Julea Ward

If the shoe were are the other foot, imagine the publicity. The story is out there, but it is not getting much coverage.  Here are some of the headlines.

• Court Upholds Expulsion of Counseling Student Who Opposes Homosexuality
• Court rules student counselors must ‘affirm’ gay clients
• Lawsuit claims school bias on Christian views
• A Disappointing Ruling in Michigan

What is involved? The Alliance Defense Fund is defending two Christian ladies who want to uphold their Christian beliefs at public universities.

• Julea Ward
• Jennifer Keeton

Amazingly, there are not just one, but two cases. Both feature attractive ladies and a controversial topic.  Yet that does not seem to be sufficient to attract much attention from the lamestream media.  Nope. We got to protect the “good guys” from their own bad publicity.

What crime have these ladies committed? They are unwilling to endorse homosexuality. Both ladies are in graduate programs in school counseling, and neither is willing to accept homosexuality as normal, ethical behavior.  So the universities these ladies attend want to throw them out.

Believe it or not, a judge has already upheld Julea Ward’s expulsion. Get this quote.

In his 48-page opinion, Judge Steeh said the university had a rational basis for adopting the ACA Code of Ethics.

“Furthermore, the university had a rational basis for requiring students to counsel clients without imposing their personal values,” he wrote in a portion of his ruling posted by The Detroit News. “In the case of Ms. Ward, the university determined that she would never change her behavior and would consistently refuse to counsel clients on matters with which she was personally opposed due to her religious beliefs – including homosexual relationships.” (from here)

We actually want people to pretend to believe something — when they don’t? Is that not the alternative?

What is absurd is that these universities actually claim not to discriminate. Nope. They just insist you think their way because that is the only correct way to think.  Because Keeton has expressed a view contrary to her faculty, here is what Augusta State University insists she do.

The lawsuit says Augusta State faculty members developed a remediation plan specifically for Ms. Keeton and told her she would be expelled from the College of Education’s counselor-education program if she did not fulfill its requirements. The plan calls on Ms. Keeton to attend workshops on serving diverse populations, read articles on counseling gay, lesbian, and bisexual and transgendered people, and write reports to an adviser summarizing what she has learned. It also instructs her to work to increase her exposure to, and interaction with, gay populations, and suggests that she attend the local gay-pride parade. Ms. Keeton has refused to comply. (from here)

The above quote is from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here is how another source puts it.

Jennifer Keeton, 24, who is pursuing a master’s degree in counseling, said she was ordered to undergo a re-education plan that requires her to attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading and write papers to describe their effects on her beliefs, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The ultimatum: Complete this re-education plan or be expelled from ASU’s Counselor Education Program. (from here)

It is not a matter of just completing remediation training.  Keeton has to change her opinion. Even if she completes the program, she has no guarantee she will not be expelled.  

Note that the expulsion from Augusta State University specifically targets Christians.

Two faculty members, according to court documents, said that Miss Keeton is prejudiced because of her ethical beliefs on GLBTQ issues. In reply, she asked them how her Christian convictions are any less acceptable than those of a Buddhist or Muslim student, to which one faculty member replied, “Christians see this population as sinners,” court papers show. (from here)

These ladies are being thrown out of public universities paid for by tax dollars. These are universities responsible for educating the people who educate our children. And what does their faculty believe? Unless you believe there is nothing wrong homosexuality, you are not qualified to be a school counselor. That is, if you believe what the Bible says about homosexuality, you are not qualified to be a school counselor.

Jennifer Keeton

There are various approaches to pamphleteering on the Internet.  Most of us are familiar with how bloggers spread their views.  A different approach, however, is by its nature more obscure.  That is the commenter who posts the same long and detailed comment everywhere he can.

The first time I saw such a comment I was sort of flattered and amazed.  Who would do so much work just to refute me?  Fortunately, my curiosity worked against such an ego trip.  Taking advantage of the wonders of Google I did a search.  Sure enough, I had no particular reason to feel so flattered.  

The last such pamphleteering comment on my little website came from Doug Indeap (see here) on this post, AN EXCUSE TO BE OFFENDED .  Here is a list of some of the places Indeap has posted variations of or a portion of the same comment.

• Back to the Constitution provides a concise explanation of the origin of the the phrase: Separation Of Church And State
• Video: The Truth About “Separation of Church and State” provides a teenager’s point of view.
• In his version of the Separation of Church and State, Mr. Garner Goes To Washington very carefully explains what is wrong with the oft used phrase, “separation of church and state.”
• The Emerging Scholars Blog, on the other hand, asks an interesting — and the crucial — question:  Is God Relevant in the Public Square?

