Sudan Information

Two quick things: First, as Iraq has proven, the "international community" cannot be trusted when the big problems arise. The United States has done much in Sudan over the years, and more is always demanded.  And rightly so. We have been blessed with the resources to help those in need. The U.S. activities in the international scene are often thankless enterprises up until the point where they are considered to be too intrusive.  Finding that perfect amount of intervention that appeases both the "do more" crowd and the "stay out" crowd is literally impossible. However, our nation must continue to do what is best for the defenseless, while keeping an ear out for constructive critique of our actions.  The complexity involved is mindnumbing and anybodies attempt to catagorically explain in general terms when our action is not enough and when it is too much is bound to be a flawed enterprise.  So I will not attempt to draft a comprehensive international affairs policy. However, I will make what I believe is a helpful analogy. I believe there are key differences between what is right for a State to do and what is right for an individual to do. I think that the bible is clear in that respect.  But there are meta-morals applicable to both the state and individuals. And Jesus can be an example to both.  This is not some attempt at imposing a scary boogyman theocracy so keep your slippery slope to theocracy thoughts at bay.  Jesus touched people with deadly diseases and healed them, he talked with prostitutes, and dined with the hated of society. In other words, he had compassion.  Even though the leading voices of the day criticised him for it.  In international affairs, compassion should have a greater voice than it does. Compassion is not always acceptable to the leading voices in our day either.  Of course, its easy to agree with things like giving some food or medicine to other nations and other help that targets direct physical needs. But as government has the power of the sword, sometimes they may have to exercise that power beyond borders.  I think this much most could agree on. But that is very ambiguous for how can we agree on when that force should be exercised? I am not going to solve that dilemma at the moment. But I can tell you one thing that should not be the answer.  Multilateral action is a tool and is not a good in and of itself.  It does not make an action moral or immoral. Sometimes Unilateral action, despite what the loudest voices in society say, is the right choice.  Fools may rush in, but I'd rather be a fool than allow thousands of innocents to die. To be sure, not every world tragedy could be taken on by one state. We can only focus our resources in a few places to be effective, despite the fact that there is always others who are in need. Nation states do this by analyzing where they could simultaneously benefit the most.  Sudan deserves our help. We have resources tied up in a few other places who also deserve our help.  But despite our efforts, we demand more of ourselves. I agree. It may not make us as comfortable as we could be. But the spiritual comfort that comes with having compassion for others is much more desirable than the physical comforts that not acting would give us.  Shame on those other nations who will not pitch in, for their comfort is cheap and eternally worthless.

Ambassador Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs commented on Sudan: Full Transcript

President George W. Bush commented on Sudan:

THE PRESIDENT: I just had an extraordinary conversation with fellow citizens from different faiths, all of who have come to urge our government to continue to focus on saving lives in Sudan. They agree with thousands of our citizens — hundreds of thousands of our citizens — that genocide in Sudan is unacceptable.

And there will be rallies across our country to send a message to the Sudanese government that the genocide must stop. Those rallies will also be an indication that thousands and hundreds of thousands of our citizens urge the world to unite with the United States in concerted action.

We have got AU troops on the ground; those troops need to be augmented and increased through strong United Nations action. And the United States strongly supports a U.N. resolution to do that. I believe it's important for the United States to be involved, and the best way to be involved with the AU troops is through NATO. I've worked with the Secretary General of NATO and our allies in NATO to provide a firm response to the actions that are taking place on the ground. I want the Sudanese government to understand the United States of America is serious about solving this problem.

I'm proud of our nation's generosity when it comes to aid, and the American people ought to be proud of the taxpayer dollars that have gone to provide much needed aid for those who suffer. But this government must understand that we expect the aid to get to the people and we expect there to be a solution to this problem.

There will be rallies all across the country. And for those of you who are going out to march for justice, you represent the best of our country. We believe every life is precious, every human being is important. And the signal you send to the world is a strong signal, and I welcome your participation. And I want to thank the organizers for being here.

I want to thank this good man right here — he sits here next to his President, and it wasn't all that long ago that he was a slave inside Sudan. He sits here to represent the thousands of lives who have been affected by a government that must honor human rights.
And, Simon, I'm proud to have you here as a fellow American; proud to have you here as a friend.

Thank you all for coming.

Another article from Reuters:

A Jewish Rabbi, and participant in the Marches for Peace in Sudan said of the Rally:

"It is a show of solidarity, given the United States is one of few countries trying to exert pressure. There is momentum right now and the feeling we can influence things," he said.

Condoleezza Rice complained on ABC's that Washington was not getting enough support from some other members of the U.N. Security Council to take more decisive action against Sudan.", frankly, We also do need more support from members of the international community…"

President George W. Bush on Thursday issued an executive order freezing the assets of four Sudanese deemed to have posed a threat to the peace process in Darfur. But demonstrators called on the administration to do more.

New Poll Breaks Down the Geography of Religion

According to UPI, a new poll shows that the South remains a religious stronghold. 

A Gallup poll finds wide regional differences in U.S. churchgoing habits, with the South a center of "that old time religion."

Overall, 42 percent of those polled said they go to church or synagogue at least once a week or almost every week, while 43 percent said they rarely do.

The three most religious states are Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina, where 58 percent of the population are regular churchgoers, closely followed by Mississippi at 57 percent and Arkansas and Utah at 55 percent. The most religious states outside the South and Utah tend to be in the Midwest, while churchgoing happens the least in New England and the far western states.

Vermont and New Hampshire have the lowest percentage of regular churchgoers — 24 percent. Nevada is next at 27 percent.

(Posted by Trask)

Split in American Baptist Churches?

The Associated Press is reporting on a split over homosexuality that is likely to occur in American Baptist Churches. 

Delegates from the American Baptist Churches of the Pacific Southwest voted overwhelmingly Saturday to recommend severing ties with the national denomination in a dispute over homosexuality.

Members from the region's 300 churches are upset American Baptist Churches, USA, has not disciplined congregations with liberal gay policies even though the denomination has a strict definition that says "homosexuality is incompatible with biblical teaching."

The matter now goes to the region's board of directors, which meets May 11 and already recommended withdrawal from the denomination citing "deep differences of theological convictions and values."

(Posted by Trask)

Does the Gay Culture Want Committed Relationships?

Maggie Gallagher and Joshua K. Baker at the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy have some data that suggests the gay culture may not be interested in marriage. 

What proportion of gay and lesbian people choose to marry, when the option is legally available?

This research report offers estimates of gay and lesbian marriage rates based on the best available data. The highest estimate to date of the proportion of gays and lesbians who have married in any jurisdiction where it is available is 16.7% (Massachusetts). More typically, our survey of marriage statistics from various countries that legally recognize same-sex unions suggests that today between 1% and 5% of gays and lesbians have entered into a same-sex marriage. In the Netherlands, which has had same-sex marriage as a legal option for the longest period, between 2% and 6% of gays and lesbians have entered marriages in the first five years.

Trend data is extremely limited, but the available data suggest that the number of gay marriages tends to decrease after an initial burst (reflecting pent up demand). Whether same-sex marriage will emerge as common or normative among gays and lesbians, or fade as time and novelty passes, cannot yet be determined.
. . .
Michael Bronski, visiting professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Dartmouth College, notes,

When I talk to my gay and lesbian students and other young queer people, there is no doubt that they are in favor of marriage equality. It’s a no-brainer: why shouldn’t there be equality under the law? But very few of them actually seem interested in getting married, now or later. That’s true of both gay men and lesbians, although the women are more inclined to consider marriage in the future. Such ambivalence stands in sharp contrast to my heterosexual students, many of whom expect to get hitched sometime in the near future and some of whom have even made plans to do so after graduation.

