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A number of local blogs have covered Shane Claiborne's visit to Indianapolis as part of his "Jesus for President" Tour.
Check them out at The Wyote Blog and also at Indy Christian.
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend (though Ryan did attend and will be posting on this later in the week). Instead of hearing Claiborne speak, which I would have much preferred, I was on a lengthy 10-hour drive to the East Coast.
Here is an interesting video from the Americans for Tax Reform. They provide helpful information on taxation and federal spending issues. We are supposed to give 10 percent to God and how much to the government?!? 192 work days worth. Does that seem out of whack to anyone else?
America has a rat problem. And it’s gotten to the point that we’d be glad to have a Pied Piper. In case you’ve forgotten, the Pied Piper is the weird little dude with the colorful kicks who goes to towns, plays his pipe and thereby eradicates rats. What are our rats? Well, like Hamelin, there’s quite an infestation of them including, but not limited to, market uncertainty, worsened by an energy crisis, coupled with the terrorists who just don’t like us, and then there’s those social movements clashing right in our very streets. And that’s not even considering all the baby rats (or are they fetuses?) still in gestation! Just the thought makes you want to hop on the nearest stool and shriek.
So when the Piper came to town and offers a way to get rid of the rats, it gave much hope for the first time in a long time. “You mean, you can just play those pipes and they’ll simply leave?” they gush. “That’s quite right,” he platituded. I mean, gosh, you can just vote for him, he’ll redistribute the wealth, there will be no poor to feel guilty about! If we just vote for him, he’ll play his pipes and the terrorists will abandon their bombs and dance in the street; if we just vote for him, we won’t have to worry about that old Second Amendment either!
So what happens when he replaces the free market with an alternative? When we simply stop ‘picking fights’ with the terrorists? What if we make every interest group say one nice thing about the other side? The result will be utter chaos. We’d have twice the rats. Worse rats! And what if the Piper is unhappy when we don’t pay?
And so it is that we’re thrilled about this fix; we’re little mindful of who this piper is and what happens when his ideology undermines civilization as we’ve know it. Worse, what happens when our children follow our mindless example and themselves become entranced by the Piper, never to be seen again? Mindless, chestless children never to be seen again. Oh won’t that be quite a rat! Won’t we wish for yesterday as we finally descend the church steps, dazed and in utter bewilderment.
Ryan McCann directed us last week to an article posted on National Review Online about same sex marriage. I was surprised to find the Washington Blade investigating a question that I've posed on this blog several times.
If you don't like my definition of marriage, then what would yours be? If "moral values" are unimportant for a secular state-sanctioned marriage, what restricts marriages from being engaged between multiple partners (or for that matter, prostitution- which is nothing more than a legal contract between two consenting adults). If it's discrimination against gay men who want to be married, how is is not discrimination against polygamists? No one ever answers (I think Bil Browning did once- which was much appreciated).
From NRO.
What about polygamy? Is that the natural next step? When people ask me this, my stock answer has become, “I don’t know, go ask the guys in the Harvard Law School faculty lounge.” Because if the California decision stands, there simply is no longer any case to be made we have begun to win the war for judicial restraint. If a court can rule that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right (i.e., one deeply rooted in our nation’s traditions) then it can make up anything. Elite legal minds get to figure out what they think and break it to the rest of us once they’ve decided.
The Washington Blade, one of the nation’s leading gay newspapers, took up this question more thoughtfully than I do in its June 6 issue. The experts they consulted are somewhat divided on the question. But Prof. Jonathan Turley, for one, calls on gay-marriage advocates to make a clean breast of what the new “right-to-marry” principle means: Adult polygamists who “do not believe in child brides,” he told the paper, should be allowed to formalize their relationships.
“I don’t like polygamy but that’s not what’s important here,” Prof. Turley said. “[T]here will have to be a new definition of marriage because it’s disingenuous to say that gays and lesbians should be included in marriage but then for them to exclude others.” (emphasis mine).
I don’t know how the polygamy debate will end up. But if fidelity in marriage is culturally optional, and we’ve now got a fundamental human right to have the government confer dignity on all our family choices (which is what California supreme court ruled), the case for monogamy will surely be weakened as well.
But don’t worry: By the time it happens, culture will have shifted far enough that you won’t care anymore. That’s the progressives’ promise.