While Doug Indeap’s comment is carefully reasoned, it is not well reasoned.  What follows is an explanation of why I hold that opinion.

For starters, please take the time to read Is God Relevant in the Public Square? I think you will find this post well worth the effort. Is God Relevant in the Public Square? considers the alternative options we have for dealing with the subject of faith in the public square.  With Option #3, Is God Relevant in the Public Square? offers our nation’s traditional solution.

This third option is the one for which Guinness argues. In such a public square, all faiths (and non-faiths) are welcome. In such a public square, persuasion is used, not coercion.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this third option is what Doug Indeap advocates.  If you look at the video I posted on AN EXCUSE TO BE OFFENDED , it is about a 75 year old cross.  Presumably Indeap viewed the video.  The cross he thinks violates his religious freedom is about as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get in the lower 48 states.  Nonetheless, Indeap still (albeit politely) takes exception to this so-called promotion of religion by government — even though veterans paid for this 75 year old cross.

Indeap either too much fears or reviles any evidence of God in the public square. Perhaps Indeap confuses secular government with the secularization of the public square.  There is a clear difference.

Because we are self-aware, we are inherently religious creatures.  Because we think, we wonder why.  How did we come to be?  Although our search is too often aimless, many of us live much of our lives in a quest to know the answer.  We debate, we argue, and sometimes we fight over our differing conclusions.

What history has too often demonstrated is that a politically powerful faction will often try to use government to enforce its religious views upon everyone else.  In spite of the 1st Amendment, the United States is no exception.  In our era, many, particularly many of our elites, have no use for religion.  Thus the citizenry must be vigilant against secularism.  To ensure each of us can practice our own particular religious beliefs (both in private and in public), we must stand up for each other’s right to practice religion.  As a People we must ensure our government leaders do not abuse their powers to either stifle one religion or to promote another.

Forced secularization of the public square is the stifling of religious belief. Look at Arlington Cemetery.  Would you have the Christian crosses and the Jewish stars expunged from the tombstones?  Would you have the crosses removed?  Would you deface the image of Christ?  Look at what the secularists demand.  The majority religion of the United States is Christianity; that the secularists would have us forget.  Christian belief is integral to our history, but the secularists say no way.  Christianity is at the foundation of both our culture and our method of government, but the secularists insist it never was.

Without Christianity, could the United States exist as we know it?  If you were educated only in the public schools, you may think the answer is yes.  However, without Christianity, we would not have religious freedom in the United States.  Look at at the Declaration of Independence.  God is where it all began.

To secularize the public square is to insist we deny and ignore the truth of our nation’s origins.   Secularization creates  an unsupportable fantasy.  What was the Founder’s objective?  Did they create a secular government to protect or to deny the practice of religious belief?

We cannot give into the secularization of the public square.  If we continue giving ground, not just our government, but we too, including our families and our children, must become more and more secularized.  Yet when he argues for the secularization of the public square, that is what Indeap risks advocating.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

When the Founders wrote this law, what were they concerned about?  The People looked around, and they saw the possibility the Federal Government might impose a state religion upon the new nation.  Because England and some of the colonies had state sponsored churches, they feared being forced to tithe to a church not of their choice.  They also did not want to be pressured to attend a church not of their choice.

On the other hand, the People had no desire to separate government from religious practice.  Even Thomas Jefferson (famed for that widely misunderstood phrase, “a wall of separation between Church & State”) approved the use of federal funds to Christianize the Indians (see here).

Now, however, we have lawyers paid with taxpayer funds to find objectionable religious objects on government property (see here).   In addition, stirring up useless controversy generates free publicity.

This video provides an example.

Here is a link to a group fighting the easily offended.  Until we can get judges willing to accept the original meaning of the Constitution, we have to fight fire with fire.  This mess is profitable for lawyers, but it is a waste of time for everyone else.

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent’s life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy. Even John McCain, the most admirable and estimable torture opponent, says openly that in such circumstances, “You do what you have to do.” And then take the responsibility.  (continue here)

Is Krauthhammer right?  Are there exceptions?  Or is he answering the wrong question? If torture is wrong, whether it works or not is irrelevant.   What matters is that we are no longer defending ourselves or someone else.  Instead, we are inflicting pain for the mere sake of inflicting pain.  Instead, we give license to our hatred to run rampant.