(Posted by Trask)

Agape Love in the Early Church

Tertullian (155-230 A.D.), an important scholar in the early Christian church, wrote about the love that Christians shared with one another in his book The Apology.

Chapter XXXIX.

I shall at once go on, then, to exhibit the peculiarities of the Christian society, that, as I have refuted the evil charged against it, I may point out its positive good. We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This violence God delights in. We pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consummation. We assemble to read our sacred writings, if any peculiarity of the times makes either forewarning or reminiscence needful. However it be in that respect, with the sacred words we nourish our faith, we animate our hope, we make our confidence more stedfast; and no less by inculcations of God's precepts we confirm good habits. In the same place also exhortations are made, rebukes and sacred censures are administered. For with a great gravity is the work of judging carried on among us, as befits those who feel assured that they are in the sight of God; and you have the most notable example of judgment to come when any one has sinned so grievously as to require his severance from us in prayer, in the congregation and in all sacred intercourse. The tried men of our elders preside over us, obtaining that honour not by purchase, but by established character. There is no buying and selling of any sort in the things of God.

Though we have our treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price. On the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary.  These gifts are, as it were, piety's deposit fund. For they are not taken thence and spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God's Church, they become the nurslings of their confession.

But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another, for themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death. And they are wroth with us, too, because we call each other brethren; for no other reason, as I think, than because among themselves names of consanguinity are assumed in mere pretence of affection. But we are your brethren as well, by the law of I our common mother nature, though you are hardly men, because brothers so unkind. At the same time, how much more fittingly they are called and counted brothers who have been led to the knowledge of God as their common Father, who have drunk in one spirit of holiness, who from the same womb of a common ignorance have agonized into the same light of truth!  But on this very account, perhaps, we are regarded as having less claim to be held true brothers, that no tragedy makes a noise about our brotherhood, or that the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us.

One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives. We give up our community where it is practised alone by others, who not only take possession of the wives of their friends, but most tolerantly also accommodate their friends with theirs, following the example, I believe, of those wise men of ancient times, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who shared with their friends the wives whom they had married, it seems for the sake of progeny both to themselves and to others; whether in this acting against their partners' wishes, I am not able to say. Why should they have any care over their chastity, when their husbands so readily bestowed it away? O noble example of Attic wisdom, of Roman gravity-the philosopher and the censor playing pimps!

What wonder if that great love of Christians towards one another is desecrated by you! For you abuse also our humble feasts, on the ground that they are extravagant as well as infamously wicked. To us, it seems, applies the saying of Diogenes: "The people of Megara feast as though they were going to die on the morrow; they build as though they were never to die!" But one sees more readily the mote in another's eye than the beam in his own. Why, the very air is soured with the eructations of so many tribes, and curiae, and decuriae. The Salii cannot have their feast without going into debt; you must get the accountants to tell you what the tenths of Hercules and the sacrificial banquets cost; the choicest cook is appointed for the Apaturia, the Dionysia, the Attic mysteries; the smoke from the banquet of Serapis will call out the firemen. Yet about the modest supper-room of the Christians alone a great ado is made.

Our feast explains itself by its name The Greeks call it agape, i.e., affection. Whatever it costs, our outlay in the name of piety is gain, since with the good things of the feast we benefit the needy; not as it is with you, do parasites aspire to the glory of satisfying their licentious propensities, selling themselves for a belly-feast to all disgraceful treatment,-but as it is with God himself, a peculiar respect is shown to the lowly. If the object of our feast be good, in the light of that consider its further regulations. As it is an act of religious service, it permits no vileness or immodesty. The participants, before reclining, taste first of prayer to God. As much is eaten as satisfies the cravings of hunger; as much is drunk as befits the chaste. They say it is enough, as those who remember that even during the night they have to worship God; they talk as those who know that the Lord is one of their auditors. After manual ablution, and the bringing in of lights, each is asked to stand forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to God, either one from the holy Scriptures or one of his own composing,-a proof of the measure of our drinking. As the feast commenced with prayer, so with prayer it is closed. We go from it, not like troops of mischief-doers, nor bands of vagabonds, nor to break out into licentious acts, but to have as much care of our modesty and chastity as if we had been at a school of virtue rather than a banquet.

Give the congregation of the Christians its due, and hold it unlawful, if it is like assemblies of the illicit sort: by all means let it be condemned, if any complaint can be validly laid against it, such as lies against secret factions. But who has ever suffered harm from our assemblies? We are in our congregations just what we are when separated from each other; we are as a community what we are individuals; we injure nobody, we trouble nobody. When the upright, when the virtuous meet together, when the pious, when the pure assemble in congregation, you ought not to call that a faction, but a curia-[i.e., the court of God.]

(Posted by Trask)

Declining Morale Among Social Conservatives?

Fox News is reporting on a morale problem among social conservatives, which could create problems in the mid-term elections.

More than a year after "values voters" propelled President Bush to a second term in office, many religious conservatives say they are starting to feel undervalued, an emotion that could spell danger for congressional Republicans ahead of a contentious midterm election.

“You can cut it with a knife, that’s how upset they are,” said Richard Viguerie, a long-time member of the social conservative movement, which is largely evangelical and considered to be the base of last year's presidential victory.

Among the disappointments cited are increased spending under the Republican-controlled White House and Congress, and a lack of focus on domestic issues dear to this voting bloc. Recent Capitol Hill scandals shadowing some of the "religious right’s" brightest stars and a lost battle to save Terri Schiavo have also threatened the morale and strength of this political lobby, say leaders.

“I definitely think there are morale problems and waning enthusiasm,” said Gary Bauer, head of the Campaign for Working Families, a conservative political action committee.

“Part of it, I think is we’re in a second term (presidency) and there’s been no major progress on things that the base really cares about,” said Bauer, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000. “There is sort of this simmering frustration out there that 'man, they want our votes on Election Day, but they are going to fight on 50 other issues before they get to our issues.'”

Conservatives, however, do acknowledge two major morale boosts over the last year — the confirmations of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

(Posted by Trask)

Tony Snow Takes Position As New Press Secretary

CNN is reporting that Tony Snow will be the new White House Press Secretary. This was a very smart move by the White House as they attempt to rebuild their image.

President Bush announced his new White House press secretary on Wednesday: former Fox News host Tony Snow.

"As a professional journalist, Tony Snow understands the importance of the relationship between government and those whose job it is to cover the government," Bush said during a White House appearance.

Snow replaces Scott McClellan, who announced last week he would step down during a West Wing makeover by Josh Bolten, the new White House chief of staff.

Snow, 50, was a weekend news anchor and political analyst for the Fox News Channel, which he joined in 1996. He also hosted "The Tony Snow Show" on Fox News Radio.

The GOP sources said that before agreeing to take the post Snow had sought and received assurances from Bolten and other senior White House officials that he would be an active participant in major policy debates and would have a significant say in hiring in the press and communications operations.

Snow also had lunch with Bush to discuss his role, two of those sources said.

(Posted by Trask)

Executive Compensation at Non-Profit Organizations

Christianity Today has an article today on executive compensation at Christian non-profit organizations. Based on personal research that I have done on this issue, I believe that salaries are too high at many Christian organizations, which are often using resources contributed by other people to further the organization's mission. This is an issue that I will discuss more over time here at Agape Revolution.

By reviewing the compensation practices of 147 Christian ministries, Best Christian Workplaces Institute (BCWI) and the Christian Management Association discovered that the average compensation for presidents/chief executive officers is $99,000; for chief operating officers, $88,200; and for chief financial officers, $78,200.