Read the Washington Blade's treatment of the issue here. Of course, most of their "experts" dismiss the polygamy issue by creating a straw man- bestiality.
Esther Rothblum, a lesbian professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University who published a three-year study on the effects of Vermont’s civil unions law, stresses that the California Supreme Court ruling has nothing to do with polygamy and said she doesn’t fear same-sex marriage leading to a repeal of polygamy laws.
“You hear people say that all the time,” she said. “‘Oh next they’ll rule that somebody can marry their dog,’ that kind of thing. But historically laws haven’t led to those kinds of things in other areas. For instance when women won the right to vote, it didn’t lead to children being able to vote, animals being able to vote. Nobody’s arguing for any of that. In a legal sense, I just don’t see that kind of thing happening.”
Ms. Rothblum, you are connecting two very un-related matters. I just can't think of a strong reason to prohibit prostitution and polygamy separate from a strong belief in traditional marriage and healthy sexual mores.
The fact remains, if the state defines same sex marriage bans as "discrimination", then how is it not discrimination to discriminate against individuals with multiple partners? Or prostitutes? There is no fundamental difference.
The Supreme Court gave a historic ruling this morning to overturn Washington D.C.'s long-standing ban on gun ownership.
From Reuters:
For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that individual Americans have the right to own guns for personal use, and struck down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital.
The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years the country's high court has addressed whether the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, rather than a right tied to service in a state militia.
This is the first time a gun control law has been struck down.
The Supreme Court's last review of the Second Amendment came in a five-page discussion in an opinion issued in 1939 that failed to definitively resolve the constitutional issue.
In Thursday's opinion, the court struck down the country's strictest gun control law adopted in Washington, D.C., 32 years ago. It bans private possession of handguns and requires that any rifles or shotguns kept at home be unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock.
This decision marks the beginning of what will surely be a high-spirited debate on the extent of the ruling and how it should impact other gun control regulations. Look for more reactions in the coming weeks as the ruling is analyzed. Right now, though, I'm thrilled that residents of our nation's capital will be allowed to defend themselves and their families, and I'm proud to see our Constitution honored in this way.
I just might buy a gun in celebration.
This is an article by Jennifer Roback Morse originally found in the National Catholic Register. It makes a reasonable argument for the negative effects of same-sex marriage on society. I've only posted part of the article. I encourage you to read the entire thing.
Advocates of same-sex “marriage” present the idea as a step forward for tolerance and respect. But recent developments place that interpretation very much in doubt.
Legalizing same-sex “marriage” is not a stand-alone policy, independent of all the other activities of the state. Once governments assert that same-sex unions are the equivalent of marriage, those governments must defend and enforce a whole host of other social changes.
Unfortunately, these government-enforced changes conflict with a wide array of ordinary liberties, including religious freedom and ordinary private property rights.
It began with the persecution of Catholic Charities in Boston. The archdiocese eventually closed down its adoption program, because the state of Massachusetts insisted that every adoption agency in the state must allow same-sex couples to adopt.
Recently, a Methodist organization in New Jersey lost part of its tax-exempt status because it refused to allow two lesbian couples to use their facility for a civil union ceremony. In Quebec, a Mennonite school was informed that it must conform to the official provincial curriculum, which includes teaching homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle.
At last report, the Mennonites were considering leaving the province rather than permit the imposition of the state-sponsored curriculum on their children.
And recently, a wedding photographer in New Mexico faces a hearing with the state’s Human Rights Commission because she declined the business of a lesbian couple. She didn’t want to take photos of their commitment ceremony.
The underlying pattern is unmistakable. Legalizing same-sex “marriage” has brought in its wake state regulation of other parts of society. The problem is sometimes presented as an issue of religious freedom, and so, in part, it is. But the issue runs deeper than religious freedom.
Read the rest of the article here.
During my college years perhaps nobody better represented the other side of the political spectrum at Indiana Wesleyan University than Shaun Marshall. While I was working with my College Republican friends to host the likes of Dinesh D'Souza, Star Parker, and Ollie North on campus, Shaun was representing the liberal viewpoint. He was the most widely known Democrat on campus.
When I was on the ticket under Randy Dewing who was running for student body president (I would run and win a year later). Our opposition was Shaun Marshall. No matter how mild mannered and soft spoken Shaun may appear to the casual observer--he was the enemy!