Krauthhammer is answering the wrong question.  If it is moral to kill an enemy in self defense or in the defense of another, then it is certainly moral to inflict pain on an enemy in self defense or in the defense of another.   The Law, however, is an awkward instrument.  Our forebears banned torture because they saw little use for it and much potential trouble.  They saw the problem as defining what constitutes torture, not whether or not torture works.

Unfortunately, thanks to the pragmatic souls who lead us, what the Law says is now no longer especially important.  Because we have so elevated legal pragmatism, the Law says whatever we “need” it to say.  So now, instead of considering what defines torture, we find ourselves arguing over whether or not torture works.

For Conservatives, this argument over whether or not torture works is a trap.  What if we “win” the argument?  Do we want legalized torture?  What Conservative would trust the government to use torture with appropriate discretion?  What defines a Conservative is that we do not expect the best from mere men.   Instead we prepare for the worse and only hope for the best.

Imagine what would happen to a law defining the “appropriate” use of torture.  Thanks to Democratic Party’s tireless efforts to “evolve” the Law, has it not become guesswork to anticipate how a judge will interpret the Law?  Too many judges disregard the letter of the law.  Instead they worry about results.  They see their job as competently evolving the Law to meet modern needs.  These judges legislate from the bench.

What would such judges do with a law that defined the appropriate use of torture?  Would they consider the law or look at the circumstances and decide each torture case pragmatically? Of course they would apply legal pragmatism, not the law.   So the law defining torture would “evolve.”    As the law that defined torture evolved, what vile thing would “appropriate torture” become?

A politician, a pundit, a lawyer – most anybody can call anything they want moral.  It is even easier to define anything we want as pragmatic.  It is just a matter of starting with the “right” premises and disregarding any disagreeable facts that get in the way.  Such is the nature of men.  Angels do not need laws.  An angel also would not try to bend the Law so out of shape that the people who wrote it would not recognize it.

I got the above cartoon from here.   It is a web site that sells books.  The author wants to tell us how to become happy — for a fee.  The fee is buying his book.

People want happiness.  I started to give this post a different name:  ARE YOU STILL MAKING A DIFFERENCE?   Then I Googled “making a difference”, I realized that title would give the wrong impression.  What follows below is an excerpt from speech that Charles Murray gave at the American Enterprise Institute‘s Dinner.  The speech explains how European governments are denying their citizens the opportunity for individual happiness.

I start from this premise: A human life can have transcendent meaning, with transcendence defined either by one of the world’s great religions or one of the world’s great secular philosophies. If transcendence is too big a word, let me put it another way: I suspect that almost all of you agree that the phrase “a life well-lived” has meaning. That’s the phrase I’ll use from now on.

And since happiness is a word that gets thrown around too casually, the phrase I’ll use from now on is “deep satisfactions.” I’m talking about the kinds of things that we look back upon when we reach old age and let us decide that we can be proud of who we have been and what we have done. Or not.

To become a source of deep satisfaction, a human activity has to meet some stringent requirements. It has to have been important (we don’t get deep satisfaction from trivial things). You have to have put a lot of effort into it (hence the cliché “nothing worth having comes easily”). And you have to have been responsible for the consequences.

There aren’t many activities in life that can satisfy those three requirements. Having been a good parent. That qualifies. A good marriage. That qualifies. Having been a good neighbor and good friend to those whose lives intersected with yours. That qualifies. And having been really good at something–good at something that drew the most from your abilities. That qualifies. Let me put it formally: If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four: family, community, vocation, and faith. Two clarifications: “Community” can embrace people who are scattered geographically. “Vocation” can include avocations or causes.  (from here)

Are you happy?  Can your government make you happy?  What Murray argues is that by expanding the role of government, European societies have undermined the happiness of their Peoples.  By removing from people their responsibilities and transferring these responsibilities to government, government has made it difficult for people to think their lives can make a difference.  If you do not think your life can make a difference, can you be happy?

The Cartoons

Cartoon from here.

Supposedly, we face a huge and frightening economic crisis.  Supposedly, we must give government tremendous powers to solve this crisis.  So it is our government has quickly spent hundred of a billions, leaving many to wonder where all that money has gone.  Nonetheless, it was such an easy thing to do.  All we did is double down on the debt that created the economic crisis in the first place.

Why has crisis has not passed?  Why does Obama tell us these huge sums were not enough?  Why does he say that more is still required?  What does that wonderful man intend to do?

Obama told us he does not intend for government to supplant private enterprise.  No!  Who could imagine such a thing?   Instead, he told us his schemes will catalyze private enterprise.  What does Obama intend to do?  Go.  Look carefully at his speech (here).

