Obama Supports Same-Sex Marriage. Now Move on.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto

It would be difficult to overstate the historical significance of President Barack Obama’s personal and very public affirmation Wednesday that people should be free to marry whom they choose, regardless of sexual orientation.

For the first time, a sitting president of the United States of America — the nation founded on the self-evident truth of the equality of all people — expressed his belief that it is not right for government to discriminate against two people seeking to unite in legal matrimony simply because they happen to be of the same gender.

It is not right, but it is the law in most of the country. Until Tuesday, 38 states had enshrined in their state constitutions a prohibition on marriage between couples of the same sex. It’s now 39, courtesy of 61 percent of North Carolina voters participating in a statewide election on Tuesday.

Twenty-five of those states, go the extra mile and also have state statutes prohibiting same-sex marriages.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that the U.S. Supreme Court (in the 1967 case Loving v. Virginia) struck down the last remaining 19th-century race-based marriage discrimination laws and state constitution provisions in the United States.

On Wednesday, Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith suggested that Obama’s same-sex marriage comments actually were behind the times. “The president of the United States,” Smith said, “now in the 21st century.”

Smith then wondered if Republicans really wanted to position themselves “on the wrong side of history” by making this a campaign issue, especially considering all the other problems confronting the nation.

Smith’s points are well taken. It’s undeniably true that the president’s comments represent a historic milestone. But it’s hard to believe that same-sex marriage will be a key issue in the 2012 elections. Not when millions of Americans and their families are still struggling to recover from the Great Recession of 2007-08. Not when health care still devours nearly 17 percent of the nation’s economic activity. Not when young people are increasingly priced out of decent higher education or forced into crippling educational debt. Not when environmental protection is under furious assault by well-funded industry interests. Not when the nation faces daunting challenges in Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East, China, Russia and the European Union.

We fervently hope that the campaigns of this year’s crop of candidates, up to and including Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, will focus on the issues of overriding importance to all Americans. But playing on people’s fears, misunderstandings and prejudices has long been a staple of political campaigns, and the realm of sexual orientation has always lent itself to demagoguery and plain meanness.

Given the apparently unlimited amounts of money gushing into campaigns via super-PACs and other special interest groups, no doubt some candidates, campaign strategists and media gurus will see some advantage in exploiting a social issue controversy that is becoming less and less controversial with each passing day.

We hope for discipline, focus, restraint and well-ordered priorities from the candidates. But we shall not hold our breath.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

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Kindness Should Extend to Animals

Kindness Should Extend to Animals

Photo by Nicholas Lee - reprinted by permission

Since 1915, the American Humane Society has been celebrating its annual Be Kind to Animals Week. This year, the week’s celebration started on Sunday and runs through Saturday.

It’s an observance that, in an ideal society, would not be necessary.

Human beings should incorporate kindness to the other creatures that inhabit this earth into their lives simply because it’s the right thing to do. Kindness and compassion to animals is a trait that should be passed on from parents to children. Adults should model this behavior so that young people see it not as a way of life but as the only way of life.

To believe that animal cruelty is acceptable is atrocious. Not only does it exemplify the failings of society, but it also indicates a failure of the soul. And history is full of examples of the type of individuals who have taken pleasure in the sufferings of animals, from serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer to dog-fighting sports stars such as Michael Vick. Society doesn’t need more people like them.

The best weapon against animal cruelty is to instill in children the belief that animals have as much right to live on this planet as we do, and when we acquire them as pets to accept the full responsibility of taking care of them.

Taking care of them means more than simply feeding them when they’re hungry. It means keeping them safe from harm, seeking medical treatment when they need it, having them spayed or neutered so they can’t reproduce and add to the growing animal population and, most important of all, loving them and treating them with kindness.

Here’s hoping that the future won’t see hundreds more pets on the streets, fending for themselves until they are hit by cars, starving or so disease-ridden they die.

Here’s hoping that the future won’t host hundreds more being dumped at the animal shelter, with small numbers adopted and many more put to death.

And here’s hoping that Be Kind to Animals Week will result in more awareness of what it takes to raise children who will one day grow into kind, caring adults.

REPRINTED FROM THE KINSTON FREE PRESS

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Our View: Deport Criminals, Not Schoolgirls

Photo courtesy of Craig Cloutier

Oh, the outrage. President Barack Obama wants to deport criminals, before ousting schoolgirls with immigration problems. The audacity of this man.

The Colorado Springs Gazette laid out last Sunday the extraordinary similarities of Obama and former President George W. Bush, which speak poorly of each on most counts. These big-spending interventionists are the same on nearly all important issue, distinguished more by red-team/blue-team affiliation than anything of substance.

