The death of George Floyd and its aftermath has prompted a lot of discussion of the need for change. Proposals that I have heard include increased training of law enforcement, allowing for law enforcement agents to be personally sued, and one that I like if it is workable – increased body cams. I have also heard of proposals that do not make any sense at all to me, such as defunding the police. What do people want? Total anarchy? That…..
In his 2014 article “Why Stop at Refusing to Bake a Cake for a Same-Sex Marriage,” Bernard Goldberg (a political pundit seen as conservative and actually opposed President Obama) sees the issue of a business owner who does not want to cater same sex “weddings” as a civil rights issue.1 He states: “But when laws are based on deeply held religious beliefs, I get nervous.” He compares this to people using their religious beliefs to justify segregation and laws against…..
Neither Side Gets It! C-Span recently aired a debate hosted by the CATO institute – “Religious Freedom and Anti-Discrimination Law” – regarding Colorado bringing its force to bear on baker Jack Phillips who refused to do a same-sex “wedding” cake. Ilya Shapiro of the CATO Institute elegantly defended freedom of religion and freedom of speech. John Paul Schnapper-Casteras of the NAACP, made numerous references to Piggy Park, a restaurant that discriminated against “blacks.” Schnapper-Casteras was trying to “piggy back” onto…..
This past week I was struck by two news stories. The first one was Rachel Dolezal being disinvited from a Baltimore book festival.1 She was the person forced to resign as President of the NAACP because it was discovered she was not “black.” The second news story was a federal appeals court ruling that a 17 year old Wisconsin high school student, Ashton Whitaker, who is female, may use the boy’s room.2 Writing about the school’s policy, U.S. Circuit Judge…..
On August 28, 2015, a Harris County Deputy Sheriff was shot multiple times in the back. The “Black Lives Matter” campaign is being blamed for much of the recent violence against police.1 From what I have been able to ascertain, the accused murderer, Shannon J. Miles, a 30-year old man, lived at home with his mother.2 Evidently his father was not a part of the picture. Once again, I can see how our problems as a society would mostly go…..
This is really a follow-up to a blog that I posted on June 08, 2015 – “A Matter of Rights?” I made the point that a man becoming a woman, two dudes marrying each other, or a person becoming a cat is not a matter of rights. It is an impossibility. A person cannot be someone or something that they are not just because they want to be. And an institution such as marriage is not just whatever we want…..