• He will “fix” our economic crisis by completing the take over of our banking system.
• He will “fix” our education crisis by converting our public education system, now a system of monopolies run by state governments, into a national monopoly.
• He will “fix” our health care crisis by completing the nationalization of health care.
• He will “fix” our energy crisis by picking winners and losers in the energy business.

Yes.  In the future — in the years to come — wherever there is a crisis, there you will find the Obama administration “fixing”.  And what be his authority?  That will be the crisis itself.   There is nothing in the Constitution — not one word — that allows him to “fix” these things except the fact the government broke them in the first place.

“The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, by themselves.” –Barack Obama, quoting Abraham Lincoln

“[N]ot a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make [a pencil].” –Leonard Read, “I, Pencil”

Therefore, making pencils — and, by implication, everything else — is a legitimate object of government.

What’s wrong with this argument?  ( from here)

Here, by the way, is Obama’s quotation of Lincoln in context.

The Nature and Objects of Government, with Special Reference to Slavery. Fragmentary Notes. About July i, 1854.

Government is a combination of the people of a country to effect certain objects by joint effort. The best framed and best administered governments are necessarily expensive; while by errors in frame and maladministration most of them are more onerous than they need be, and some of them very oppressive. Why, then, should we have government? Why not each individual take to himself the whole fruit of his labor, without having any of it taxed away, in services, corn, or money? Why not take just so much land as he can cultivate with his own hands, without buying it of any one ?

The legitimate object of government is “to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.” There are many such things – some of them exist independently of the injustice in the world. Making and maintaining roads, bridges, and the like ; providing for the helpless young and afflicted ; common schools ; and disposing of deceased men’s property, are instances.

But a far larger class of objects springs from the injustice of men. If one people will make war upon another, it is a necessity with, that other to unite and cooperate for defense. Hence the military department. If some men will kill, or beat, or constrain others, or despoil them of property, by force, fraud, or non-compliance with contracts, it is a common object with peaceful and just men to prevent it. Hence the criminal and civil departments.

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere. The desirable things, which the individuals of a people cannot do, or cannot well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branches off into an infinite variety of subdivisions.

The first – that in relation to wrongs – embraces all crimes, misdemeanors, and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself.

From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government. (from here) (Note that the speech continues and refers to the subject of slavery.)

From Lincoln’s perpective, we have manage to invert things.  We have made what Lincoln called the “other” class the far larger class.

Like many people these days, I participate in email political discussions.  Sometimes they get rather brutal.  Even when I do not bring up religion, I get accused of religious bigotry in my opinions.  Fortunately, I find this more ironic than hurtful. Why will become clear.

What was the subject of my latest email discussion?  It happens that our courtrooms are highly secularized institutions these days.  So whenever some group wants to march into a new era of civil rights, that is where they go.  The rage these days is for homosexual rights.  Hence the courts in Florida are trying to overturn that state’s ban on same-sex adoption (see here).  The court’s effective rationale is that discrimination against homosexuals is religious bigotry.

Religion is often treated as a matter of “faith” and therefore not logical.  In past times, very logical people would have thought that belief quite odd.  We have a problem.  We have to find some basis for appropriate behavior.  What basis do we use? Any logical structure must rest on some axioms or postulates.

Whether they realize or admit it, almost all the people in our nation use Christian ethics as their point of reference.  Christianity either was or is the religion of our parents and grandparents, and it provided the basis from which we learn right from wrong.  What we value today, we value because of our Christian heritage.  This is true even of those who level the charges of religious bigotry.

Consider our legal system.  We have these things we call rights.   We presume that everyone has rights.  Why?  When we consider our ancestors in eras past, did not the rights of the sovereign surmount all other rights. What rights did a peasant have?  Where have all the slaves gone?  What makes us different?   It seems that we have this notion that people are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights.   Does that not mean we begin with a religious basis to justify our rights?  We use a belief about God to provide a foundation for our nation’s laws, an axiom from which we form almost every other logical construct in our legal system.

Nevertheless, we speak of our government as secular.  We do not permit our government to establish a particular religion and impose that religion upon others.  However, even freedom of religion, the choice to believe what we wish about God, is Christian concept.

Our nation’s founders approached religion from different points of view.  They admired the Roman republic and many of them emulated the gentlemen of that time.   Yet when they began the revolution upon which the staked their lives and fortunes, they justified their right to do so in God’s name.  The vast majority of these men married Christian women, attended Christian churches, and received Christian funernals at the end of their lives.