And then Shaun graduated, I had a year left with the campus to myself and devoid the most recognized liberal voice, and I rarely thought of Shaun again.
Fast forward a few years, I'm into my career and have started my second career and I'm at a seminar in Dallas typing notes on my computer when an email comes in. Shaun Marshall?
He even identifies himself as a voice from my past! Wow, what's this all about.
What ensued over the next weeks was an incredible dialogue between two followers of Jesus Christ from opposite ends of the political spectrum.
As our country moves deeper and deeper into a political season ripe with race and religion (Jeremiah Wright), this dialogue is very, very enlightening.
You see, Shaun has the pedigree. A native and current resident of Chicagoland, Shaun is an African American who has spent his life in the black church. Since I last saw him at IWU, he's climbed the professional ladder and moved into positions of real leadership and impact. And, like me he's gone through a metamorphosis of sorts that led him to quit the "dream job" to pursue a new path.
The email conversation that Shaun and I shared was so good that a few weeks ago I pitched an idea to him and then to the folks at Veritas Rex. "What do you think of publishing this?"
So that's what we're doing. Over the coming weeks I'll be posting one email at a time the dialogue that Shaun and I have shared. Shaun will also be visiting the site to participate in any discussion that ensues via the comment feature.
Stay tuned. Some interesting stuff is just beyond the horizon.
Americans for Tax Reform has been issuing a number of press releases to illustrate the effects of the 2011 tax increase if Congress allows the Bush tax cuts not to be renewed. Here is the first. Read press releases 1-4 here.
PUTTING A FACE ON THE LARGEST TAX INCREASE EVER #1
The Davis Family: A Middle Income Family in Middle America
Every day this week, Americans for Tax Reform will be putting a face on the largest tax increase in the history of the world. This is a tax increase supported by Democrat Barack Obama and all Congressional Democrats, and opposed by Senator John McCain and Americans for Tax Reform. These taxpayers have a face, and ATR will be showcasing them all week long.
Mike and Susan Davis live in Canton, OH. They have two children: Tommie is 5, and Christine is 3. They have a household income of $65,000 (the median amount for a family of four). They take the standard deduction. How much are their taxes scheduled to rise?
If the Present Tax Code Remains in Place
The Davis’ will have a federal tax bill of $3000.Under the 2011 Tax Hike
The Davis’ standard deduction is shrunk because of the return of the marriage penalty.
This means that their taxable income goes up.
The tax rate on the first several thousand dollars of their taxable income has grown by 50%.
The child tax credit has been cut in half, so Tommie and Christine don’t help as much.
The Davis’ tax bill will be over $5000—a full $2000 higher than if present law were simply kept in place.
Veritas Rex Nation,
Please help me welcome our newest author and legal intern for the summer, Aaron Baker. You will be seeing posts from him periodically throughout the summer. Here is post #1:
The Deal w/ the 20-Somethings
With even conservative commentators admitting that Obama’s personality is one of the most “magnetic” in our nation’s history, it should seem to go without saying that young people are going to vote for him. But that’s 20-something logic—older people don’t get why Obama is such a default. So people in their 50s and beyond kind of scratch their heads, wondering why my generation is so “magnetized.” Well, to stick with the theme of magnets, it has a lot to do with the poles (or, mores, if you prefer) that culture has provided us.
Blame it on the 1960s or whatever corrosive period of history you please-- let’s just be honest--20-somethings are magnetized almost exclusively by image. Where once Americans wouldn’t even dreamed of supporting a candidate with opposing philosophies, this is no longer true. Some of my peers actually struggled to decide whether to support Ron Paul or Barak Obama in the primary! This isn’t ideology-confusion; it’s absence of ideology! And this vacuum has been inevitably replaced by the superficial.
And so it is, the “chickens” of tolerance and MTV are coming home to roost. Poles of “there-are-no-dangerous-ideas” and “sounds-good, looks-good, feels-good,” have replaced traditional poles of “long-term implications” and, better yet, the ultimate inquiry: “what is right.”
It's good to have a fellow conservative 20-something on board. Welcome Aaron!
Ryan blogged about Shane Claiborne last week. Looks like Shane will be in Indianapolis tomorrow for anyone who would like to hear him.
Lockerbie Central UMC
237 N East St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-637-2716
Shane's website doesn't give the exact time, but I am told via another source that it is at 7PM.
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