On one policy, however, we applaud the similarity. Each man has a rational approach to immigration.

Bush, a Texan fluent in Spanish, has an affinity for Mexico. As president, he wanted reasonable immigration reforms that would enable our country to benefit from productive, noncriminal aliens. He was pressured by extremists on the right — mostly talk radio hosts pandering for ratings — to show more hostility toward illegal immigrants. Deport them all and keep them out, the talking heads demanded. Don’t adjust quotas. View all immigrant babies as mere “anchors,” unworthy of their citizenship. Bush mostly held his ground, understanding that we have outgrown old immigration quotas and need immigrant productivity and procreation in order to thrive.

Obama’s immigration philosophy is nearly identical. He would like to see order at the border but refuses to demonize illegal immigrants and their kids. He understands that visas expire. He knows that crossing the border without permission is a misdemeanor, while subsequent residency is a noncriminal civil infraction. He views America’s immigration dilemma with a healthy perspective.

Talk radio hosts are riling up the masses this week because Obama said deportation efforts should focus on criminals. He was at a town hall meeting in a Washington school, when a student using Skype asked why students like her continue to receive deportation letters.

Obama said: “We have redesigned our enforcement practices under the law to make sure that we’re focusing primarily on criminals, and so our deportations of criminals are up about 70 percent. Our deportations of non-criminals are down, and that’s because we want to focus our resources on those folks who are destructive to the community. And for a young person like that young woman that we just spoke to, who’s going to school doing all the right things, we want them to succeed.”

The moderator asked if Obama could use an executive order to stop student deportations. Obama explained that it would “not conform with my appropriate role as president.”

“That does not mean, though, that we can’t make decisions, for example, to emphasize enforcement on those who’ve engaged in criminal activity,” Obama said.

That’s about as benign and commonsensical as a statement can be. Our country hasn’t the wherewithal to deport all illegal immigrants, but it can and should deport some. Our country, therefore, gets the most benefit by first deporting those who commit crimes. Lose the criminals, then worry about successful schoolgirls.

Leading radio jocks and bloggers went berserk. How dare Obama suggest any of them succeed? The normally sound-minded radio host Jason Lewis told us they’re all criminals.

No, they are not. A student is not a criminal for overstaying a visa, not by any stretch. It is illegal to double park, but not a crime. Likewise, it is illegal to reside in the United States without permission, but not a crime. To focus deportation efforts on criminal immigrants is like placing more emphasis on drunk drivers than on jaywalkers. We are a country of civil law and criminal law. Not all illegal activity is crime, and the vast majority of illegal immigrants have not been caught committing crimes. Let’s worry most about those who have. It’s common sense.

Bush and Obama are similar and weak. On immigration, they are wise and strong.

Republished from the Colorado Springs Gazette

 

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Church of ‘God Hates’ Prevails

Free speech and the First Amendment prevailed Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the First Amendment protects even vile and hateful speech directed at gays, warriors and Catholics. It’s a sad-but-essential victory for anyone who believes that freedom requires legal protection of radical and outrageous ideas.

Westboro Baptist Church consists mostly of a large and close-knit family of lawyers, headed by once-great civil rights attorney Fred Phelps, a Primitive Baptist minister. The church pickets funerals of soldiers. Picketers warn that God hates people with same-sex attraction, using a hateful word to describe them. They tell us that God hates our country’s military personnel for protecting and defending a country abundant with homosexuals. They confront funeral mourners with giant colorful signs that say “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Fags Doom Nations,” “You’re Going to Hell,” “Priests Rape Boys.” Pictures depict sexual positions.

Westboro picketers have tested the limits of the First Amendment more than any pornographer who has lived.

A Phelps family member defended picketers in the Supreme Court, in Snyder v. Phelps. Albert Snyder, father of a slain serviceman, filed the case after enduring a Westboro protest at his son’s funeral. A lower court awarded him $10.9 million for emotional distress. An appellate court reduced the award to $5 million. The Supreme Court ruling means Westboro owes nothing because the law protects extreme and hateful expression messages.

Writing for the 8-justice majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued what seems obvious to most First Amendment scholars: “Such speech cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt.”

Roberts, a Catholic whom Westboro has ridiculed, explained that messages such as “Pope in Hell” fall short of refined social commentary. However, “the issues they highlight — the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens, the fate or our nation, homosexuality in the military, and scandals involving the Catholic clergy — are matters of public import.”

And this: “Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”

Justice Samuel Alito, who’s also Catholic, was the lone dissenter. He was also the dissenter in a recent First Amendment ruling that defended depictions of animal cruelty. Alito argued in Snyder v. Phelps that the First Amendment does not protect the right of picketers to “brutalize” a person who isn’t even a public figure.

