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Gender Confusion and Prop 8 in Letter to the LA Times

Some letters to the Los Angeles Times follow up on some stories I recently blogged about here.

Harvey H. Liss of Irvine wrote in about claim filed by Lawrence King’s family.  He chides the family for basing their claim on the school not keeping King from crossdressing, then goes on to write:
If the district is guilty of anything, it would be exactly the opposite. It would be for tolerating a homophobic environment and bullying among students -- not for allowing King to be who he was.
King was a male who was dressing like a female, and he was a troubled boy – that’s who he was.  There’s that “homophobic” nonsense again.  While assault and destruction of property are unacceptable, schoolkids will always tease each other about their differences.  Why is it any worse to tease someone about crossdressing than it is to tease them about, say, their pimples?  We have more control over how we dress than we do our skin condition.
The school must provide a safe environment for all.
This would be easier if we had separation of state and school.

The article on whether or not school districts should take a stand on Proposition 8 inspired two letters that were published.

Carol May of Los Angeles wrote:
Unless significant numbers of our K-12 students are getting married, school boards should say nothing on the matter.

School boards are charged with making school policy, period.
If only it were so.  Unfortunately, since the state micromanages curriculum, whatever the state’s official position is will be taught in the schools.  Without Proposition 8 passing, the official state position will remain that marriage is not something between a bride and a groom, but rather “Party A” and “Party B” – there is no difference between something uniting the sexes and something excluding one of the sexes.  There is no difference between something that propagates society and something that doesn't.  And any student who says there is can be punished.

Michael McDowell of Los Angeles wrote:
People who believe they can only safeguard their rights and privileges by denying those very same rights and privileges to others have embraced the ideology of Nazi-era Germany, apartheid-era South Africa and the Guantanamo Bay-era United States.
Do you see that?  If you believe that marriage unites the sexes (as every society throughout history maintained), or that that state doesn’t have the same interest in licensing the kind of union that cannot ever produce a child, or that four judges should not be able to force us to change our marriage licensing against our will, then you are a Nazi.  A Nazi!  Bill Clinton signed the DOMA.  Is he a Nazi?

We did not and will not deny rights to someone based on their homosexuality.  But we do not want to reorder all of our society for the sake of someone who does not want to play by the rules.  You are welcome on the bus.  You are not welcome to tell us that we have to take the tires off of the bus.  Marriage moves society forward by uniting the sexes.

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Gorilla a More Dedicated Parent Than 38-Year-Old Human

Sometimes, wild animals behave better than human beings.
A gorilla at a zoo in the German city of Muenster is refusing to let go of her dead baby's body several days after it died of unknown causes.

Allwetter Zoo spokeswoman Ilona Zuehlke says the 3-month-old male baby died on Saturday but its 11-year-old mother continues to carry its body around.
Contrast that with this woman, who apparently tossed her living newborn into a dumpster.  The baby was rescued by an 11-year-old sibling who has more sense than her own mother.  California has “safe surrender” laws that make it perfectly legal for this woman to turn in a baby up to 72 hours after birth at a hospital or fire station – completely without strings and anonymously.  No child support, no shaming, no penalty.

Ah, but wasn’t “safe and legal” abortion supposed to make sure that every child born would be loved by her parents?  What happened to that?

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Score Another One For Grandma

Nothing like a handgun to keep a criminal from making you a victim.
An 85-year-old woman boldly went for her gun and busted a would-be burglar inside her home, then forced him to call police while she kept him in her sights, police said.
She should have rapped his knuckles, too.
"I just walked right on past him to the bedroom and got my gun," Leda Smith said.
What would she have done if she had lived under gun control?
After the 17-year-old boy called 911, Smith kept holding the gun on him until state police arrived at her home in Springhill Township, about 45 miles south of Pittsburgh.
Good for her.  Let’s see what AARP does with her.
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Playful Walrus Update

I've been quiet here today because I've been busy doing other things.  I encourage you to check out some of the links on the right to read previous entries or other blogs.  Also, feel free to drop me some feedback at the e-mail address provided.

Thanks for checking in.


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California Schools

Here’s another reason why we should have separation of state and school.  School boards are being asked to weigh in on Proposition 8.  Of course, you know that the teacher union dues are going to fight Proposition 8, right?