Numerous factors—the scope and complexity of the ministry, cost of living, revenue, and number of employees—contribute to total compensation levels, according to BCWI president Al Lopus. Still, the 2005 survey reveals that, overall, Christian ministries do not pay competitive salaries. Consider: Ministries compensate presidents and CEOs anywhere from 24 to 46 percent less than what their counterparts in secular nonprofits earn, and 65 to 403 percent less than leaders in private industry. Meanwhile, ministry CFOs are paid anywhere from 19 to 25 percent less than other nonprofit CFOs, and 69 to 203 percent less than those working in private industry.

Lopus says that ministry leaders and nonprofit executives have comparable responsibilities. He argues that higher salaries attract higher-caliber executives, which would increase ministries' effectiveness.

"I think it's reasonable to accept less to take a job where there is eternal value," he says. "But we have to look at the reasonableness of how much that is. The gap should not be as wide as it is now."

Others believe Christian companies do excellent work despite limited resources and lower salaries. "I totally disagree that pay is linked to the ability to attract and retain high-quality employees," New Missions Systems International (NMSI) president Phil Hudson says.

(Posted by Trask)

How Low Can It Go?

Fox News is reporting that Bush's approval rating is at 33%.

[T]he poll asked respondents to explain why they approve or disapprove of the job Bush is doing. Of the 33 percent who approve, 52 percent say "he is doing a good job" in general, 21 percent cite Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism and 18 percent mention their agreement with him on the issues. The only other reason to receive double-digit mentions is the president’s honesty and character.

Overall, 57 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush is doing, and the most frequently mentioned reason is Iraq (48 percent). The other top reasons include generally "doing a bad job" (24 percent), disagreement on issues (22 percent) and the economy/jobs (17 percent).

Update 4/25/06:

According to a CNN poll, President Bush's approval rating is at 32 percent.

(Posted by Trask)

Abortion As Birth Control

According to Concerned Woman for America, abortion is increasingly being used primarily as a form of birth control.

The bad news is that abortions to women over 25 have risen dramatically. Over the past decade, the percentage has grown from 35 percent of the total number of abortions to more than 48 percent in 2000. This contrasts with teen abortions, which have declined during the same period, and abortions to women 20-24, which have remained stable at about one-third of the total.

The real shocker, though, is that it is more common for women to have repeat abortions (some four or more) and to have abortions after already giving birth to living children. Obviously, 25-year-old women and women who are already mothers should know how to exercise self-control and to use contraceptives responsibly and effectively.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 6 million American women become pregnant every year — almost half of them unmarried. The abortion rate for unmarried women is four times greater than that of married women. Obviously, these women engage in irresponsible and risky sexual behavior with men who are poor candidates for marriage and even worse candidates for fatherhood. Of those 3 million unmarried pregnant women, almost half have an abortion and almost half become single mothers. Very few of them marry the father of their child or give the child up for adoption.

Sadly, abortion has made it easier for irresponsible men to turn their backs on women and the children they conceive. Ironically, though, most unmarried women are living with the man who fathered their child. Nevertheless, they do not even consider marriage and never consider releasing the child for adoption to a couple on the long lists of those desperate to have a child. Many women would not consider marrying because they "have to," and they think that giving a child up for adoption is "cruel." Yet, it is not considered cruel to abort an “unwanted” child that the man is unwilling to support.

(Posted by Trask)

A Truly Gay Fairy Tale

Reuters is reporting on reason number one-million for school choice. A teacher in Massachusetts shared a very gay fairy tale with seven-year-old students.

The crown prince rejects a bevy of beautiful princesses, rebuffing each suitor until falling in love with a prince. The two marry, sealing the union with a kiss, and live happily ever after.

That fairy tale about gay marriage has sparked a civil rights debate in Massachusetts, the only U.S. state where gays and lesbians can legally wed, after a teacher read the story to a classroom of seven year olds without warning parents first.

A parents' rights group said on Monday it may sue the public school in the affluent suburb of Lexington, about 12 miles west of Boston, where a teacher used the book "King & King" in a lesson about different types of weddings.

"It's just so heinous and objectionable that they would do this," said Brian Camenker, president of the Parents Rights Coalition, a conservative Massachusetts-based advocacy group.

Camenker said he believes the school, Joseph Estabrook Elementary, broke a 1996 Massachusetts law requiring schools to notify parents of sex-education lessons. "There is no question in my mind that the law is being abused here," he said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if in the next couple of weeks there was some kind of (legal) action taken," he said.

Lexington Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash said the school was under no legal obligation to inform parents the book would be read to the classroom of about 20 children.

"This district is committed to teaching children about the world they live in. Seven-year-olds see gay people. They see them in the schools. They see them with their kids," he said.

"I see this as a civil rights issue. People who are gay have a right to be treated equally," he said.

(Posted by Trask)

Civil Damages for Adultery III

Minette Marrin has some excellent commentary in the Sunday Times on the pending decision of the House of Lords over whether to affirm a court ruling that awarded damages for adultery. 

Marriage is, most importantly, a social contract, the most important social contract there is in a civil society. I think it should be seen as a contract. No one should be allowed to break it with impunity. The odd thing is that people often do break up their marriages with impunity, without any sense of one party being more to blame than the other.

That sort of perverse moral equivalence seems to be a tendency of the time. There are always two sides to a story; one side is just as responsible as the other; it’s impossible to judge — those are the things people nearly always say when their friends separate. Fifty-fifty is the outward and visible sign in the law courts of this attitude. The number of divorces where the family wealth is split equally between husband and wife has been growing. The figure more than doubled between 2004 and 2005, when it applied to 63% of cases, according to a survey published by Grant Thornton, the chartered accountants.

That may be right in some cases, but it is clearly wrong in others. If a wife gets bored with her perfectly reasonable husband and runs away with her well-toned personal trainer, it is wrong that she should be able to take the family home, children, maintenance and pension rights with her, totalling at least 50% of what the poor man has. Similarly if a husband abandons his perfectly reasonable wife and family for the office vamp, his spouse ought not to be the one that suffers more, financially; he should. If marriage is not a love affair, falling in love with someone else is not a good enough reason to end it without impunity. Nor is being bored.

This all might sound harsh. Of course I understand that life is complex, especially married life. All the same I have come across many cases of clear injustice when someone is not only abandoned, but impoverished, in someone else’s unreliable pursuit of happiness.

So I felt, I admit, a sneaking pleasure in a headline last week that said adulterers may pay the price for their marriage break-up. Why not, I thought. Bring back blame. Since marriage is a contract, blame can usually best be expressed contractually, ie, financially.

By that I don’t mean adulterers should necessarily be named, shamed and blamed. . . . What I am against is divorce. People who break up their marriages simply because one person has fallen in love with someone else should usually accept the greater share of blame.

For other postings on this topic, see Civil Damages for Adultery II and UK May Allow Civil Damages for Adultery.

(Posted by Trask)

History Demonstrates that Republicans Are Likely to Hold the House and Senate

Jay Cost has some excellent commentary at Real Clear Politics on the mid-term elections. 

[O]f these 7 times the House has switched, the Senate has also switched. Not only does the Senate switch more frequently, it always switches with the House. A switch in the Senate, therefore, seems to be a necessary, but insufficient, condition for a switch in the House. Conversely, a switch in the House is a sufficient, but not necessary, condition for a switch in the Senate. In other words, when the House has switched, the Senate has always followed; however, when the Senate has switched, the House has not necessarily followed. Thus, historically speaking, two scenarios are possible: the Senate alone changes or both the House and the Senate change.
. . .
Of course, one might respond, this argument could just as easily predict that both the House and the Senate will flip this year. The error that pundits are making, according to this line, is not with the House but with the Senate. Both are vulnerable. I do not find this compelling. One of the reasons pundits are so prone to write off the Senate is that they know more about the individual elections (this, by the way, is in keeping with senators' reduced incumbency advantage – individual senators are better known). They have a better sense of the electoral landscape, and therefore can appreciate that a net of six is prohibitively difficult. However, pundits know less of the specifics of House contests; thus, the House seems more promising. They cannot name the seats the GOP would have to lose to lose the House. If they could, they would find themselves naming many members most think are secure. A switch of the House still seems plausible, in other words, only because details are lacking.