Americans of all religious and political persuasions should read the majority’s ruling and take it to heart. The free expressions of others are often capable of offending us, or bringing us great sorrow and pain. As sometimes seen elsewhere, religious proselytizing serves as a source of sorrow and pain.

Freedom, which this country has defended for 235 years, isn’t always polite. Often, it’s ugly. It means tolerating diversity of religion and philosophies that offend. Seldom should distress — resulting from a brutal, painful or offensive message of any sort — be resolved at the courthouse. We can’t enjoy freedom and protection from that which offends us. It wasn’t so long ago that a great number of Americans were offended and shocked by gay pride parades. If courts use the blunt force of law to silence messengers, speech becomes something much less than a free exercise. We want to be clear that we vehemently oppose the positions and actions of Phelps and his cohorts. That said, the First Amendment is a foundation of our liberty and was rightly protected by the Supreme Court.

Republished from the Colorado Springs Gazette, distributed by creators.com

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Our View: Support ORHS Operation Graduation

You’ve heard the stories before. A person gets into his car to drive home after having drinks with friends after work. Then there are the teenagers who pile into a Jeep after a night of drinking and partying. And don’t forget about the woman who’s taking allergy medicine and has to rush to school to pick up her kids.

Why is it that people get behind the wheel after drinking alcohol or taking drugs? For some, it is the “I can handle it” attitude. For others, it’s that they’ve done it so often that they don’t care, or because they don’t think anything will happen, or because they doubt they’ll get caught. And still for others, it is that they are so out of it that they won’t even remember getting into their vehicles in the first place.

Three groups are most likely to commit this crime: underage drinkers between the ages of 15 and 20; individuals between ages 21 and 34; and chronic drunk drivers — folks who drive repeatedly after drinking, and often do so with high amounts of alcohol in their blood.

This is a highly complex problem, with difficult-to-implement and often ineffective solutions, that affects not only the Oak Ridge area, but every community across our country. While numerous legislative and educational efforts have successfully reduced the number of drunk-driving deaths nationwide, this is still a problem that touches our lives way too often.

You know that it’s only a matter of time before we see another one of those heart-wrenching stories of teenagers killed in a drunk driving accident. Here are a few sobering statistics about underage drinking, courtesy of MADD and the National Highway Safety Association:

  • Houston youth has the second highest rate of binge drinking at 25.6 percent among the top 15 metropolitan areas, and above the national average of 22.7 percent.
  • Alcohol is the number one choice of drugs among teens in America.
  • Alcohol kills more young people than all illicit drugs combined.
  • More than 6,000 youths age 15-20 die each year due to underage drinking-related consequences.
  • A national survey established that alcohol has been tried by approximately 40.5 percent of eighth graders, 61.5 percent of tenth graders, and 73 percent of twelfth graders.
  • In comparison, 47 percent of twelfth graders have smoked cigarettes, 42 percent have used marijuana and 8.5 percent have used cocaine.
  • Although young drivers make up a mere 6.3 percent of the total driving population in the US, they constitute 12.6 percent of the drivers involved in fatal crashes.
  • Statistics show that traffic deaths among teens during typical prom and graduation season weekends are higher than any other time of year.

I know everyone’s first reaction: “Well, yeah, but that’s not my kid”. Maybe so, but what about the kid they’re catching a ride with? You know them all and they’re good kids, too? Less likely, but OK. What about the kid that plowed into their car at 50 mph, because he never even saw the stop sign?

Support Oak Ridge High School’s Operation Graduation. We’ll never know how many lives it saves, but it’s probably better that way.

This article was originally published last year before the second annual ORHS Operation Graduation Poker Party. The tragedies that Operation Graduation aims to avert still lurk.

Comments to Our View at cbriese@oakridgenow.com.

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Happy Presidents Day

We’ve arrived at another Presidents Day that’s set aside to honor a few great presidents’ birthdays and its in the middle of another contentious running debate about whether or not we have a worthy president. Lately, a group known as birthers has even been working overtime to try and prove that our current president, Obama, wasn’t born in Hawaii but some far and distant foreign land and therefore was never eligible for the post.

Before Obama there was the previous officeholder, George W. Bush who was serving out two terms and back then there was a lot of mumbling and speculation about his general intelligence. Some wondered if he had the grey matter to pull off what needed to be done. Maybe he was just an eight-year-long front for a cabal that pulled the strings in his shadow.

It’s like they thought he was a human curtain for the real wizards.