Meanwhile, as Los Angeles Times staff writer Tami Abdollah reports, a school district gets caught in a catch-22 in Ventura County, California.  A crossdressing and supposedly homosexual student named Lawrence King as murdered, perhaps in response to sexual harassment, by another student.  Both were minors.
The family of an Oxnard eighth-grader who was shot by a classmate at school has filed personal injury claims against the school district and county, alleging that their failure to protect the boy led to his death.
Sounds reasonable, right?  Though I think the primary defendants should be the murderer and his parents.
Lawrence King, 15, was shot in the head Feb. 12 at E.O. Green Junior High School. At the time, he was a ward of Ventura County, a foster child living at Casa Pacifica, a shelter for abused and troubled children in Camarillo.
So he was abused or troubled.  So the family that apparently was abusing or troubling this boy is now claiming a loss because of his death against the people who were taking care of him.  Convenient.
The claim filed by Lawrence's parents, Dawn and Gregory King, and his brother Rocky King last week alleges that the Hueneme School District did not enforce the school dress code and therefore failed to protect Lawrence from harm.
Let me explain something about California, which officially advocates crossdressing and homosexual behavior.  If the school would have tried to stop King from crossdressing, the ACLU or some other organization would have successfully sued the school district.  Now the district is facing a claim because they didn’t prevent him from crossdressing.  If this claim is rewarded or turns into a lawsuit and is allowed to stand including those grounds, it is a catch-22 and the taxpayers get screwed.
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What If You Couldn't Hear the Color Red?

In a heavy-handed appeal to emotion, and a deliberate attempt to skirt the law, television ads are running in California that show a bride having trouble walking down the aisle to marry her groom, and the tag line is, “What if you couldn’t marry the person you love?”  Interesting that they use the scenario of a bride and a groom to try to convince us that two people of the same sex should also be able to get marriage licenses, just like a bide and groom do.

I could think of some great parody versions – with a brother and a sister, or a bride walking down the aisle to two grooms, or to a man who is already married.  The other side scoffs at such a thing.  Interesting that these people agree with us that only some people should be able to marry the person they love.

You can see the ad via the link.  Los Angeles Times staff writer Dan Morain reports.
But according to its producers, the television spot is not about getting votes in the election. They say that the nonprofit corporation that put up millions of dollars to air it is simply trying to encourage tolerance of same-sex marriage.
Allowing people to have there ceremonies and live together is tolerance.  It is intolerance to force the rest of us to strip “bride” and “groom” from state-issued marriage licenses.  We are not being shown tolerance.
Some experts believe that the ad's producer, Let California Ring, is skirting federal tax law, which restricts political campaigning by nonprofit organizations with tax-exempt status. By using such an entity, backers also avoid a fundamental requirement of state campaign finance law -- public disclosure of donors' identities.
Very interesting, don’t you think?
Attorney Evan Wolfson of the New York group, Freedom to Marry, and a board member of Let California Ring, disagreed.

"Of course, it has a viewpoint," he said of the commercial. "But it is not a political viewpoint."
Sure it is.  Gay couples have had marriage ceremonies for many years now.  Nobody is stopping them.  This is in direct reference to a state political issue – marriage licensing.
The ad, he said, "is untethered to any political moment, election year, political decision or vote. It is all about asking people how they would feel if they or their loved ones couldn't marry who they love."
Again, people like this are full of it.  They scoff when anyone suggests that a brother and sister should also be granted a marriage license because they “love” each other.
But Schubert said his campaign lawyers had reviewed the spot and concluded that it would probably squeak by as legal.
Of course it will!  The judges in California are the same ones who think they know better than every society ever when it comes to marriage!
Several of the donors named by the institution as its supporters are also major donors to the campaign against Proposition 8.

Philanthropist and technology entrepreneur David Bohnett said he donated $500,000 to air the Let California Ring ad and helped fund the group in the past.
And…
James C. Hormel, former ambassador to Luxembourg, donated between $250,000 and $499,000 to Let California Ring. Hormel has given $150,000 to fight Proposition 8.