History indicates that when the House switches, the Senate switches, too. Our knowledge of congressional elections implies that this is not coincidence. Accordingly, we can conclude that the safety of the GOP Senate strongly implies the safety of the GOP House. Further, we can issue a challenge to pundits who think the Democrats will take the House. They have an additional burden of proof: they must either indicate that the Senate will switch or why 2006 will be the first exception to a 92-year rule.

(Posted by Trask)

Mayor of Amsterdam Urges Other Countries to Approve Gay Marriage

According to BBC News, the mayor of Amsterdam is urging other countries to model the Netherlands. 

The mayor of Amsterdam has written to his counterparts in eight other European capitals, calling on them to uphold gay rights.

In his letter, Job Cohen warns that intolerance against homosexuals is on the increase.

The Netherlands introduced gay marriage five years ago, and Mr Cohen is urging other countries to do the same.

. . .

He calls on mayors to "adhere to the universal declaration of human rights, and to do everything in your political power to open up marriage for same-sex couples and safeguard the right of public demonstrations in your city," Agence France-Presse news agency reports.

In February, Portuguese officials turned down an application by a lesbian couple to get married.

Official statistics show that 8,000 same-sex marriages have taken place in the Netherlands since they became legal, AFP said.

According to the Population Reference Bureau, the fertility rate in Denmark is currently 14% below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. Maybe, it would be better to model the marriage laws and social norms of countries in the world that are actually able to repopulate themselves.

Casey as Precedent: Upholding South Dakota’s Abortion Ban (An Agape Paper)

Ever since the decision in Roe v. Wade, legislatures in both the federal and state government have been enacting laws in order to either reduce abortions or eliminate the practice entirely. Part of the reason is the knowledge that the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence is on questionable constitutional foundations. Another reason is that along with abortions questionable constitutional foundations, the right that Roe recognized has had a history of "see-saw … decisions expanding and contracting reproductive rights." For instance, in 1988 Pennsylvania passed a statute that put regulations on abortion, some of which were in open defiance of the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists. Thornburgh held in part that informational requirements were facially unconstitutional as they were "poorly disguised elements of discouragement for the abortion decision." Yet, in 1988, Pennsylvania’s law specified that a woman must give her informed consent prior to the abortion procedure and that she be provided with certain information at least 24 hours before the abortion is performed. The Supreme Court eventually upheld much of Pennsylvania’s law, including the informational requirements that they had just held unconstitutional a few years before in Thornburgh. It is not surprising then that Roe’s constitutional and jurisprudential shortcomings invite legislatures to pass laws which might seem a lost cause in terms of vote counting.

When the Supreme Court heard the challenge to the 1988 Pennsylvania statute in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the first paragraph of the Plurality opinion recognized the phenomenon of the never ending challenges to its abortion jurisprudence. Justices O’Conner, Kennedy, and Souter noted that in the previous decade, the United States had asked the court to overrule Roe five times. The opening sentences of the opinion states "Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages … that definition of liberty is still questioned." The plurality viewed this particular case as one which contained a "dimension that the resolution of the normal case does not carry …. The dimension present whenever the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution calls the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution." The Casey Court therefore recognized Roe’s oscillating standards, and attempted to resolve the doubt in order to protect the liberty interest discovered in Roe by calling all sides of the controversy to accept a common mandate rooted in the constitution. History shows the Casey decision did nothing of the sort, and the legal and political battles about the pregnant woman’s ability to end the life of the unborn child continue.

The latest example illustrating the result of the "jurisprudence of doubt" comes in the form of a South Dakota law that bans all abortion except to save the life of the mother. The law states that:

Any person who administers to any pregnant female or who prescribes or procures for any pregnant female any medicine, drug, or substance or uses or employs any instrument or other means with intent thereby to procure an abortion, unless there is appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female, is guilty of a Class 6 felony. S.D. Codified Laws § 22-17-5.1  (2006).

South Dakota’s law is very similar to the Texas law which was found unconstitutional in Roe. Like South Dakota’s law, Texas law exempted from the law "an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother." The Roe Court noted that similar statutes were in existence in a majority of the other States at that time. Why would South Dakota pass such a law and what can they expect will come from it?

This article will first explore the rationale that motivated South Dakota to pass a statute in what seems to be in stark opposition to prior Supreme Court precedent. The next section will provide an in depth analysis of the Casey decision in order to determine what, if any, circumstances would have to exist in order to persuade a Supreme Court Justice who previously upheld Roe’s abortion right to find South Dakota’s ban constitutional. The next section applies Casey’s holding to today’s epistemic environment and determines whether "the Court of an earlier day (read Roe and Casey), as its own declarations disclosed, had not been able to perceive" the factual underpinnings or understanding of those facts as we can today.

Feminist Professor and Her Students Destroy Pro-Life Display at North Kentucky University

The Enquirer (Cincinatti) is reporting that a feminist professor and her class collaborated in the destruction of a pro-life display at NKU.

A professor at Northern Kentucky University said she invited students in one of her classes to destroy an anti-abortion display on campus Wednesday evening.

NKU police are investigating the incident, in which 400 crosses were removed from the ground near University Center and thrown in trash cans. The crosses, meant to represent a cemetery for aborted fetuses, had been temporarily erected last weekend by a student Right to Life group with permission from NKU officials.

Public universities cannot ban such displays because they are a type of symbolic speech that has been protected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Witnesses reported "a group of females of various ages" committing the vandalism about 5:30 p.m., said Dave Tobertge, administrative sergeant with the campus police.

Sally Jacobsen, a longtime professor in NKU's literature and language department, said the display was dismantled by about nine students in one of her graduate-level classes.

"I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to," Jacobsen said.

Asked whether she participated in pulling up the crosses, the professor said, "I have no comment."

She said she was infuriated by the display, which she saw as intimidating and a "slap in the face" to women who might be making "the agonizing and very private decision to have an abortion."

Jacobsen said it originally wasn't clear who had placed the crosses on campus.

She said that could make it appear that NKU endorsed the message.

Pulling up the crosses was similar to citizens taking down Nazi displays on Fountain Square, she said.

"Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged," Jacobsen said.

NKU President James Votruba said any evidence of criminal conduct in the incident will be turned over to prosecutors. He said he appreciated the emotional nature of the abortion debate and was glad that diverse viewpoints are represented at the school, but he condemned the destruction of the crosses.

Although there are only anecdotal examples so far that support my theory, I believe that incidents like this may be part of a new trend in the postmodern diversity movement, which is violence as the new tolerance. For more on this topic, see Why Diversity Is Not Agape Love.

(Posted by Trask)

President Bush Expresses Support for Hydrogen Cars

According to CNN, President Bush celebrated Earth Day by expressing his support for development of hydrogen cars. 

President Bush had an Earth Day message for drivers worried about soaring gasoline prices: The nation must move more quickly toward widespread use of hydrogen-powered cars.

Running vehicles on hydrogen fuel cells would help reduce oil consumption, as the technology does not require gasoline, and lower pollution, as water is the only emission. But the technology is far from being a reality in the marketplace: The cells are prohibitively expensive and require a new distribution system to replace today's gas stations.