So when we talk about homosexuals raising children, about what do we debate?  The problem is perplexing.  We must weigh our responsibility to protect each others God-given rights.   What rights do children have to a decent home and upbringing?  What criteria should we use when considering adoption?

When the subject is ethics and our nation was founded on Christian religious beliefs, why should any consider it strange that Christians refer to the Bible?  Don’t we have the right to do so?  What else should a Christian use?  Science provides only disputable facts.  Science provides no basis for right and wrong.

Consider how one might approach this problem based upon science.  Would not the secularists would consider the following as given?

• We evolved.
• Homosexuality is a genetic aberration, that is, a dead-end mutation.

Don’t we know for a reproducible fact that it takes both a man and a woman to produce a child?  After birth, it is now medically demonstrated that women should breastfeed their infants.  Until recent times fathers protected and cared for mother and child.  Otherwise the child would most likely die.  Even in our era, unmarried women with children tend to be the most impoverished.

Where do same-sex couples either fit into that arrangement or how could they improve upon it?  Which of two men will breastfeed a child?  When so much of our behavior is learned, is it logical to say a child misses nothing important when it does not have both a mother and a father?  Don’t we expect children to learn from their role models?

What if we believe there is no God?  Then there is only what little we know of the natural order of things.  In fact, without God, our knowledge of the natural order must of necessity become our bible.  In the natural order of things, what place does homosexuality have?  Didn’t the Nazis begin from this belief to justify exterminating homosexuals (see here)?

Without the Bible, God’s Word, and the belief in a Divine Creator, we can and would justify much brutality, and it would take very little proof.

Currently, same-sex marriage is legally meaningless.  How much will that change if it is legalized?

What makes marriage significance is the difference.

Of all the buildings in Washington D.C., the Capitol is perhaps the most grand.  This is where the People’s representatives meet.  This where the weight of power resides.

There is a myth that the president has the real power.  History gives lie to this myth.

Cartoon from here.

Don’t we all remember what happened to President Richard Nixon?  He was driven from power by the threat of impeachment.  Nixon knew Congress would remove him from office.

On Election Day, we will vote for our new president and vice president.  In addition, we will vote on one third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives.   While the presidency is important our decision on who we elect to represent us in Congress (Senate and the House in total) is far more important.  Why?  Well, here are some reasons.

• Congress controls the budget.   That includes:  what we tax, how much we spend, and on what we spend our money.
• Congress makes the laws.  The president only enforces our laws.
• Congress approves the president’s personnel appointments and organizes the structure of our government.  For example, our military command structure was written into law by Congress.
• Congressmen and Senators often serve for decades.  The president is term limited.

Whereas our president is almost unapproachable, our Senators and our Congressmen (particularly our Congressmen) provide us a link to what is going on in Washington D. C.  If we choose to contact these people, they can hear us and give voice to our concerns.  If we want effective representation, we must choose wisely.

So it is that this is a particularly important election in Gainesville, Virginia.  And we must pay close attention.  We have two open seats, in the Senate, and one in the House of Representatives.

• We have two former governors, Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner contesting Senator John Warner’s seat in the Senate.  While Mark Warner is the news media favorite and well funded, Gilmore represents the logical choice for the People.  Unlike Mark Warner, Gilmore is less interested in raising our taxes and interfering in our lives.  Moreover, Gilmore keeps his word.
• We have a highly successful businessman and a professional politician contesting Congressman Tom Davis’ seat in the House of Representatives.  Keith Fimian started his own business and made it into a nationwide company.  Now he sees the opportunities that made his success possible disappearing, and he is horrified for the sake of his children.  He wants us to give him the chance to steer our nation’s careering course from disaster.  Gerry Connolly, Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, favors big government and big government spending.  Connolly would take us further down the road that leads to a cliff.

In both races we have a clear choice.  We have a Democrat who favors bigger government with the temptation of taxing the rich.  We have a Republican who would steer us away from that precipice and the lie that the rich would ever willingly submit exorbitant taxation (The Democratic Party is the party of the rich.).  We have the choice of government running our lives or running our own lives.

Without Congress, Barack Obama cannot implement his plans.

Cartoon from here.

With Congress at his side, an Obama presidency becomes truly frightful.

Cartoon from here.

Is McCain resorting to scare tactics?  How do you define socialism?

socialism n 1: a political theory advocating state ownership of industry 2: an economic system based on state ownership of capital [syn: socialist economy] [ant: capitalism]