ENDA vote delayed again

The House vote on ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act has been delayed again. The vote was removed from the agenda at the last minute.

At issue is the inclusion of gender identity. If included, gender identity would force organizations like the Boy Scouts, or an Orthodox Jewish day care center to hire a man dressed in women's clothing.

In the last few days, Rep. Jim Ramstad, (GOP Dist 3,) Rep. Tim Walz, (DFL Dist. 1), and Rep. Colin Peterson, (DFL Dist. 7), have received thousands of calls urging them to veto ENDA.

Call your Congressman and tell him to "vote no" on all versions of ENDA.

Star Tribune's circulation for last six months continues to plunge

The circulation of major newspapers continues to decline. For the six month time period ending September 2007, the 538 daily newspapers nationwide witnessed a 2.5% drop in newspaper circulation. Of the top 25 newspapers only 4 experienced gains in circulation. For 638 newspapers with Sunday editions, the average drop was 3.5%.

In the case of the Star Tribune, the situation was much worse. It's daily circulation declined 6.5% to 335,443 and Sunday circulation was down 4.3% to 570,443. The Pioneer Press' circulation was flat, up .1% for both dailies and Sunday - 184,474 and 245,930 respectively.

I'm sure the overall circulation is down because of the advent of Internet and the increase of other media sources. I wonder how much of it is due to the overwhelming liberal bias which has characterized the mainstream media. If that's an important factor, then it's understandable that the Star Tribune's decline was even greater because it has certainly been one of the more liberal newspapers in the country.

Along those lines, the two most prominent liberal newspapers nationally - NY Times and Washington Post - saw their circulations drop more than the national average. The New York Times daily circulation dropped 4.51% to 1,03,828 and Washington Post saw a drop of 3.2% to 635,087. Their Sunday circulation declines were also greater than the national average.

The atheist as intolerant and narrow minded

There is an interesting column in City Journal written by Theodore Dalrymple entitled what "What the New Atheists Don't See. It on the new crop of atheist writers, Chrisotpher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins who are making the New York Times best seller list.

He takes to task the new atheists who cavalierly heaping scorn on religious folks and their belief in meaning and purpose beyond themselves. These folks say we can do it on our own without the help of God who transcends our little worlds. Dalrymple goes on to point out the consequences of men who think they can do it on their own. He says,

"Of course, men—that is to say, some men—have denied this truth ["we continue to long for a transcendent purpose immanent in existence itself, independent of our own wills."] ever since the Enlightenment, and have sought to find a way of life based entirely on reason. Far as I am from decrying reason, the attempt leads at best to Gradgrind and at worst to Stalin. Reason can never be the absolute dictator of man’s mental or moral economy.

He especially goes after Harris when he says,

This sloppiness and lack of intellectual scruple, with the assumption of certainty where there is none, combined with adolescent shrillness and intolerance, reach an apogee in Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith. It is not easy to do justice to the book’s nastiness...

Harris tells us, for example, that “we must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it. Given the present state of the world, there appears to be no other future worth wanting.” I am glad that I am old enough that I shall not see the future of reason as laid down by Harris; but I am puzzled by the status of the compulsion in the first sentence that I have quoted. Is Harris writing of a historical inevitability? Of a categorical imperative? Or is he merely making a legislative proposal? This is who-will-rid-me-of-this-troublesome-priest language, ambiguous no doubt, but not open to a generous interpretation.

It becomes even more sinister when considered in conjunction with the following sentences, quite possibly the most disgraceful that I have read in a book by a man posing as a rationalist: “The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live.”

Let us leave aside the metaphysical problems that these three sentences raise. For Harris, the most important question about genocide would seem to be: “Who is genociding whom?” To adapt Dostoyevsky slightly, starting from universal reason, I arrive at universal madness.

Lying not far beneath the surface of all the neo-atheist books is the kind of historiography that many of us adopted in our hormone-disturbed adolescence, furious at the discovery that our parents sometimes told lies and violated their own precepts and rules. It can be summed up in Christopher Hitchens’s drumbeat in God Is Not Great: “Religion spoils everything.”