Two organizations that have political action arms -- the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Human Rights Campaign -- also have given between $250,000 and $499,000 to Equality California Institute. The two groups have spent a combined amount of more than $500,000 to defeat the initiative.
Just so that you know.
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You MUST Help Them Get Children

The California Supreme Court struck again today, deciding that freedom of religion, free trade, property rights, and freedom of association, and the best interest of children are all to be sacrificed on the altar of esteeming homosexuality.  Los Angeles Times staff writer Maura Dolan has the story.
Doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment, even if the procedures being sought conflict with physicians' religious beliefs, the California Supreme Court decided today.

In the second, major gay-rights victory this year, the state high court said religious physicians must obey a state law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
So the doctors were refusing to give life-saving treatment to a woman just because she was a lesbian?  Well, not quite.
The decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Guadalupe T. Benitez, an Oceanside lesbian who lives with her partner and wanted to become pregnant with donated sperm.
That’s right – a doctor chose not to perform an elective procedure and lost a lawsuit over it.  Never mind that the lesbian was able to get another doctor to do it.  Never mind that the doctor did not want to intentionally deprive a child of a father, or at least married parents.  No, a lesbian has a right to male sperm, and a right for treatments to make her pregnant.  Go figure.
Benitez, 36, and now the mother of three, said she has been pursuing her case for 10 years.

"This isn't just a win for me personally and for other lesbian women," she said. "It's a win for everyone, because anyone could be the next target if doctors are allowed to pick and choose their patients based on religious views about other groups of people."
I wonder if a Muslim doctor can be forced to graft pig skin onto a burn vicitim? I doubt it.  Or if a Muslim veterinarian can refuse to treat pet pigs.  I bet they can.
Kenneth R. Pedroza, who represented the doctors, predicted that many doctors would simply refuse to do the insemination procedure at all.
Oh well!  Everyone else has to suffer in a vain attempt to protect the feelings of homosexual people.

So this is what we’ve come to.  Laws and rulings meant to give black people access to lunch counters where only "whites" were allowed are now being used in this way.  Combine it with “reproductive rights” and the First Amendment goes out the window.

Sorry, but an unmarried person, no matter how long he or she has been partnered, or a “marriage” without a bride or groom simply isn’t the same thing for a child as having a father and mother married to each other.  No law or court ruling can change that basic fact of nature.  But looks like we’ll soon have what I’ve warned about for a while here now – state-funded third-party reproduction for homosexual couples to try to mitigate “inequality” – heterosexual couples being able to conceive naturally.

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Separation of Church and State?

During Warren’s interviews of McCain and Obama, did ANYONE point out the difference between having a federal government program to address the issues raised and private solutions?  Did anyone point out that there are churches - like Saddleback -- that can address social issues as long as the congregants have more money to give the church (lower taxes) and the freedom to act?

If you want to know what the federal government should be doing, read Articles I, II, and III of the Constitution.  Article 2 is what the President should be doing.  Everything else is up to individual states or the people – individuals, families, churches, temples, synagogues, YMCAs, JCCs, businesses, civic organizations, charities – you get the idea.

A President can stand up and hold meetings and give speeches encouraging private action, but not everything has to be an act of Congress or an executive order.  No matter how many laws are passed and no matter how much tax revenue there is, we will still have problems.  We’re going to have problems until Christ returns.  Government is not the only way of handling problems.

I wish someone would have pointed to the audience and said, “You are the employers and the employees, the investors and the customers, the neighbors, friends and family members, the union members, the church members, the jury members, the people who call the cops and file the crime reports, hire the lawyers, and raise the children, and give to charity.  What YOU choose to do can have a tremendous effect.  YOU can stand between evil and the innocent.  YOU can choose to care for others and pressure others to do so.”

If we are going to take separation of church and state seriously, the state should not pretend to be a church.

Related post:
http://walrus.blogtownhall.com/2007/09/06/is_jesus_a_republican.thtml
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The ‘Black Vote’ and Proposition 8

Now the Los Angeles Times is running a piece trying to convince us that the “black community” supports neutering marriage licenses, and so if you want to be in step, you will, too.