Strangely, all of that behavior is considered patriotic in some circles. Note that the definition of patriotism changes for each crowd depending on who is in office and their particular party affiliation.

However, if any other country were to throw as many pointless stones at the character of the American President we’d all be up in arms just like when Congress changed the names of French fries to freedom fries in the congressional dining room after a snub from the French. These kinds of things matter to us.

Perhaps the reason we don’t care so much anymore about all the ballyhoo and falderal surrounding the fitness of our sitting presidents because it’s been going on so long most of us don’t really notice anymore and besides, we’re a little busy taking care of our own business.

Or maybe it’s that old rule that’s used as a variance for a lot of things we really want to get off our chest that says we can insult our own kind but everybody else better watch our or they’ll hear about it. However, that’s still an insult but now it’s about something that really ought to matter more.

There was a time when everyone took to heart the notion that once someone was elected President of the United States they represented the entire population of the US. Not just all of their party or even all of the voters but every citizen. We put down the rock of party affiliation for awhile at least for that office and at least till it got closer to election time and we supported their right to be there.

Sure, there were protests about policy, just ask anyone who was around during the Nixon era and a lot of what happened to Clinton was brought on by the man and his sexual escapades.

But right around that era politics was also starting to take on a darker tone as rumor and innuendo crept in and became another tool of entitlement. It was no longer enough to point out someone’s dismal voting record or how much pork they had gotten for their district.

Now, we wanted something personal and if it was vague and never had any proof that was still okay as long as it hinted at an inability to serve at all. The rancor and vilification didn’t stop with the election for even a brief honeymoon.

Bush was portrayed by an actor on Saturday Night Live as an overgrown child sitting in a children’s desk immediately after the election and the birthers have never stopped chattering. But once Bush or Obama was elected it was now the American President that everyone was saying was incompetent and they were shouting it to the rest of the world. Again, notice the difference between criticizing the policy decisions and ranting about our President’s fitness for duty.

This Presidents Day let’s all take a break from trying to find fault with our President and instead take a moment to feel a little gratitude for a system that lets us vote our conscience every four years and hand over the power in a peaceful, orderly system to whomever the majority has picked. That’s especially poignant given what’s happening in the streets of several Middle East countries right now.

Democracy may not be perfect and thanks to some hanging chads it may not always work as smoothly as we’d like but for the most part the idea works really well. There is not another country that is in existence now or has ever been that can point to such a long line of greatly admired leaders such as Washington, Lincoln or even Truman who were elected into office and never tried to stay longer than their official term.

There’s only one America that so many others try to reach while well over 300 million of us are blessed to call this home. Celebrate the day everyone and have a little cherry pie with friends and family.

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A Sensible Ban

Here’s what President Barack Obama said to open his State of the Union message Tuesday night:

“And as we mark this occasion, we are also mindful of the empty chair in this chamber and pray for the health of our colleague — and our friend — Gabby Giffords.”

Obama noted that the wounding of Giffords, a Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, reminded Americans that we all share common purpose. A fine point to make.

But here’s another point Obama should have made: “And so, my fellow Americans, we need to put in place sensible laws to help honor Gabby’s sacrifice. That’s why I support the idea of limiting the sale of extended magazines for handguns.”

No reasonable person is suggesting a ban on weapons. They are suggesting a ban of a particular accessory to a weapon — the 30-round magazine allegedly used by Jared Loughner to kill six people and injure 13 others in Tucson on Jan. 8. In a matter of seconds, the shooter squeezed off all those rounds and was attempting to load another large magazine when subdued.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, was critical of the president’s comments about the dreams of the 9-year-old killed in Tucson “without talking about the gun violence that destroyed those dreams.” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Obama “missed an opportunity.”

White House officials said Wednesday the president would address the issue soon, but they wouldn’t say how. Such a ban would not have spared Giffords, but it might have saved others. Civilians do not need extended magazines. They should be banned.

Republished from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, distributed by creators.com

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Living Beyond Our Means

Imagine you have been under-employed or unemployed for months. Despite this, you have made no adjustment to your standard of living. You continue making payments on two late-model luxury SUVs, instead of selling them. You continue residing in a suburban monster home abundant with flat-screen TVs and two more bedrooms than your family needs. You dine at high-end restaurants three nights a week.

When you can’t pay the bills, you call up good old Uncle Harry who lives far away in another state. He has lots of cash in the bank and for some reason he trusts you. Just a little groveling on the phone by you and your spouse, and he always puts a check in the mail with a promise that someday you’ll pay him back when things get better.

