostly liberal guests argued that the U.K.'s military is more effective for allowing homosexuals to serve openly. In a video package about Britian's policy, a voice claims, "When the ban was lifted in 2000, nothing happened: nothing, no resignations, no impairment of fighting ability, and almost no incidents of harassments... Some homophobic politicians and service chiefs played up and exaggerated their likely dire consequences of allowing gays to serve, but their fears did not materialize...." FRC's Bob Maginnis begged to differ. "The U.S. military," he said, "is about 18 times larger than the Brits'... [T]o compare them to... us is like comparing an M1A1 tank to a Roman chariot." But they both have the same issues, another guest interrupted. "No," Maginnis fired back, "the issues are fundamentally about privacy, about unit cohesion, about trust and confidence, about readiness... retention... recruitment. You look at all those. Unfortunately, Christiane, the report that the Pentagon came out with--based on a flawed survey--doesn't support that..."
In that report, which FRC fully read, the Defense Department makes a point of comparing the American military to its counterparts in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. But those nations are radically different than the United States in two key areas. Their militaries, while sophisticated, are not nearly as large--or as advanced--as ours. Secondly, those countries are much farther down the path of secularization than America. Each one lacks a moral restraint that is still very much a vibrant part of our nation.
While some British officers make sweeping statements about the success of open homosexuals in their military, there is absolutely no empirical data to base them on. By their own admission, there has been no systematic review of the effects of open homosexuality on retention, HIV rates, and sexual assault over the last 10 years. Nor do I think the British model of "recruiting at gay pride parades" is worth replicating. According to U.K. officials, that's where they've been forced to shop for new enlistments. (I don't know if you've had the misfortune of seeing a gay pride parade, but it's not exactly a scene from A Few Good Men.) The United States military is the best in the world. Sure, other countries may sprinkle a few drag queens in its units and call it "progress," but as the leader of the free world we don't have the luxury of using our military for social experimentation.

Should religion be taught in public schools? Yes and it already is.

2010-12-07T09:00:00.005-06:00

I came across an interesting opinion piece on the religion and education which asks the question, should religion be taught in the public schools.

Charles Haynes discusses the thesis of a book by Warren Nord entitled, "Does God Make a Difference." In the book, Nord says "American education proceeds on the assumptiion that God is either dead or irrelevant." Strong language yet I would say accurate.

Haynes goes on to describe Nord's argument:

Conventional wisdom in public schools and universities, Nord claims, is that students “can learn everything they need to know about any subject (other than history and literature) without learning anything about religion.” Students are uncritically taught to make sense of the world in
“exclusively secular categories.” And that makes public education “superficial, illiberal, and unconstitutional.”

Haynes asks:

Is Nord right? On the charges of “superficial and illiberal,” I would agree. Ignoring the role of religion in history and society — and, more deeply, ignoring religious ways of understanding the world — deprives students of what used to be called a broad or liberal education.
Education, Nord rightly argues, should address the “big questions” about meaning and morality — questions that cannot be properly considered without giving religion a place at the curriculum table.

A religion-free education may be wrongheaded, but is it unconstitutional? Here Nord goes beyond where most legal scholars are willing to go by boldly asserting that public schools and universities violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause by failing to be religiously neutral.

According to Nord, teaching about religion in public schools is not only permissible under
the First Amendment (a point the U.S. Supreme Court has made many times); but it is also required by the Court’s past rulings about the constitutional necessity of government neutrality between religion and non-religion. There is nothing “neutral,” he argues, about teaching all subjects through a secular lens without exposing students to religious alternatives.

I don't know that I'd agree that the courts should mandate particular religions be taught in the schools but it would do well to require "truth in advertising" about what what is currently being taught in the schools under the guise of neutrality. The courts could make the public aware that the reigning orthodoxy in many of public schools is secularism which is a faith just as much as Christianity or Judaism.

Haynes concludes by restating a critical problem with our current education system.

As Nord reminds us: “An educational system that ignores the great existential questions — political, moral, spiritual, religious — is not worthy of respect, indeed, it shouldn’t count as educational at all.”

State facing structural deficit of $6.2 billion. Time to reduce the size and scope of government.