They’ve run a commentary by Timothy Stewart-Winter, James C. Hormel Fellow in Lesbian and Gay Studies at the University of Chicago.   And as part of such a worthwhile program, you know he’s going to have some clear-headed things to say, right?
At a Democratic presidential forum on gay issues last year, the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart prefaced a question to Sen. Barack Obama this way: "Now, you and I both know that there's a homophobia problem in the black community."
Really?  Homophobia?  You mean to tell me that there are a lot of people in the “black community”, who, when they see a homosexual person, freak out and run away?  I mean, that’s what people with arachnophobia do when they come across the relatively harmless spider.  Or is homophobia "fear of engaging in homosexual behavior"?  If so, why do you care?  Or are you just using it to broadbrush anyone who does not enthusiastically encourage homosexual behavior?
That notion will be put to the test Nov. 4, when black voters in California -- expected to turn out in record numbers to support Obama -- also will face a proposition to put a ban on same-sex marriage in the state Constitution.
Again, it isn’t really a ban of anything.  It is an affirmation that that people of California should have a say in how they issue licenses.  He also used the imprecise phrase “gay marriage” throughout his commentary.
Across the country, black voters repeatedly reelect African American politicians who support gay rights.
Yes, sometimes it is because they are racist.  Other times, it is because they agree with them on other issues.  Regardless, neutering marriage licensing has an impact on all of us, not just gay people.
Obama, for his part, hasn't backed marriage for gays, but he did call Proposition 8 "divisive and discriminatory," whereas John McCain supports it.
So, the implication, by the standards of the homosexuality advocates, is that Obama is a bigot because he hasn’t backed neutering marriage.  Of course, they won’t call him that.  They just think he is a liar, and they like him for it.  And please tell me what proposition, or law for that matter, isn’t divisive or discriminatory?  By nature, all of them divide and discriminate.  More weasel words from Obama.
Nonetheless, we can expect leaders of the religious right such as James Dobson and Tony Perkins to feature African American ministers prominently in their campaign to end gay and lesbian weddings in California.

It's a cynical strategy.
How dare they include African Americans!  They should exclude them, because that wouldn’t be discriminatory or divisive, right?
Too often the media have played along.
Yeah, that dastardly mainstream media that is always doing the bidding of Dobson and Perkins!
Opposition to gay rights takes culturally specific forms, and Capehart was right, of course, that there is "a homophobia problem in the black community." But it's no worse than the homophobia problem in America that belongs to all of us.
What a load.  I don’t accept this equating of support for the power of the people over judicial overreach, or affirmation of bride-groom marriage licensing as opposition to gay rights or homophobia.  Unfortunately, it is an effective tactic by homosexuality activists – “If you don’t vote the way I want, even though it goes against your basic understand of life and your best interest, then you have a mental disorder or hatred towards me and anyone in your family who is gay.”  It’s a lie, but they tell it so often.

Some of the responses on the website are quite interesting.

“Gay lover” wrote:
When a closeted gay man, marry's your daughter and after 10 years breaks her heart when he finally "comes out" and leaves her (or worse) -- do not complain. If they dont marry each other, they will marry our daughters.
Oh yes.  The reason closeted gay men marry women is because they can’t get a marriage license with another man.  Especially in a state where same-sex domestic partners have all of the trappings of being a spouse.  Um, yeah.  Neutering marriage licensing means a closeted gay man will never ever marry a woman.  Sure.

“Kell Brigan”  wrote:
You're confusing "Gay Rights" with "Marriage". Proponents of Prop 8 endorse the existing civil unions for same-sex couples. We are opposed to removing the right of children to be raised, whenever possible, by both of their natural parents. GLBT civil rights are already protected. We are opposed to the deliberate, casual creation of children whose destiny does not include knowing their real parents. Google "genetic orphans" to learn of victims orphaned from birth not through tragedy, but deliberately by the people who claim to "love" them. Proposition 8 is about CHILDREN'S RIGHTS.
Pretty good.

“Nelson” writes:
Prop 8 is NOT about Children's Rights. Stop using children to promote a heterosexist worldview.
Heterosexist?  Oh brother.  Hetero-normative is more like it.  Heterosexual behavior is how all of us got here.  90-98% of the population is heterosexual.  Both men and women make up society, and it takes both to perpetuate society.  Deal with it.
Children riased in loving and caring homes is what is most important.
It is not very loving or caring to intentionally deprive a child of a mother or father.
Raising children in a heterosexual household doesn't guarentee anything.
Sure it does.  It guarantees that they will be raised with both a mother and a father.