Bush is proposing to spend additional federal research dollars to help speed that process, but it still would be many years off. (Watch as Bush says Americans need to invest in new technologies — 2:19)

"I strongly believe hydrogen is the fuel of the future. That's what we're talking about," he said. "It has the potential –a vast potential to dramatically cut our dependence on foreign oil. Hydrogen is clean, hydrogen is domestically produced, and hydrogen is the way of the future."

(Posted by Trask)

Federal Grant Money for Abstinence Only Education

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has just announced the availability of grant money, which Congress has made available for abstinence only education. Furthermore, the the Agency has defined the requirements for the grants so as to only allow funding for curriculum, which teaches that sex can only occur in a marriage between a man and a woman. Left wing groups are livid over this funding.

The Family and Youth Services Bureau is accepting applications to provide support to public and private entities for the development and implementation of the Community-Based Abstinence Education Program.  The purpose of these programs is to educate young people and create an environment within communities that supports teen decisions to postpone sexual activity until marriage.  Acceptable applications will be designed to provide abstinence-until-marriage education as defined by Section 510(b)(2) of the Title V Social Security Act, for adolescents aged 12 through 18.  The anticipated number of awards is 45 to 55, with funding ranges between $250,000 and $600,000 depending upon the availability of funds and enactment of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 program appropriation. The due date for applications will be 03/27/2006.

——————————————————————————–

I. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION
A. Legislative Authority

The Community-Based Abstinence Education Program is authorized by Title XI, Section 1110 of the Social Security Act.  Further, a FY 2006 appropriation is anticipated.

Programs funded through the Community-Based Abstinence Education Program must promote abstinence education as defined by Section 510(b)(2) of Title V of the Social Security Act and given below.  Programs that utilize this definition promote "abstinence-until-marriage education." Sex education programs that promote the use of contraceptives are not eligible for funding under this announcement.

For purposes of this program, the term "abstinence education" means an educational or motivational program that -

(A) has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;

(B) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school age children;

(C) teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;

(D) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;

(E) teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;

(F) teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society;

(G) teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability to sexual advances; and

(H) teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.

. . .

Additional Guidance Regarding Curriculum Content:

Abstinence curricula must have a clear definition of sexual abstinence which must be consistent with the following:  "Abstinence means voluntarily choosing not to engage in sexual activity until marriage.  Sexual activity refers to any type of genital contact or sexual stimulation between two persons including, but not limited to, sexual intercourse."

. . .

Throughout the entire curriculum, the term "marriage" must be defined as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife." (Consistent with Federal law)

Planned Parenthood has reacted negatively:

The ACF also now requires that programs receiving funds define abstinence in the strictest terms: "voluntarily choosing not to engage in sexual activity until marriage." Sexual activity is defined as "any type of genital contact or sexual stimulation between two persons including, but not limited to, sexual intercourse." Suggestions for staying abstinent include avoiding television and not staying out late.

Marriage is defined as "a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife." This implies that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) teens have no choice but to embrace a lifetime of abstinence. Sexually active teens are also marginalized, as the ACF associates depression and suicide with premarital sex — again providing no evidence to back up its claim.

Instead of funding effective, medically accurate sex education programs, which address both abstinence and birth control, the ACF has continued to fund programs that forbid discussion of safer sex and contraception. And with these new guidelines, programs that receive funding must now sign a statement promising not to provide information about contraception, even if they want to do so with non-government funds. (Signing this statement used to be voluntary.)

My basic perspective is that the government should not promote any single viewpoint through education funding. The job of the government is not to indoctrinate people. The total extent of the government's involvement in education should be to annually issue a check to every kid in America to go get whatever education they want. If they want to go to a school that teaches abstinence only, that is fine. If they want to go to a school that teaches safe sex, that is fine too. Public education in all its forms needs to be abolished because it inevitably does nothing but indoctrinate students.

That being said, I do personally find some irony in this situation. The leftists who are the reason for the existence of public education and who are the ultimate source of indoctrination in public education, are now suffering a little of their own medicine. This can in fact go both ways. Maybe, they will now be persuaded about the need for the government to get out of the business of education, but I would not put my money on it. There is one other interesting irony. Is there not a little conflict of interest with Planned Parenthood, a business that makes its money off of people having abortions, promoting the ability of students to have sex?

(Posted by Trask)

Policy Solutions to the Global Population Crisis

According to Philip Longman’s 2004 article in Foreign Affairs on The Global Baby Bust, no industrialized society — including the US — is at replacement rates. He proposes some solutions. Here is an excerpt from the FA article:

How can secular societies avoid population loss and decline? The problem is not that most people in these societies have lost interest in children. Among childless Americans aged 41 years and older in 2003, for example, 76 percent say they wish they had had children, up from 70 percent in 1990. In 2000, 40-year-old women in the United States and in every European nation told surveys that they had produced fewer children than they intended. Indeed, if European women now in their 40s had been able to produce their ideal number of children, the continent would face no prospect of population loss.

The problem, then, is not one of desire. The problem is that even as modern societies demand more and more investment in human capital, this demand threatens its own supply. The clear tendency of economic development is toward a more knowledge-based, networked economy in which decision-making and responsibility are increasingly necessary at lower levels. In such economies, however, children often remain economically dependent on their parents well into their own childbearing years because it takes that long to acquire the panoply of technical skills, credentials, social understanding, and personal maturity that more and more jobs now require. For the same reason, many couples discover that by the time they feel they can afford children, they can no longer produce them, or must settle for just one or two.

Meanwhile, even as aging societies become more and more dependent on the human capital parents provide, parents themselves get to keep less and less of the wealth they create by investing in their children. Employers make use of the skills parents endow their children with but offer parents no compensation. Governments also depend on parents to provide the next generation of taxpayers, but, with rare exception, give parents no greater benefits in old age than non-parents.

To change this pattern, secular societies need to rethink how they go about educating young adults and integrating them into the work force, so that tensions between work and family are reduced. Education should be a lifetime pursuit, rather than crammed into one's prime reproductive years. There should also be many more opportunities for part-time and flex-time employment, and such work should offer full health and pension benefits, as well as meaningful career paths.

Governments must also relieve parents from having to pay into social security systems. By raising and educating their children, parents have already contributed hugely (in the form of human capital) to these systems. The cost of their contribution, in both direct expenses and forgone wages, is often measured in the millions. Requiring parents also then to contribute to payroll taxes is not only unfair, but imprudent for societies that are already consuming more human capital than they produce.

(Signed, Johannes Climacus)

Agape Love and “The Scapegoat” (Leviticus Sixteen)

"This is how Aaron is to enter the Most Holy Place: He must first bring a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He is to put on the sacred linen tunic, with linen undergarments next to his body; he is to tie the linen sash around him and put on the linen turban. These are sacred garments; so he must bathe himself with water before he puts them on. From the Israelite community he is to take two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

"Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the entrance to the tent of meeting. He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the LORD and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat.

"Aaron shall bring the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household, and he is to slaughter the bull for his own sin offering. He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain. He is to put the incense on the fire before the LORD, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the tablets of the covenant law, so that he will not die. He is to take some of the bull's blood and with his finger sprinkle it on the front of the atonement cover; then he shall sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the atonement cover.

"He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull's blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it. In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been. He is to do the same for the tent of meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness. No one is to be in the tent of meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make atonement in the Most Holy Place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel.

"Then he shall come out to the altar that is before the LORD and make atonement for it. He shall take some of the bull's blood and some of the goat's blood and put it on all the horns of the altar. He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and to consecrate it from the uncleanness of the Israelites.

"When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.

"Then Aaron is to go into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments he put on before he entered the Most Holy Place, and he is to leave them there. He shall bathe himself with water in the sanctuary area and put on his regular garments. Then he shall come out and sacrifice the burnt offering for himself and the burnt offering for the people, to make atonement for himself and for the people. He shall also burn the fat of the sin offering on the altar.