2010-12-06T15:20:00.004-06:00

The state is facing a projected budget deficit of $6.2 billion over the next two years. That's bad enough but an added problem is it's a structural deficit, meaning that even with strong economic growth, we're spending more than we're due to take in via tax receipts.

As Tom Stinson, the state's economist, said in a recent interview with Capitol Report, we're coming out of the worst recession since World War II, plus we're facing an ongoing structural deficit in our state finances.

This was the worst recession since World War II. We’re coming out of it, and everybody would like us to come out of it as quickly as possible, and we are coming out of it, but it’s going to take some time.

The good news, from the Minnesota point of view, is that we seem to be coming out of it faster than the national economy. But, to put it in perspective before we pat ourselves on the back too much, you’ve got to remember that California is part of the U.S. economy and the situation there is much worse than it is in Minnesota, so we better be doing better than the U.S. average....

We have a $6.2 billion structural shortfall. The revenue forecast for 2012-2013 went down by about $900 million [in November] because of some economic changes….

But I think the important thing to know is even if it went up twice - if we gained back that $900 million and then the economy improved enough so that we actually added another $900 million - we’d still have $4.4 billion worth of problem to deal with.

That means on an ongoing basis we're spending more than we have been taking in. The funding shifts and delay of payments used in the past to balance the budget aren't available. That means tough decisions about cutting spending and tax increases will have to be faced now.

I believe government is too big and needs to be cut back rather reverting to raising taxes. That will be very painful for those who have come to expect government to do more and more but in the long run expanding government isn't in the best interest of society or the family. Growing government has meant government taking over more and more family responsibilities which not only costs lots of money but also means people are becoming more dependent on the government for those services.

This dependency on the government hasn't improved the condition of the family, rather it's contributed to its decline. We can see government's ineffectualness by looking to results of anti-poverty programs. Despite spending trillions and trillions of dollars since the 1960s, poverty rates haven't decreased. Instead the health and well-being of the American family has declined dramatically. I believe the government has played a significant, though not the exclusive, role in that decline.

Homosexual parenting leads to more homosexual kids? Common sense and research suggests as much. Implications for gay adoption and gay "marriage".

2010-12-03T16:29:00.004-06:00

The debate over homosexual "marriage" invariably implicates the impact of homosexual couples on the children they raise. While there's debate over the exact origins of homosexual attractions and orientations, it's generally viewed as resulting from a complex interaction of biological and environmental factors. Even gay researchers like Simon LaVay acknowledge as much.

It shouldn't be surprising then when kids raised by homosexual parents have a greater propensity for developing same sex inclinations. That's what Dr. Walter Schumm, professor of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University found in his research. Here's what he said in an interview on the topic.

For decades it was politically correct to argue that parental sexual orientation had nothing to do with a child's sexual orientation. However, about 1995 or so, a few scholars began to admit that, at least in theory, parental values would be expected to influence children's values, including sexual orientation preferences. Nevertheless, it was argued that even such an expected result had little empirical support. I decided to tackle this difficult problem from three perspectives, in a report in press with the
Cambridge journal, Journal of Biosocial Science.

First, I reviewed ten books concerning over 250 children of gay, lesbian, or bisexual parents and evaluated the children's own stories about their sexual orientations. I used a 10% baseline for a simulated comparison group of heterosexual families. It was clear that the children of GLB parents were more likely to either have
identified as GLB or to have at least experimented with nonheterosexual behavior. The more I controlled for age (using older children) and availability of data (using only those children who specifically described their sexual orientations), the stronger the results became. Gender was an interesting and strong factor in that the daughters of lesbian mothers were most likely to reject a heterosexual orientation whereas sons of gay fathers were least likely to do so.

I then compiled data from 26 studies about GLB parenting and found that children of GLB parents were more likely to report a nonheterosexual orientation than were children of heterosexual parents in those studies, an effect that was strongest for mothers.

Third, I studied reports from a number of cultures from around the world and found that the less strongly those cultures condemned homosexuality, the less rare was its actual (open) practice.

Thus, all three sources of data indicate that sexual orientation, at least in terms of its open expression, is subject to the influence of social and cultural factors, including family background. While not surprising in terms of what social science theory might predict, the results differ greatly from the testimony of many experts at a host of previous court cases concerning gay or lesbian parenting.