“Are you SERIOUS?!!” writes:
If this is about the kids, why not try to pass a law banning giving kids up for adoption? Why not ban adoption period?
Uh, this does not follow.  Adoption can give kids both a mother and a father - often in cases where they wouldn't otherwise.
Most gay couples who want kids can have them without adopting children!
Not without other people involved, they can’t.
Go after their retched STRAIGHT parents who gave them up and leave us GAY people alone!!
That is a fallacy.  Forcing us to change marriage licensing is not leaving us alone.  It certainly isn’t asking to be left alone.  It is asking for public affirmation.
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Today’s LA Times Marriage Neutering Stuff

There were a couple of good letters printed in the Los Angeles Times responding to their nonsense against Proposition 8, and another full of dung.

Kenneth Carabello of Santa Monica:
You dismiss the opinion that the health of our children and society is based on the success of the traditional family unit. However, marriage and family were not invented by our Constitution or laws, merely recognized by them.
So very true.
Marriage's root is in the creation and nurturing of new life in the only way that it can naturally occur -- between a man and a woman.
Right on.
Many of us have family members and friends who have same-sex attraction. We want them to be happy and fulfilled. Nevertheless, most of us recognize that the perpetuation of the human race can only come from a man and a woman.
Again, he’s right.  I’m sure someone else will get a letter printed throwing up the red herring argument that “not all married couples have children”, which is a little like saying that automobiles can’t be about transportation because some people collect them and never drive them.

Mike Sisson of Redondo Beach:
The disingenuous attempt to portray [licensed same-sex] marriage as an "existing constitutional right," as if we rubes don't know the so-called right was created by a clever move by the California Supreme Court less than three months ago, is three-card monte.

Marriage has been consistently defined as a union between a man and a woman for more than 6,000 years, and no amount of sleight of hand by The Times or the Supreme Court can change it.
So very true.  Unfortunately, the courts can force us to pretend to agree with them.

Then Kate O'Hanlan of Portola Valley brings out tired red herrings:
The American Psychiatric Assn. has confirmed that sexual orientation is natural, biologically induced, morally neutral, immutable, neither contagious nor learned and has no relation to an individual's ability to form deep and lasting relationships, to parent children, to work or to contribute to society.
Whew!  That’s a lot to unpack.

The APA may have “confirmed”, but they are unable to prove that same-sex attraction is biologically induced.  Before anyone think the APA infallible – they used to classify homosexuality as a disorder.  Of course, disorders can be biologically induced.  But the point is, they used to classify it as a disorder and now they don’t.  So, either they were wrong then or they are wrong now, and that means they can be wrong.  The change was more political than anything else – enough homosexuality advocates, their sympathizers, and people too cowardly to stop them simply decided to no longer classify it as a disorder.

The APA is not an arbiter of morals, so they can’t “confirm” that same-sex attraction is morally neutral.

Clearly, it is not immutable.

It can be somewhat socialized (“contagious”, learned).

It may not have any relation to an individuals ability to form deep and lasting relationships, but in men, it certainly has demonstrated a tendency NOT to form lasting monogamous relationships, even when they is a claim to commitment.

Nobody can “parent” a child biologically without someone of the opposite sex being involved.  Sociologically, a woman can’t be a father, nor can a man be a mother.

And yes, homosexuals are able to work and contribute to society - though they can’t perpetuate society without the involvement of someone of the opposite sex.  The same goes for straight people.

But even if everything you wrote was true, none of it necessitates that marriage licensing be neutered by court order. 
One need not believe that homosexual behavior is chosen, harmful, or immoral to believe in limited government, judicial restraint, and that inherent to marriage is the uniting of the sexes.