What are the consequences of the loss of the religious foundations of our society and culture? Dalrymple says,

The thinness of the new atheism is evident in its approach to our civilization, which until recently was religious to its core. To regret religion is, in fact, to regret our civilization and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy. And in my own view, the absence of religious faith, provided that such faith is not murderously intolerant, can have a deleterious effect upon human character and personality. If you empty the world of purpose, make it one of brute fact alone, you empty it (for many people, at any rate) of reasons for gratitude, and a sense of gratitude is necessary for both happiness and decency. For what can soon, and all too easily, replace gratitude is a sense of entitlement. Without gratitude, it is hard to appreciate, or be satisfied with, what you have: and life will become an existential shopping spree that no product satisfies.

He also makes the interesting observation that atheists often heap scorn on religious people for their metaphysical beliefs. Dalrymple points out that the atheist belief in Darwinian natural selection is also making a religious statement.

It is true that he would say that everything is part of God’s providence, but, again, this is no more (and no less) a metaphysical belief than the belief in natural selection as an all-explanatory principle.

What makes Dalrymple's comments especially interesting is he does not consider himself "a believer."

What can gay supporters do with ex-gays but attempt to marginalize and/or discredit them

Homosexual activists are always arguing that they have no choice in their lifestyle. But when a person who was in the homosexual lifestyle for many years leaves it, it’s hard for them to know how to respond. A case in point is Janet Boynes. Janet was in the lesbian lifestyle for over a dozen years. It wasn’t pretty. It was a life filled with drug abuse, depression, eating disorder and jealous relationships. She views herself driven into lesbian because of her horrible family upbringing and poor relationships with men.

Janet speaks nationally on the topic and recently gained the attention of Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Monitor, a liberal online newsletter. Andy seeks to marginalize her views.

Andy challenges for her assertion that lesbianism is marked by high levels of destructive behaviors. Andy writes that people know lesbians who grow up with stable, drug free and happy lives. Certainly there are homosexuals who aren’t involved in drugs and are content with their lives. However, when looking at the overall pattern of the lifestyle that isn’t the case. There are studies showing people who engage in homosexuality are disproportionately depressed, suicidal, abusing drugs, and have a shorter life expectancy.

It’s analogous to smoking. Are there smokers who live long, happy lives? Certainly. But on average smoking is bad for your health and we shouldn’t suggest it isn’t.

The same is true with homosexuality. On average it’s not a happy lifestyle. To suggest otherwise is not helpful to individual person or broader society. That’s why the message of Janet Boynes is so important to hear and why some strongly oppose it.

Giuliani and abortion and his attempt to have it both ways

In Rudy Giuliani's recent speech before the Values Voter Summit, I commented on the fact that he didn't mention the issue of marriage once. Instead he spent quite a bit time attempting to make pro-lifers at ease with his pro-abortion views.

A closer examination reveals a very convoluted attempt to make pro-lifers like him while at the same time not appearing to flip flop again on the issue of abortion.

In the past he has said he hates abortion and would do everything he could personally to persuade a woman not to have one, but in the end it's a woman's choice. (Sounds reminiscent of Bill Clinton's safe, legal and rare.) Normally at this point the political figure says, but I can't force my morality on other people and he adopts a pro-abortion policy position.

In Giuliani's case he adds a new wrinkle by instead adopting the prevailing pro-life policy positions. He said in his Summit speech, "We can all agree to move in the direction of setting specific goals to decrease as much as we can the number of abortions in America and to increase the number of adoptions in America. And here’s how I would get there. First, I’ll veto any reduction in the impact of the Hyde Amendment or other existing limits on abortions or the public funding of abortions. I will support---

(APPLAUSE)

I will support any reasonable suggestion that promises to reduce the number of abortions. I support parental notification and will continue to and I supported and continue to support the ban on partial-birth abortion."

And finally he says he'll “appoint Supreme Court Justices in the mold of Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, or Chief Justice Roberts.”

In essence, he would support most of the major pro-life policy positions put in place by pro-life President George Bush and appoint the type of judges who would likely to overturn Roe v. Wade and other pro-abortion decisions.

He starts out by mirroring the privatization of morality we often hear from those who support abortion, when they say, “I’m personally opposed to abortion but I wouldn’t want to impose my views on others.” Yet then he flips again and says he'll support the existing pro-life policies. No wonder people are disillusioned and frustrated with politicians and politics. He's attempting to please all sides instead of adhering to a morally consistent position.