Furthermore, my analysis of previous data, some of which has seldom been mentioned, showed that gay or lesbian parents were less likely to want their children to grow up to be heterosexual than were heterosexual parents. Gay and lesbian parents also seemed less likely to expect that their children would grow up to be heterosexual. Thus, both parental expectations and aspirations tend to pressure children to model their parent's own sexual orientation, providing a clear pathway for parental sexual orientation to influence a child's sexual orientation.

Some gay activists want to discredit Professor Schumm and his research though one has to ask why if there are no problems with homosexuality. The problem for gay activists is the public is uncomfortable with the promotion of homosexuality and the resulting behavior. And that uncomfortable is reasonable in light of the negative health consequences of the behavior.

Such research has significant implications for the gay adoption and homosexual "marriage" debates.

The new elites in America. Out of touch with people they govern and influence.

2010-12-02T08:00:00.001-06:00

Here's an interesting article by Charles Murray from the Washington Post last month which talks about the new elites and how out of touch they are with the average American. It shows up not only in the politics but also their lifestyles and values.

We know, for one thing, that the New Elite clusters in a comparatively small number of cities and in selected neighborhoods in those cities. This concentration isn't limited to the elite neighborhoods of Washington, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and San Francisco. It extends to university cities with ancillary high-tech jobs, such as Austin and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle.
With geographical clustering goes cultural clustering. Get into a conversation about television with members of the New Elite, and they can probably talk about a few trendy shows -- "Mad Men" now, "The Sopranos" a few years ago. But they haven't any idea who replaced Bob Barker on "The Price Is Right." They know who Oprah is, but they've never watched one of her shows from beginning to end.
Talk to them about sports, and you may get an animated discussion of yoga, pilates, skiing or mountain biking, but they are unlikely to know who Jimmie Johnson is (the really famous Jimmie Johnson, not the former Dallas Cowboys coach), and the acronym MMA means nothing to them.
They can talk about books endlessly, but they've never read a "Left Behind" novel (65 million copies sold) or a Harlequin romance (part of a genre with a core readership of 29 million Americans).
They take interesting vacations and can tell you all about a great backpacking spot in the Sierra Nevada or an exquisite B&B overlooking Boothbay Harbor, but they wouldn't be caught dead in an RV or on a cruise ship (unless it was a small one going to the Galapagos). They have never heard of Branson, Mo.
There are so many quintessentially American things that few members of the New Elite have experienced. They probably haven't ever attended a meeting of a
Kiwanis Club or Rotary Club, or lived for at least a year in a small town (college doesn't count) or in an urban neighborhood in which most of their neighbors did not have college degrees (gentrifying neighborhoods don't count). They are unlikely to have spent at least a year with a family income less than twice the poverty line (graduate school doesn't count) or to have a close friend who is an evangelical Christian. They are unlikely to have even visited a factory floor, let alone worked on one.
Taken individually, members of the New Elite are isolated from mainstream America as a result of lifestyle choices that are nobody's business but their own. But add them all up, and they mean that the New Elite lives in a world that doesn't intersect with mainstream America in many important ways. When the tea party says the New Elite doesn't get America, there is some truth in the accusation.
Part of the isolation is political. In that Harvard survey I mentioned, 72 percent of Harvard seniors said their beliefs were to the left of the nation as a whole, compared with 10 percent who said theirs were to the right of it. The political preferences of academics and journalists among the New Elite also conform to the suspicions of the tea party.
But the politics of the New Elite are not the main point. When it comes to the schools where they were educated, the degrees they hold, the Zip codes where they reside and the television shows they watch, I doubt if there is much to differentiate the staff of the conservative Weekly Standard from that of the liberal New Republic, or the scholars at the American Enterprise Institute from those of the Brookings Institution, or Republican senators from Democratic ones.
The bubble that encases the New Elite crosses ideological lines and includes far too many of the people who have influence, great or small, on the course of the nation. They are not defective in their patriotism or lacking a generous spirit toward their fellow citizens. They are merely isolated and ignorant. The members of the New Elite may love America, but, increasingly, they are not of it.

I saw this last summer when a CNN producer talked with me about the Minnesota Family Council's views and their connection to religion and what not. I could tell I was someone she hadn't encountered very often or at all.