Category Archives: Politics

Too Much DIVERSITY!

April 8, 2014

Clearly, humanity has its challenges.

Wars are brutal evidence of the little daily wars we have with each other. Fists and guns are the human “problem-solver”…when gossip, slander and insult brew like yeast into full-fledged conflict.

When the 60’s arrived, college campuses were the local battle zone, a parallel universe to the war raging in Vietnam. “PEACE, man! Make love not war!” Peace ethics, though, are never that easy to realize. Peace-loving students rampaged off campuses…into the streets…mobs breaking windows, stealing merchandise, vandalizing cars and throwing bricks at the police.

Every age faces the human struggle to “get along.” But today, at least, we are supposed to be a kinder and gentler age.

We agree that war is caused because we hate each other. And we must hate each other because we don’t understand each other. Maybe…peace will be achieved when we truly understand…and appreciate each other…in all our differences…in all our diversity.

Years ago, even as mere children, we knew that the many different kinds of people…different languages, cultures, skin colors…we needed to work to get along. Maybe, back then, we knew it. But today we have codified it. We are no longer simply different. We are DIVERSE.

Diversity Training is where the end of World War III begins. We will hold hands, look oh, so lovingly into the eyes of people who are different than we, play little diversity games, and appreciate everyone’s diversity.

War will end because hate will disappear. And if it doesn’t, we will label it a hate crime. Hate will be illegal.

Sounds simple. Why didn’t mankind think of this before?

Sounds simple? George Orwell needs to update Animal Farm.

All diversity is equal. But some diversity is more equal than other diversity.

Witness the banishment of Mozilla’s CEO Brendan Eich. His $1000 donation during the 2008 California political battle to define marriage was deemed civilly criminal. Eich’s crime? He violated the rules of the diversity game.

Diversity goes like this. There is a list of the good diversity. If you are on the good list, you can hold the trump card of Hate. Anyone who tees you off is guilty. They have dishonored your right to be diverse. And that’s because they hate you. And if they hate you, they will have to pay. After all…diversity has to stand for something…doesn’t it?

Well, that depends. Because there is such a thing as bad diversity. Too much diversity. After all, there has to be a line in the ground somewhere. Doesn’t there? Good on this side…bad on that. Good, gays. Bad, Eich.

With all our diversity seminars, holding hands and singing Kumbaya, you would think it possible to love someone like Branden Eich because of his diversity. But that’s just too much to ask. There has to be a limit to all good things…and this is it. The diversity of Eich and his Ilke just can’t be tolerated. Off with their heads!

Gays, secure in the cocoon of their diversity, are free to pull out all stops in their attacks on fellow citizens who merely disagree with gays on the definition of marriage. Thank goodness these battles don’t involve guns and knives.

Has anyone taken the time to notice that each human being is a diversity of one – like snowflakes? DNA simply screams diversity.

Diversity of race, culture and gender will naturally provide diversity of opinions. Does anyone remember the right to free speech? Does anyone remember the reason this was placed in the Bill of Rights? To protect diversity of thought and speech? Ya think?

You can’t be too careful these days. The diversity police are out. They’ll track you down. They have a list of the good guys, and if you’re not on it…you’re goin’ down!

After all, there is such a thing as too much Diversity!

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Copyright 2004-2014. All Rights Reserved

Lies, Lies and Damned Lies

April 29, 2013

Jane Jimenez

If the Internet has any value at all, you would think it would be in its role in “truth telling.” If only.

Lies and deceit are as old as Adam and Eve. Lying is an equal opportunity sin: The man answered God, “The woman you put here with me….The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Lying is eternal. Only one generation out of the Garden, Cain took advantage of lies in an attempt to deceive his Maker. Where was Able? “I don’t know,” Cain said…presumably with a straight face.

The Bible abounds in wisdom grounded in knowing the difference between truth and lies. Proverbs warns us. Enemies disguise themselves with their lips, but in their hearts they harbor deceit. [Prov 26:24 NIV] Satan, the quintessential evil being, is named Father of all lies.