And, if everything you said was true AND was a compelling reason to change marriage licensing, then we would have to allow bisexuals (that's a sexual orientation) to marry at least two people at the same time, and any person with polygamous orientation (a great many men) to engage in licensed polygamy.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Assn., the American Psychoanalytic Assn. and the American Psychiatric Assn. have all endorsed civil marriage for same-sex couples because marriage strengthens the mental and physical health of couples and provides greater legal and financial security for children, parents and seniors.
Hold on a minute.  Who cares if all of those medical groups have an opinion on a legal matter?  It isn’t their place to tell us how we should license marriage by law.  They aren’t experts in governing.  Furthermore, any study in the effects of licensed marriage are going to reflect bride-groom marriage, the benefits of which do not necessarily manfiest when a bride or a groom is missing.  As for children – no same-sex couple produces their own children.  That they work with others to produce children is their own folly – we should not reorder our society because of their choices.  None of those conceptions is “accidental” or natural.  They are intentionally initiated through artificial means when these people know that they can’t provide both a mother and a father to the child.  That is selfish on their part.  I don't want to cater to selfishness in my voting.
Laws should not be based on personal or religious ideas.
Laws should not be based on feelings.  They should be based on what is good for society.  Sodomy contributes nothing beneficial to society.  Coitus does – in fact, it has been essential to the existence of society.  Pretending they are the same is a bad idea.  Licensed marriage was open to all individuals in California before this judicial imposition, and domestic partnerships were open to same-sex couples, giving the participants the very same standing as spouses.  Proposition 8 won’t hurt anyone.

Meanwhile, staff writer Joanna Lin has a blurb about a woman ordered to stand trial on bigamy.  There is no mention of how unfair that it is that she can’t marry as many men and she loves, or how she’s being persecuted by uptight religious bigots.  The inconsistency from the homosexuality advocacy groups, who claim people have a right to licensed marriage to those they love, is glaring.

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Guess Who is Going to Live Next Door on Your Dime?

The City of LA Council wants “rich” people to pay for other people to live like they do, where they do.   Los Angeles Times staff writer Jessica Garrison reports.
New condominium projects in neighborhoods such as Brentwood, Studio City and other affluent parts of Los Angeles could be required to include units for very poor people if the City Council approves a new housing plan as expected today.
Wow, either those units will have to be really, really small, or the other owners will be subsidizing a posh home for other people.  Guess which one it will be?  That’s the way these schemes work.

Wouldn’t you just love to pay a lot of money for a high-end condo in an upscale area, only to find out that you are subsidizing the people living in the condo next to you, who don’t have to pay anywhere near what you pay?  And then they get the same vote on the condo board as you.  Nice, huh?

I hope the law mandates that buyers be informed of this.  I’m sure it will do wonders for property values, too.
The commitment to a so-called inclusionary zoning law, which has been a contentious topic in Los Angeles for years, is part of a comprehensive housing plan that the city must adopt to be eligible for hundreds of millions of dollars in state housing bond funds.
Why are there even state housing bond funds?  Why is the state involved in this issue at all?
Advocates for the poor hail the plan as a significant symbolic move.

"The city is taking a huge step forward in figuring out how to address the housing crisis," said Peter Kuhns, an organizer for the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, a group of low-income residents.
Hey, I’d like it too if I could force other people to pay for me to live it up!  But there is no housing crisis.  Housing costs too much?  Then increase the supply.  Let the market work. I’m upgrading to a better house myself.  It’s not too shabby, but of course I would have bought an even better house in a better neighborhood if I could afford it.  Unfortunately, too much of my money is taken away in taxes to support people I don’t even get thank-you cards from.

Some people argue that wealthier areas need housing for people with low incomes, particularly so that the people who work in domestic capacities for these rich people can live close to where they work.  Of course, I’m sure more wealthy people would be willing to provide room and board as part of the compensation and just have their employees live on-site (either a room of the condo or a house on the estate) if previous laws to “protect” non-owner residents weren’t so discouraging of such offers.

Most wealthy people have worked very hard and taken big risks to get to place in life where they could afford nice homes in nice neighborhoods.  Nobody is entitled to join them without working for it.

Government exists to protect people from harm to themselves or their property by others via negligence, force, theft, or fraud.  It should not get involved in such forcible wealth redistribution.  I mean, why should be a city council’s job to make sure that someone gets to live in a home that is above their means?

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Doing the Kidnapping Americans Won’t Do

Lizbeth Diaz reports on how our wonderful neighbors to the south are expanding their Culture of Kidnapping into the U.S.  Nope… no border control needed, right?
American businesswoman Veronica was stepping out of her car in California when two men forced her into the passenger seat at gunpoint, pushed her teenage daughter into the back and drove them into Mexico.

Taking advantage of lax Mexican security at the San Diego border, and with U.S. authorities focused mainly on those entering the United States, the kidnappers took the two women to Tijuana in January and held them for a month before their family paid a $100,000 ransom.
Lovely.  The gangs and the corrupt officials are making things scary for Americans in the U.S.  It is bad enough that they send their uneducated poor here to live off of our foolishly socialist system.
"We have seen an increase in the number of kidnappings of U.S. citizens in Tijuana, including cross-border abductions," said FBI special agent Darrell Foxworth in San Diego.