"The one who releases the goat as a scapegoat must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp. The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to make atonement, must be taken outside the camp; their hides, flesh and intestines are to be burned up. The man who burns them must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp.

"This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work—whether native-born or a foreigner residing among you—because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the LORD, you will be clean from all your sins. It is a day of sabbath rest, and you must deny yourselves; it is a lasting ordinance. The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement. He is to put on the sacred linen garments and make atonement for the Most Holy Place, for the tent of meeting and the altar, and for the priests and all the members of the community.

"This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites."

And it was done, as the LORD commanded Moses.

(Posted by Trask)

Earth Day Sunday

Fox News has a story on how protestant and evangelical churches are increasingly emphasizing environmental stewardship. 

Earth Day Sunday is just one part of a faith-based green movement gathering steam in Maryland and churches nationwide, where Protestant churches try to dispel the idea that environmental protection is a leftist activity antithetical to Christian ideology.

The environment has historically taken a back seat to common faith initiatives like the fight against poverty or hunger, local church leaders and experts said. But now, congregations increasingly see a connection between care for God's creation and social issues.
. . .
Environmentalism remains in the background at many Protestant churches, but the concepts are beginning to take hold, said George Fisher, a professor emeritus of geology at Johns Hopkins University.

"Somewhat to my surprise, it's happening in the evangelical churches as well," he said. "I think it's an absolutely wonderful thing."

Evangelical churches — defined as Protestant churches focused on expressing the gospels and being "born again" in faith — are generally viewed as more conservative-minded and less likely to advocate environmental issues. It is Presbyterian or Episcopal churches like the one in Towson that are leading the way, Fisher said.

(Posted by Trask)

Ninth Circuit Refuses to Protect Right of Student to Wear Anti-Homosexuality Shirt

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just decided the case Tyler Chase Harper v. Poway Unified School District. The court rejected the argument of a student that the refusal of his school to allow him to wear an anti-homosexual shirt was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Judge Reinhardt authored the majority opinion:

May a public high school prohibit students from wearing T-shirts with messages that condemn and denigrate other students on the basis of their sexual orientation? Appellant in this action is a sophomore at Poway High School who was ordered not to wear a T-shirt to school that read, "BE ASHAMED, OUR SCHOOL EMBRACED WHAT GOD HAS CONDEMNED" handwritten on the front, and "HOMOSEXUALITY IS SHAMEFUL" handwritten on the back. He appeals the district court's order denying his motion for a preliminary injunction. Because he is not likely to succeed on the merits, we affirm the district court's order.

. . .

We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the preliminary injunction. Harper failed to demonstrate that he will likely prevail on the merits of his free speech, free exercise of religion, or establishment of religion claims. In fact, such future success on Harper's part is highly unlikely, given the legal principles discussed in this opinion. The Free Speech Clause permits public schools to restrict student speech that intrudes upon the rights of other students. Injurious speech that may be so limited is not immune from regulation simply because it reflects the speaker's religious views. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of Harper's motion for a preliminary injunction. AFFIRMED; REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Judge Kozinski Dissented:

While I find this a difficult and troubling case, I can agree with neither the majority's rationale nor its conclusion. On the record to date, the school authorities have offered no lawful justification for banning Harper's t-shirt and the district court should therefore have enjoined them from doing so pending the outcome of this case. Harper, moreover, raised a valid facial challenge to the school's harassment policy, and the district court should have enjoined the policy as well.

Professor Volokh at Volokh Conspiracy disagrees with the ruling of the court:

This is a very bad ruling, I think. It's a dangerous retreat from our tradition that the First Amendment is viewpoint-neutral. It's an opening to a First Amendment limited by rights to be free from offensive viewpoints. It's a tool for suppression of one side of public debates (about same-sex marriage, about Islam, quite likely about illegal immigration, and more) while the other side remains constitutionally protected and even encouraged by the government.

Maybe the government needs more flexibility in controlling student speech than Tinker provides. As the close of Judge Kozinski's opinion, he suggests that, "Perhaps school authorities should have greater latitude to control student speech than allowed them by Justice Fortas’s Vietnam-era opinion in Tinker. Perhaps Justice Black’s concerns, expressed in his Tinker dissent, should have been given more weight. . . . Perhaps the narrow exceptions of Tinker should be broadened and multiplied. Perhaps Tinker should be overruled." But even if this is so, whatever rule is adopted should be a rule that the First Amendment applies — or doesn't apply — to all viewpoints equally, not that views that the court system finds "derogatory and injurious" are specially stripped of constitutional protection.

Update 6/24/06: 

Professor Volokh has just commented on some additional inconsistencies of Judge Reinhardt at Volokh Conspiracy.

(Posted by Trask)

Humility Must Precede True Religion

Blaise Pascal discussed the importance of humility in Pensees.

"Had I seen a miracle," say men, "I should become converted." How can they be sure they would do a thing of the nature of which they are ignorant? They imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God which is like commerce, and in a communion such as they picture to themselves. True religion consists in annihilating self before that Universal Being, whom we have so often provoked, and who can justly destroy us at any time; in recognising that we can do nothing without Him, and have deserved nothing from Him but His displeasure. It consists in knowing that there is an unconquerable opposition between us and God, and that without a mediator there can be no communion with Him.

(Posted by Trask)

An Agape Solution: Zero Emission Vehicles

Froma Harrop argues persuasively about the need to end oil dependence at Real Clear Politics.

Not all problems facing America are caused by oil — only about 96 percent of them. National security, the economy, the environment and even the weather are tied to our reliance on oil. So when the leadership in Washington fails to take serious action on cutting oil use, it fails big-time. Everyone seems to get this but the Bush administration. 

. . .

To this end, a group of defense experts, evangelicals, environmentalists, neo-cons and liberals has formed the aptly named Set America Free Coalition to push for oil conservation and develop alternative energy sources. That sounds like just about everyone in America — except, unfortunately, the politicians running the show in Washington. 

By spearheading a global effort to cut oil use, "the United States can deny its adversaries the wherewithal they use to harm us," the coalition says on its website (www.setamericafree.org). In the event that some visitors do not make the connection, the group puts a picture of a jet slamming into the World Trade Center on its upper-left-hand corner.

. . .

The Bush administration has spent six years doing close to zip about reducing Americans' dependence on oil and, therefore, their exposure to rising prices — though the president made a nice reference to our "oil addiction" in his recent State of the Union Address. Characteristic of his approach, the president promised that future Americans would develop the technology to deal with the problem. Present Americans, meanwhile, need not worry their pretty heads over it.

Ending oil dependence could not be a more critical issue for the United States. There are two major problems created by dependence on foreign oil. (1) Oil dependence creates environmental problems in both the process of drilling for the oil and in the process of burning the oil. Even if you are skeptical about global warming, everybody can recognize the benefit of solving air pollution problems like smog, which are created by burning oil. (2) Oil dependence creates national security problems because it gives the most unstable regions of the world control over our economy. It increases the risk that a major oil shock could devastate the U.S. economy, and it increases the risk of military interventions by the U.S. in order to deal with the threats to our economic interest in oil.

If the United States required auto manufacturers to make a massive transition to zero emission vehicles over the next twenty years, the U.S. could with one policy substantially reduce the risks of major problems including: economic shock from OPEC, economic shock from depleted oil supplies, price inflation from increasing oil prices, military conflicts over oil, terrorism funded by oil profits, global warming, air pollution, and drilling in environmentally sensitive areas of the world.