There is only one reason that lying is so pervasive. There is profit in being a good liar. If successful, you can retain your deed to the Garden of Eden; you can avoid the mark of Cain for murder.

Ford car company tried its best. And it almost got away with a very profitable lie. In 1968, the Ford Pinto was set up to be a hot-selling, middle-America car. Cute car, cute name…the Pinto was perfect for families on a budget and for their children just learning to drive. Only problem? Every once in a while, in a simple fender-bender car accident, the Pinto would explode into flames. And flames are quite deadly to the people involved.

In May 1972, Lily Gray was traveling with thirteen year old Richard Grimshaw in a 1972 Pinto when their car was struck by another car traveling approximately thirty miles per hour. The impact ignited a fire in the Pinto which killed Lily Gray and left Richard Grimshaw with devastating injuries. A judgment was rendered against Ford and the jury awarded the Gray family $560,000 and Matthew Grimshaw $2.5 million in compensatory damages. The surprise came when the jury awarded $125 million in punitive damages as well. This was subsequently reduced to $3.5 million.

Long ago, when truth was recorded on scrolls, one can imagine how difficult it would have been to ride a donkey down to the local synagogue and dig through their scroll library, unrolling and rolling back leather scrolls in a search for the damning evidence to prove that Ford lied. With the Internet, just type in “Ford Pinto,” and your evidence is at hand. Voila! Search finished. They lied.

The Internet, not yet in existence, would have been a great help in the 70s to reveal truth about the Pinto, saving time…and more importantly…saving lives. It took more deaths, many years, and thousands of hours upon hours of research to prove that the deaths in Pinto accidents were caused by corporate greed. Law professor Palmiter explains:

Although Ford had access to a new design which would decrease the possibility of the Ford Pinto from exploding, the company chose not to implement the design, which would have cost $11 per car, even though it had done an analysis showing that the new design would result in 180 less deaths.

In the current age, no matter how you count the years between Genesis and today, we are witnesses to a “whole lot of lying going on.” Just last night, in the commercial breaks for a one hour crime drama, three different drug companies are being accused of lying. The companies told consumers, “Take our drug. It is good for you.” They are being sued. Liars?

Did you take Accutane, Zoloft, or Actos? One word typed into your Internet search engine…one click… “Enter”…and the entire library of the universe is at your disposal. You would think that is enough to find truth and reveal lies…wouldn’t you?

If only!

And these drugs are the simple cases. Don’t even think about investigating lies that involve our sexually promiscuous society.

Have you ever wondered about the money to be made in the sex industry? Forget the obvious – pornography and prostitution. What about all of the money to be made by encouraging people of all ages to have all types of sex at any time with anyone for any reason?

If the question does not produce a string of dollar signs in your mind, please return to Genesis. If any question has merits in today’s culture, this is it. What profits are to be made by convincing people to have more of what they already are programmed to desire? Sex.

And…with all that money at stake…what is the possibility that there are lies out there waiting to be discovered? Sex…money…lies? It’s a calculation you can bet on.

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KEEP POSTED:

Upcoming columns will expose the many profits to be had for those in our culture who are in the business of promoting free and easy sex. Yes, there is a cost involved in “free” sex.

Illinois Teaches Teens How to Do Safe Sex?

April 15, 2013

Jane Jimenez

We can all agree on the problem with teens and sex. We have too much of it, along with the attendant problematic results: STDs, single parent homes, absent fathers, abortion, economic challenges, and more. Since the 1960s and the start of the sexual revolution, we have watched these problems escalate. We have wrung our hands. And we have sought solutions.

Illinois legislators think they have the solution. And in their eagerness to “solve the problem,” they are preparing to mandate the “solution” that many believe is one of the problems that got us into the fix we are in.

For half a century, we have explored ways to address the problems associated with teen sex. Sadly, the first problem is our inability to even agree on the problem at hand. Do we…

Suffer from Puritanical sexual standards, or
Believe that sex has no meaning other than the actual physical encounter…
Welcome babies as the blessing of our fertility, or
Dispose of babies as inconvenient byproducts of sexual pleasure…
Address the different sexual needs of men and women emotionally and physically, or
Maintain that gender has no significance based on our “sexual equality”…
Help parents in their roles as educators for their children on sexual values, or
Bypass parents as ignorant stewards of their child’s sexual health…?

