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May 12, 2012 · By Star Parker · 1 Comments
Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Arne Duncan
President Barack Obama now commands center stage following his formal announcement that, yes, he supports same sex marriage.
But for perspective on how we got to this point, we should shift our sights to three days before the president’s announcement. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared on MSNBC where he responded “yes, I do” when asked if he supports same sex marriage.
Duncan at best raised a few eyebrows by stating his support for same sex marriage. If he had said that homosexuality is immoral there would have been demands for his ouster.
How have we gone from a nation where our first president, George Washington, admonished that religion and morality are “indispensable” to political prosperity to one, today, in which our president says “same-sex couples should be able to get married?”
On the marriage issue, the national transformation has been breathtaking. A new Gallup poll shows the nation evenly divided — 50 percent saying same-sex marriage should be valid and 48 percent saying it should not be. When Gallup asked the same question in 1996, 68 percent opposed legalization of same sex marriage against 27 percent in favor.
In just 16 years the gap between those opposed and in support of same sex marriage has gone from a 41 point difference to practically zero.
Our public schools are controlled locally. But the influence of the federal government is substantial. The Department of Education, per its website, “administers a budget of $68.1 billion in discretionary appropriations serving nearly 16,000 school districts and approximately 49 million students.”
It’s not trivial that Duncan, the man who oversees this massive enterprise molding the minds of our nation’s youth, publicly rejects the traditional definition of marriage in favor of one saying it just takes two (so far) warm bodies of any gender combination.
The president brandishes one of his favorite words in explaining his support for same sex marriage. “Fairness.” Actually, this is about unfairness.
We have bought into a grand illusion that we can make our public spaces value neutral. But this is impossible. The struggle in our public spaces is about competing worldviews. Not neutrality.
As one court ruling after another has purged religious expression from our public spaces, we have unfairly suppressed traditional values in favor of promoting alternative secular views.
As we have sanitized our public schools from prayer, from displays of the Ten Commandments, from any teaching that can be associated with biblical sources, we’ve put government monopoly power behind moral relativism.
California, for instance, has a new law mandating teaching gay history in public schools. A similar mandate to teach Christian history would be challenged constitutionally.
2011-2012 Resolutions of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, include support of same sex marriage and sex education programs that appreciate “diversity of …sexual orientation and gender identification.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the nation’s second largest teacher’s union, American Federation of Teachers, lives in an open lesbian relationship.
It should come as no surprise when Obama says he sees much of the growth in support for same sex marriage as “generational,” with strong support coming from our youth.
Attitudes reflect education. We have created a world in which it is illegal to teach youth in our public schools traditional religious values but it is not illegal to teach them competing values of nihilism, materialism and relativism. And these competing values are actively promoted.
As elsewhere, the main victims are poor, minority kids, often from broken families, held hostage in these public schools and prohibited from being taught the very values that could save their lives.
Is there a way out? I only see one: Universal school choice. Liberate parents and kids from government and union controlled schools. In a free America, parents who don’t share Arne Duncan’s values shouldn’t have them forced on them.
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Forces antagonistic to religion dominate our courtrooms, our classrooms, and that most potent platform of public influence, the entertainment industry. Stridently ideological and convinced that the forces of reason and progress are on their side, these secular shapers of culture will not be satisfied until every last vestige of religious influence is exorcised from the public square. These individuals reject the fact that the Christian religion played an integral role in the shaping of America's political traditions and the spirit of liberty and equality that is unique among nations.
As Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Spock were always fond of noting, when attempting to unravel a whodunit, a useful postulate is: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Point in case is the targeting by multiple government departments and agencies at the federal and state level, by elected officials, and by Democrat Party organizations of Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring honest elections and ballot integrity by targeting voter fraud.
South Dakota state legislators Representatives Stace Nelson (R-Fulton), Manny Steele (R-Sioux Falls), “Chip” Campbell (R-Rapid City), Don Kopp (R-Rapid City), Liz May(R-Kyle), Lance Russell (R-Hot Springs), and Senators Tim Begalka (R-Clear Lake), and Phil Jensen (R-Rapid City), join together to express deep concerns and opposition to the wide spread amnesty for illegal aliens proposed in US Senate Bill 744 being considered by Congress.
We have not forgotten the 2007 McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill that was killed in the face of intense outrage from the American people. This administration has engaged in criminal conduct by granting amnesty through presidential edict to certain illegal aliens. If we were outraged back in 2007 at the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill, we are now outraged to the hundredth power at the latest attempt by Congress to shove amnesty for illegal aliens down our throats.
South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced today that he will appoint Vern Larson of Vivian as Commissioner of School and Public Lands. Last month, Commissioner Jarrod Johnson resigned from office, effective Aug. 15. The Governor’s appointment of Larson will be effective at the same time.
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"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the party over to the so-called moderates wouldn't make any sense at all." - Ronald Reagan, Nov. 10, 1964 |