The best solution is to just set a goal for technological change like 50% of cars must be zero emission vehicles. Setting a broad goal is better than requiring specific technologies or having the U.S. government invest in specific technologies since it offers maximum flexibility to auto manufacturers to find the most economical means of achieving the government established goal. The U.S. must also establish deadlines by which the auto industry must meet the emissions requirements, and the federal government should establish both incentives and penalties based on how quickly the auto manufacturers accomplish the goal. This is an Agape Solution because it solves important social problems by directing the energy of the free market toward solving those social problems. The best solutions use logic to increase love.

For a previous Agape Solution, see An Agape Solution: Market-Based Universal Health Care.

Can Senator Santorum Win?

Dr. Madonna and Dr. Young argue on Real Clear Politics that he can win.

So to the question, can he under any circumstances win? Or is it time for the full figured lady to start her song? Certainly a lot of knowledgeable national analysts, including more than a few of Santorum's own party, think that the race is over.

But this belief ignores Pennsylvania political history, and grossly misreads the nature of contemporary state politics. In fact, there is no doubt that Santorum could win reelection. How he might do that is another question we get to momentarily. But first here are four compelling reasons that support the conclusion that Santorum could still win:

1. Incumbency–He is the incumbent, and incumbents win in Pennsylvania–not sometimes or mostly, but virtually all of the time. Only one incumbent U.S. senator, governor or, for that matter, any other state constitutional officer has lost a re-election bid in modern times, and he lost to Rick Santorum.

2. Resilience–Santorum may have seemed like a politically inept politician the last year or so, and his public statements on some controversial social issues have appeared needlessly provocative. But much of the "Rick is toast mentality" is based on the untenable assumption that he will continue the same klutzy politics through the campaign. He won't. Santorum is a smart, resourceful, and crafty politician, who finds a way to win.

3. Resources–He has never lost an election before. Moreover, he has access to virtually unlimited resources, both money and surrogates to run his campaign. Santorum's story has so far been mainly mediated through a wary, if not critical press. Advertising can change that and it will.

4. History–Finally, and most fundamentally, he can yet win because Pennsylvania is still a very competitive two party state in which candidates of both parties win big elections, in which voters notoriously split their tickets, and in which many elections are close contests–often undecided until late on election night. There's a reason Pennsylvania politicians seldom have fingernails; they bite them off.

(Posted by Trask)

School Choice and Racial Equality

Richard John Neuhaus has some excellent commentary at First Things on the need for school choice. He correctly argues that the current public school system is racist because of the way that it entraps minorities in bad schools.

But what is the right word for the studied indifference to the plight of black, Hispanic, and other non-white children who are consigned to a school system that systematically excludes the majority of them from educational opportunity, and thus from the opportunities and responsibilities of full participation in our common life?

(Posted by Trask)

Liberty University Debate Team Wins Three National Rankings Championships

Christianity Today is reporting on the success of the Liberty University Debate Team. 

No stranger to debate, Liberty University has ended any discussion that they might not field the best team in the country.

Liberty finished first in the rankings of three national policy debate groups—a feat that no college has accomplished before—after flirting with the distinction for several years.

"That's a big accomplishment. I'm actually surprised they haven't done it before," said John Katsulas director of forensics at Boston College and president of the American Debate Association. "It demonstrates overall excellence in their program."

For the last three years, Liberty has finished in the top three in the ADA, National Debate Tournament, and Cross Examination Debate Association.

For other articles on the success of the debate team, see Liberty University Debate Team.

(Posted by Trask)

Christian Humanism

Glenn Stanton has an article in Christianity Today about Christian humanism. 

The pro-family movement is a critical subset of the pro-human movement. But our work needs the context provided by realizing that we have just left the most technologically advanced, but still humanly impoverished, century in history. We must weep at the human death, pain, and alienation caused by genocide, war, global poverty, substance abuse, fatherlessness, aids, and cancer, as well as pornography, human trafficking, child abandonment, commercialization, and radical individualism. Perhaps most of all, we must confront the fact that our knowledge of how to stop many of these scourges has never been greater. We just lack the wisdom and the will.

We must become students of humanity. We must become humanists: people who are unreservedly committed to human life at its fullest, and people deeply pained by human life at its worst. Yes, someone from the Religious Right said we must become humanists.

I don't primarily mean that the suffering of the modern era should drive us to humanism. As Christ said, the poor will always be among us. Human suffering in all its forms is a tragic reminder of the reality of the Fall. We will only be free when Christ's redemption is complete. However, we must become serious students of humanity because just as the Fall is real, so too is the Incarnation. The Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity—the Son of God leaving his eternal and divine communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit to become flesh and dwell among us—this is what should draw us to the question of what it means to be human in these inhumane times.

In his essay The Grand Miracle, C. S. Lewis wrote that if the Incarnation happened, "It was the central event in the history of the earth—the very thing that the whole story has been about." The Incarnation is the center of the Christian story, summed up by Jacob Handl in the 16th century:

God has become human. He remained what he was, and what he was not, he became, suffering neither confusion nor division.

The Incarnation is a heavenly declaration that humanity—both flesh and spirit—matters. Humanity matters because what God creates, becomes, and is seeking to redeem cannot escape our fascination.

It's not just that Christ became human. He lingered in humanity for 33 full years. I sometimes tease my colleagues by saying that if Jesus had been a good evangelical, he would have stayed in a human body for only a day or so, just enough time to get to the important "spiritual" work of saving humanity. If we verge on Gnosticism in our passion for "spiritual things," our Lord does not. It took him 30 years to get around to what we call his "public ministry." Christ, always obedient to the Father, was content to linger in daily human life. Perhaps the reason we have little record of his first 30 years is that they were largely unremarkable. Simple humanity was enough for God in the flesh.

The Incarnation means there are no small lives. All of human experience is meaningful. And while the Incarnation may be a distinctly Christian doctrine, it is also the doctrine that commits us most completely to seeking the common good of our non-Christian neighbors. We serve a God who created our humanity, weeps at the fall of our humanity, became our humanity, and is redeeming our humanity.

Rediscovering One Another True humanism will demolish our gnostic tendencies to believe in a small God who is only interested in our eternal destiny and our moral behavior. If the Incarnation is true, God is intensely interested in every part of human experience, every corner of creation. We, too, should be intensely interested in it, dedicated to showing others the fingerprints of God everywhere, in everything.

(Posted by Trask)

Ann Coulter: Intelligence and Wit

Ann Coulter's latest article is very witty, hopefully the deep wisdom is not overlooked due to her comical delivery: This article, whether she knew it or not (she knew it) cuts to something deeper than political or national infighting. Recognizing our sin and inability to save ourselves is the first step to reconciliation with the Creator of the Universe.  Society's consciouse efforts to call what is evil good and what is good evil is manifesting itself in so many ways, and Ann Coulter points out that even the most basic of common sense evils is no longer recognized.  Her conclusion is worth the read:

However the Duke lacrosse rape case turns out, one lesson that absolutely will not be learned is this: You can severely reduce your chances of having a false accusation of rape leveled against you if you don't hire strange women to come to your house and take their clothes off for money.

Also, you can severely reduce your chances of being raped if you do not go to strange men's houses and take your clothes off for money. (Does anyone else detect a common thread here?)

And if you are a girl in Aruba or New York City, among the best ways to avoid being the victim of a horrible crime is to not get drunk in public or go off in a car with men you just met. While we're on the subject of things every 5-year-old should know, I also recommend against dousing yourself in gasoline and striking a match.

Everyone makes mistakes, especially young people, but the outpouring of support for the victims and their families is obscuring what ought to be a flashing neon warning for potential future victims.

Whenever a gun is used in a crime, there are never-ending news stories about how dangerous guns are. But these girls go out alone, late at night, drunk off their butts, and there's nary a peep about the dangers of drunk women on their own in public. It's their "right."