This list of conflicting values and beliefs could fill up a spiral student college notebook. Not surprisingly, the supposed “solutions” to the problems of teen sex could fill up ten spiral student college notebooks.

In Illinois, legislators have put their collective finger on the solution. They have decided to bet on condoms and contraception. But they are not betting with their own lives.

Legislators are betting the lives of all Illinois school children on a pipe dream, betting these young lives on a “solution” that is actually a problem gift-wrapped in wishful thinking. They want all Illinois sex education programs to instruct students on how to use a condom and on how to take birth control.

They are not the first to throw condoms at kids, and they won’t be the last. But, after 50 years of condoms in baskets, free for the taking, we have not solved anything. Indeed, the very real possibility is that we have made the problem worse. It is a conundrum that perplexes many.

How could we possibly go wrong in teaching children the use of condoms and contraception? Let us count the ways:

The language of safe and protection is used to sell condoms. True safety is always safe – 100% of the time. Medically accurate information reveals that condoms and contraception fail…even with experienced users. [See testimony linked below for detailed information.]
The singular “problem” that concerns legislators is pregnancy. How do they prevent babies? Many young people do not see babies as a problem. In fact, for many young people, babies can be a solution for these teens to their own set of problems totally ignored by adults.
Condoms and contraception address one primary problem: pregnancy. They are not the solution to STDs and can even magnify exposure to STDs. STDs are not simply “cured” with a few antibiotics. They lead to sterility, serious lifelong health problems, cancer and death.
Classroom educators who promote condoms and contraception through their demonstrations are giving medical advice and instruction to minor children. These teachers are not subject to the professional medical standards that govern any other area of medicine: credentialing, supervision and medical liability.
Condom and contraception instruction lacks any serious follow up with minor children: testing for their understanding, their retention of information or the appropriateness of information for their individual situations.
Condom and contraception instruction is often conducted “in the shadows,” in such a way as to distance children from parents and important adults in their lives. In some cases, parents are characterized by instructors as ignorant, out of touch, and untrustworthy.
Condom and contraception instruction empowers people who prey on children, implying that teen sex is appropriate and isolating children from true protection in their families and from medical professionals.
Abortion is the unspoken fallback option promoted – and sold – for any failure of a condom or contraception. It is no surprise that many of the same businesses that sell abortion are lead advocates for and teachers of contraception.

These are serious drawbacks to the proposed mandate in Illinois. But the greatest problem with the solution is its failure to actually and directly teach students the healthiest choice of all.

The proposed legislation withholds truth from our children. The bill “makes changes to provide that all classes that teach sex education and discuss sexual intercourse in grades 6 through 12 shall emphasize that abstinence from sexual intercourse is a responsible and positive decision.” [underlining added]

This statement is worded to suggest that there is a long list of responsible and positive decisions about sex that students can use to choose the one they like best. It suggests that abstinence is just one of many decisions the student is free to choose from They can responsibly consider no sex…or they can responsibly consider sex with a condom. Either…or…both decisions are on the list of “responsible sex” given approval by the instructor.

Consider that a sixth grade student is 11 to 12 years old. Is that what you want a stranger to be teaching your child? Do you want the teacher to tell your 12-year-old daughter that she can have “safe” and “responsible” sex if she uses a condom and that abstinence from sex is just one option of many “good choices?”

Condoms and contraception are mechanical fixes used to address a condition of the heart and soul. Children want love. They want acceptance and affection. These are not sexual needs. They are heart needs.

We can teach children healthy approaches to life, and we can guide them in those choices. We do that in the areas of diet, smoking, driving and drugs. It is time to step up to the plate and truly safeguard the sexual health and future for our children.

Illinois…Illinois legislators…the children of your state deserve the best and truest options of all. If education is not directed to the highest and best goals for our children, then we will get the problems that we deserve. Unfortunately for our children, we are playing with their lives and with their futures. They deserve better.