Imagine Uncle Harry shows up for a visit. He pulls up in a 12-year-old Chevy, which looks pretty dull next to your shiny SUVs. He offers to buy dinner, because he has coupons for a discount at Chick-fil-A. Over dinner, he recalls fond memories of shelving his kids on bunk beds so all could make do with the ramshackle bungalow he bought and refurbished one room at a time. He talks about the joy of finally receiving a senior discount at McDonald’s. There’s unspoken tension in the room. The brats know they live better than the man who’s funding them.

Old Uncle Harry has money because he manages it. He spent his life making sure more came in than went out. Yet he bankrolls fools, who have little regard for money and spend far more than they earn or will ever be able to repay.

In real life, and on a larger scale, Uncle Harry could be Chinese President Hu Jintao, who visited the White House Wednesday. Hu’s country lends unfathomable amounts of cash to the United States. Hu’s country generates more wealth than it spends, and he must be starting to wonder why he’s bankrolling a country to live so far beyond its means. As Glenn Beck noted, the absurdity of the contrast between cash-rich China and the United States was illustrated by the vehicle in which Hu, the lender, arrived. Hu came to the United States on a commercial airliner. Obama, the borrower, travels in his own 747, flanked by a fleet of other presidential aircraft. It’s like Uncle Harry’s Chevy pulling up next to the SUVs he’s paying for. We have all the trappings of a wealthy country, yet we’re living off cash loaned to us by less flashy people who live well within their means. It smells wrong.

The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives has made blanket promises to slash spending, so there’s at least a conciliatory nod in the direction of someday paying back our creditors. Some candidates promised to cut $100 billion from the budgets of each domestic agency. The opposition laughs. Senate Democrats and Obama will never allow it. It would be painful. Students would see smaller grants for tuition. The disabled may have to wait longer for benefits. Aid to public schools would go down. The FBI, NASA, the IRS and the National Parks Service would have to make do with less.

The Republicans can’t possibly prevail with substantial spending-cut proposals. But there’s an unspoken tension in the White House today. Rich old Uncle Harry — aka Hu Jintao — could spoil the fun the moment it dawns on him that he is being had. He could stop lending, causing people of the United States to stop living beyond their means. If that happens, the entitlement crowd can take it up with China.

Republished from the Colorado Springs Gazette, distributed by creators.com

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Is College a Waste? For One in Three, It Doesn’t Help

“We got college men from LSU, went in dumb, come out dumb, too.”

Randy Newman made no friends at Louisiana State University with that line from his 1974 song, “Rednecks.” But if it’s any comfort to the Bayou Bengals, a new study of American college students says that after four years, 36 percent show no significant gains in learning. After two years, 45 percent show no significant gains.

“Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” surveyed more than 3,000 students at 29 colleges and universities and studied results on standardized tests. The students in the survey carried an average grade point average of 3.2.

Half said that in a typical semester, they never wrote a paper longer than 20 pages. Nearly a third said that in a typical semester, they never read more than 40 pages a week.

The big reason for all of this, the study said, is that colleges don’t make academics a priority. Instructors are more focused on their own research and careers, and students are more focused on their social lives.

“Shocking” and “disturbing” said the study’s lead author. If he’s shocked and disturbed, think of the parents who are laying out all that tuition money.

Republished from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, distributed by creators.com.

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I Want Us to Live Up to Her Expectations

A little girl was buried Thursday in Tucson, Ariz.

Christina Taylor Green was 9. She was an A student, a member of her student council, born on Sept. 11, 2001, and, as a result, interested in American politics.

“She saw public service as something exciting and hopeful,” President Barack Obama said at a memorial service Wednesday night.

The tragedy at that shopping center in Arizona on Saturday revealed some of what is worst in America. But also what is best. Courage. Selflessness. The need to comfort. The need to heal.

Daniel Hernandez, a young aide to U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, ran to her when he heard the gunshots. He gave basic first aid, covering her wounds with his bare hands, sitting her upright so that she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. He likely saved her life.

Dorwan and Mary Stoddard were in the crowd, waiting to hear what their elected representative had to say. Dorwan dove on top of his wife when the shooter opened fire. He lost his life, but he saved hers.

In each of these stories, and in dozens more that day, is an element of instinctive heroism and goodness.

Obama honored their sacrifice and then said that reflecting on how we talk to one another would be a fitting way to remember the dead:

“If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate — as it should — let’s make sure it’s worthy of those we have lost. … Let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not — but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud.”

And he called on Americans to look to the idealism of this child and, perhaps, recapture their own.

Echoing the biblical reference about faith, the president said:

“She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted. I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it.”

The losses in Arizona are unalterable. What comes next is not.

Republished from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, distributed by creators.com

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