Yes, of course no one "deserves" to die for a mistake. Or to be raped or falsely accused of rape for a mistake. I have always been unabashedly anti-murder, anti-rape and anti-false accusation — and I don't care who knows about it!

But these statements would roll off the tongue more easily in a world that so much as tacitly acknowledged that all these messy turns of fate followed behavior that your mother could have told you was tacky.

Not very long ago, all the precursor behavior in these cases would have been recognized as vulgar — whether or not anyone ended up dead, raped or falsely accused of rape. But in a nation of people in constant terror of being perceived as "judgmental," I'm not sure most people do recognize that anymore.

It shouldn't be necessary to point out that girls shouldn't be bar-hopping alone or taking their clothes off in front of strangers, and that young men shouldn't be hiring strippers. But we live in a world of Bill Clinton, Paris Hilton, Howard Stern, Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman," Democratic fund-raisers at the Playboy Mansion and tax deductions for entertaining clients at strip clubs.

This is an age in which the expression "girls gone wild" is becoming a redundancy. So even as the bodies pile up, I don't think the message about integrity is getting through.

The liberal charge of "hypocrisy" has so permeated the public consciousness that no one is willing to condemn any behavior anymore, no matter how seedy. The unstated rule is: If you've done it, you can't ever criticize it — a standard that would seem to repudiate the good works of the Rev. Franklin Graham, Malcolm X, Whittaker Chambers and St. Paul, among others.

Every woman who has had an abortion feels compelled to defend abortion for all women; every man who's ever been at a party with strippers thinks he has to defend all men who watch strippers; and every Democrat who voted for Bill Clinton feels the need to defend duplicity, adultery, lying about adultery, sexual harassment, rape, perjury, obstruction of justice, kicking the can of global Islamo-fascism down the road for eight years and so on.

This is crazy. (I can say that because I've never been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. Although I did test positive for "Olympic fever" once.)

In no area except morality would a sane person believe he can't criticize something stupid because he's done it. How about: If you've ever forgotten to fill up your car and run out of gas, you must forevermore defend a person's right to ignore the gas gauge. Or if you've ever forgotten to wear a coat in cold weather and caught a cold, henceforth you are obliged to encourage others not to dress appropriately in the winter.

This deep-seated societal fear of being accused of "hypocrisy" applies only to behavior touching on morals.

But we're all rotten sinners, incapable of redemption on our own. The liberal answer to sin is to say: I can never pay this back, so my argument will be I didn't do anything wrong.

The religion of peace's answer is: I've just beheaded an innocent man — I'm off to meet Allah!

I don't know what the Jewish answer is, but I'm sure it's something other than, "therefore, what I did is no longer bad behavior" — or the Talmud could be a lot shorter.

The Christian answer is: I can never pay this back, but luckily that Christ fellow has already paid my debt.

President Bush’s Leadership Style

Peggy Noonan has an excellent editorial today about President Bush in the Wall Street Journal. This former Reagan speech writer is one wise woman, and she does not hold back any punches.

To an extraordinary degree this is George W. Bush's presidency. Its strengths are his strengths and its weaknesses his weakness. This White House is him. The decisions it makes are him. 

This is true to some degree in all presidencies–all presidents set direction or, at the very least, a certain mood, certain administration tendencies. But I've never seen a president who controlled the facts and personality of his White House as Mr. Bush has.

. . .

Mr. Bush's feelings, assumptions and convictions set theme, direction and mood. All decisions as to declared destination go to him. He seeks a sense of control by making and sticking to the decision. When he won't budge, the White House won't budge. When it clings to an idea beyond evidence and history, it is Mr. Bush who is doing the clinging. When he stands firm, it stands firm.

. . .

George W. Bush . . . does not tolerate dissent, argument, bitter internal battles. He is the decider. He decides, and the White House carries through. He is loyal to his aides, who carry out his wishes. (It is unclear whether this is a loyalty born of emotional connection or one born of calculation: Do it my way and the tong protects you.) His loyalty means they will most likely not be fired or leaked against, no matter what heat they take from the outside. And so his aides move forward with the sharpness and edge of those who know their livelihoods and status are secure. Bruce Bartlett has written of how, as a conservative economist, he was treated with courtesy by the Clinton White House, which occasionally sought out his views. But once he'd offered mild criticisms of the Bush White House he was shut out, and rudely, by Bush staffers. Why would they be like that? Because they believe that as a conservative, Mr. Bartlett owes his loyalty to the president. He thought his loyalty was to principles.

There are many stories like this, from many others. It leaves friends on the outside having to self-censor or accept designation as The Enemy. It leaves a distinguished former government official and prominent Republican saying, in conversation, "Those people aren't drinking the Kool-Aid, they're sucking it from a spigot!"

. . .

If this White House is all George Bush, nothing changes or shifts, nothing hits refresh unless he does. He is a tough and stubborn man, a brave one too, and he leads with his heart. These are virtues, or can be. The presidency can break you–we've seen it break presidents–and he does not intend to be broken. But one senses he fears to bend because if he bends, he breaks.

The odd thing is sometimes the bravest thing is to question yourself, question the wisdom around you, reach out, tolerate a hellacious argument, or series of arguments. Yes there is a feeling of safety in decisiveness, but if it's the wrong decision, the safety doesn't last. And safety isn't the point in any case. Governing well is. That involves arguments. It means considering you may be wrong about some things. This isn't weak–it's humble. It's not breaking, it's bending, tacking, steadying yourself in a wind.

The greatest criticism of the president's governing style and White House is that they are uncalibrated.

It's not enough they commit themselves, they must commit future presidencies. It is not enough they do their job, they must announce "the concentrated work of generations." It's not enough they hit
Afghanistan, they must hit Iraq; it's not enough they improve, they must remake. It's not enough they must fight a war, they must reform America's most important social welfare program at the same time. It was not enough that Don Rumsfeld manage a war, he must at the same time modernize and revolutionize the military. It's not enough to allow spending to rise or raise it modestly, you must back the biggest growth in government since the Great Society. It's not enough to call for liberty, stand for liberty and assist the spread of liberty; you have to insist on it, now, or you are not America's friend. It's not enough to do A and B and C, you have to do Z too. It is all so uncalibrated.

Inside the White House they say, "We think big." Maybe. But maybe they're not thinking. They say, "We're bold." But maybe they're just unknowing, which is not the same thing. The bold weigh the price and pay it, get the lay of the land and move within it. The dreamy just spurt along on emotions. 

It's as if Bush doesn't understand the concept of danger. He understands sin, redemption, practicalities (every man has to make his living, life is competition, etc.). But danger? Does he understand how dangerous life is? It's not cowardly to know this, and factor it in. It is in fact strange not to.

. . .

Sometimes Mr. Bush acts as if he doesn't know you don't have to look for trouble, it will find you. When you are the American president, it knows your address by heart.

I know that on some level he knows this. The president has taken, those around him say, great comfort in biographies of previous presidents. All presidents do this. They all take comfort in the fact that former presidents now seen as great were, in their time, derided, misunderstood, underestimated. No one took the measure of their greatness until later. This is all very moving, but: Message to all biography-reading presidents, past present and future: Just because they call you a jackass doesn't mean you're Lincoln. 

In the end it doesn't matter if White House staffers suddenly listen to critics, to non-pre-vetted policy intellectuals, to questioners, complainers, whiners, Wise Men, if you can find them, and people who actually have something to say. But it does matter if George Bush does.

It matters that he becomes his broadest self and comes to tolerate dissent, argument, ambiguity. That actually would be daring. It would mark not the appearance of change but change, not the appearance of progress but the thing itself.

(Posted by Trask)