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NOTE: Detailed testimony presented by Scott Phelps to the Illinois State Legislator presents research and professional evidence, including CDC guidelines, supporting a commitment to abstinence until marriage education for students in grades 6 to 12.

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ARCHIVES – RELATED COLUMNS

August 13, 2004: Only

April 16, 2004: One Stop Shopping

Marriage Defined

April 1, 2013

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. ~~Albert Camus

Jane Jimenez

From the beginning of time, there has been a special relationship between men and women. From the beginning of time, this special relationship has produced children and families. And from the beginning of time, culture has acknowledged the special value that this relationship between men and women has for creating healthy families and building civilization.

Obvious? Of course. Without any need for explanation, the average person recognizes that we are speaking of marriage. Thus has been the definition of marriage since the beginning of time… the special union of a man and woman through which we create and nurture children for the survival of our civilization.

This being true, it is surprising…and unfortunate…that the discussion of the issue of same-sex marriage has been characterized as a debate between those who have compassion and those who hate decent gay people and want to deny them their rights.

Researching the issue of marriage on the Internet, most headlines use the word Equality to frame the debate. It is rare to find a writer that discusses marriage as a matter of Definition. And by ignoring the definition, we ignore the very heart of the matter.

The definition of marriage is not arbitrary. Biology does matter. Marriage is based on the created distinctions of man and woman. It is based on the importance of fathers and mothers for the children who come into their lives. The marital institution has provided for fathers and mothers, helping them in the roles of protecting, teaching and guiding children into adulthood.

On websites and in papers, discussion of same-sex marriage gives a brief nod to children and families. But, when stripped to essentials, the key focus in the bid for redefining marriage is money. How do gay people in relationships maximize their financial benefits of two incomes, two retirement plans and two inheritances?

Same-sex marriage proponents may be well-intentioned. But they will find that their generosity in redefining marriage as a mere business construction will have long-lasting results for our children. “Equality” as applied to marriage in the current debate is simply a strategic tool, useful for winning by infusing the debate with an emotional accusation. If someone opposes same-sex marriage, they will be accused of being mean and hateful and bigoted.

If same-sex marriage is legally accepted, the term “equality” will ultimately be redirected from financial equality to gender equality. Gender is barely acknowledged at this point in the battle for same-sex marriage. But the ultimate goal of the most strident same-sex proponents is to declare an equality that does not exist. When the last chips fall, these same-sex advocates will insist that every person in the culture must agree that men and women are “the same.”

Men and women, mothers and fathers, no longer will be celebrated for their separate and unique qualities. They will be considered interchangeable units in the family. At the very moment that we are now coming to acknowledge the negative results of absent fathers in families, we will lose our ability to address this as a valid social concern. Our culture will no longer have any ability to deal with the biological differences that are significant in raising children.

Mothers and fathers have unique and distinctive gender qualities that help their children develop healthy self-images. But it won’t matter. And the courts will once again be the venue for this battle.

Already, those in education have seen the fall-out of a culture that no longer values families built through the bonds of men and women who commit to each other in marriage.

Sex educators bristle at the notion that boys and girls look at the sexual act through a different lens.
For these educators, it is “offensive” to suggest that male and females have different biological and emotional needs related to sex and relationships.
The suggestion that fathers – men – are an essential ingredient in the recipe for families is decried as sexist.
Terminology in schools has been scrubbed of references to sexual differences. Men and women are “people.” Husbands and wives are “partners.”
Children in elementary schools are being encouraged to “try out” gender to see whether they prefer being a boy or a girl.

These attitudes are being used to push social agendas that negate the regular natural desires of boys and girls to be just that…boy and girls. Consider just one case. Last year a Rhode Island school district cancelled its father-daughter dance after the ACLU threatened to sue the district for gender discrimination. In the future, only parent-child events, not father-daughter dances or mother-son ballgames, will be allowed.

Dennis Prager in his column, Why a Good Person Can Vote Against Same-Sex Marriage, points to the shallow nature of our discussions about the potential redefinition of marriage.

The history of left-wing policies has largely consisted of doing what feels good and compassionate without asking what the long-term consequences will be; what Professor Thomas Sowell calls “Stage One Thinking.” That explains, for example, the entitlement state. It sounds noble and seems noble. But the long-term consequences are terrible: economic ruin, a demoralized population, increasing selfishness as people look to the state to take care of their fellow citizens, and more.

From the beginning of time, culture has acknowledged the special value of the unique relationship between men and women in creating healthy families and building civilization. There are long-term consequences for our children and grand-children in creating a society that no longer wants to acknowledge the significance of our biology.

Marriage between a man and woman is a definition that has meaning…and significance. It is most certainly worth defending.

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March 15, 2013: All Things Being Equal

May 14, 2004: Order in the Courtroom!

Economics of Family

February 15, 2013

Jane Jimenez

It’s anybody’s guess…where the economy is headed. And lots of people are guessing.

With Obama duly sworn in for another four years, we are headed into uncharted waters. Tuned to the daily news reports, we try to gauge our economic plight with familiar terms: taxes, spending, deficit, sequestration, budget, interest rates, short sales and austerity measures.

But one thing is missing from the discussion of America’s economy…the economics of family. And it is no small thing.

We have come to treat the financial and the social parts of our lives as two completely different and isolated realms. In politics, people are known to say, “Economically, I am a conservative, but socially, I am a liberal.” At election time, we hem and haw, trying to decide whether to vote for economic issues or for social issues. We couldn’t be more wrong.

At the very time when we pray for economic recovery, America seems ready to abandon its commitment to traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Economically, our failure to support traditional marriage is also a financial decision.

Marriage is not just about a wedding cake, a piece of paper and insurance benefits. It is the foundation of society, the supporting structure for building families and caring for children. While we try to guess whether the GDP will go up or down next month, we do not have to guess about the consequences of deconstructing traditional marriage.

The Brookings Institute has extensively studied the phenomenon of out-of-wedlock births in America:

Since 1970, out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. In 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families. If we have learned any policy lesson well over the past 25 years, it is that for children living in single-parent homes, the odds of living in poverty are great. The policy implications of the increase in out-of-wedlock births are staggering.

Sadly, as we continue to keep count of the number of children living in single-parent homes, we do not seem to have the stomach for considering our personal and cultural failures that have brought us to this point. We want a strong economy. We just don’t want to fix the economy at the personal level.

We have reduced marriage to the trivial. We declare it as unnecessary for fathers and mothers, men and women. Conversely, we declare it to be the “a right” for those in same-sex relationships.

Our ambivalence about marriage is quite apparent in the educational programs being used to teach the next generation of Americans. Teens are taught that they can have sex “when they are ready.” We encourage their readiness for sex by supplying baskets of condoms and pills. Now, judges have secured Plan B drugs for children of any age “if they have an accident.” And if Plan B should fail, our government will assist our children in getting an abortion.

We are totally fixated on how to NOT have families. Nowhere in any of our educational plan for teens do we teach them about constructing families…about the positive link between sex, marriage, and children. This is not just a sexual issue. And it is not a religious dogma.

It is economics! It is basic Economics 101. Marriage between men and women is an issue that should matter to government because it is the strongest foundation for our economic system.

If we want to revive our economy, we must open a national dialogue that truly respects traditional marriage as a valuable institution worthy of our support. This dialogue must be more than media-friendly sound bites demanding same-sex marriage. The same-sex debate has completely derailed our understanding of marriage.

If we want economic recovery, we must start by restoring the economics of family. And these economics are grounded in the security of healthy marriages between men and women.

From the Home Front

DEFENDING THE FAMILY WITH ETERNAL TRUTH

Category Archives: Politics

Too Much DIVERSITY!

Lies, Lies and Damned Lies

Illinois Teaches Teens How to Do Safe Sex?

NOTE: Detailed testimony presented by Scott Phelps to the Illinois State Legislator presents research and professional evidence, including CDC guidelines, supporting a commitment to abstinence until marriage education for students in grades 6 to 12.

Marriage Defined

Economics of Family