Several Americans have also been kidnapped in Texas this year and held for ransom in Mexico, the FBI said.
Enough is enough.  Boycott Mexico.  And don’t let them export their corruption and gangs to us anymore.
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LA Times Features Seminar Callers

On the front page, the paper tries to convince us all that Obama’s going to win because staunch “Republicans” think he will be better for the economy than McCain.

Peter Wallsten, staff writer, showcases Whiner Nation.
The boom that turned swamps and pastures into a suburban mecca has stopped dead. Now the talk is about plummeting home values, rising food costs, and gas prices that make the once-painless half-hour commute to Tampa a financial strain. It's enough to give some here the sense that maybe, this time around, the Republicans do not deserve their votes.
I agree that the GOP has dropped the ball a lot.  Voting for Leftist Democrats, either directly or by not voting for the Republican, certainly won’t help matters like this.
Dori Merkle, 50, who works as a special education instructor in the local schools, said her collapsing home value was pushing her to consider voting Democratic for the first time in her life.
How, exactly, will the Democrats help her home values?  Is she going to go throw a virgin into the volcano to keep it from erupting?
Another neighbor, Cheryl Bernales, a 29-year-old economics teacher who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, said that she could face a pay cut "because the economy's so bad," and that she believes Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama "isn't so entrenched in the system."
Sorry, but electing Obama will do nothing to improve your pay, at least not without taking away more in taxes, making the gain negligible.
Since Bush was reelected in 2004, according to a Times analysis, the average cost of gas to drive both ways of the 26-mile commute between the Wrencrest subdivision and downtown Tampa in a typical passenger car has more than doubled, from $4.36 to $9.22.
But what about when the Democrats took control of Congress?  It got worse a lot faster after that.  This kind of analysis is ridiculous.  You know, toxic substances were found on Mars… after Bush was re-elected.  Must be his fault.
Stephen S. Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, says that many young families that moved to exurbia since 2000 racked up credit card debt and took on big mortgages. Now, he said, "if they're upside down on their mortgage, they'll be looking for someone to blame."
So hand them all mirrors.  Somehow, I didn't rack up credit card debt or go upside down on a mortgage.  That's because I DID  NOT BUY STUFF I COULD NOT AFFORD.
Republicans also appear to be losing ground in voter registration.
Maybe we should sign up corpses and illegal aliens, too.
Obama's top strategists have identified issues that they believe will sway a voting bloc that often includes parents of young children: job security, public schools and the cost of college, said deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand.
It isn’t the President’s job to provide job security.  Public schools and the cost of college should not be a federal issue.  More federal intervention will only make things worse.
"History tells us that it takes quite a bit of economic pain to cause traditionally conservative voters to shift candidates," said John D. Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina's business school who has studied demographic patterns in suburbs.
So in other words, get them dependent on the government, and they will favor larger government.
Alex Deeb, who owns several construction companies, said he "couldn't build houses fast enough" in Bush's first term. But now, one of his firms just laid off 10 workers.
That’s called LIFE.  There are faster growth periods, slower growth periods, and recessions.  Only an idiot would think that record growth will always continue.

Even if all true, it is what we already know – the more you can get people to think of themselves as helpless, dependent renters, borrowers, and employees and not as investors, property owners, and employers who can chart their own course in life, the more likely they are to vote for the Left in hopes that they will be transferred some money from people more wealthy than them.

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More Marriage Neutering, Anglican Bashing From the LA Times

Their editorial board goes all-out to shill for marriage neutering in a formal endorsement.
It's the same sentence as in 2000: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Yet the issue that will be put before voters Nov. 4 is radically different.
Yeah, this time we’ve already had four judges work to overturn our will as voters and thousands of years of human understanding and practice.
This time, the wording would be used to rescind an existing constitutional right to marry.
Where is this “right” found in the constitution?
We fervently hope that voters, whatever their personal or religious convictions, will shudder at such a step and vote no on Proposition 8.
Well that’s been painfully obvious for a long time now.
The state of [neutering] marriage shifted in May, when the California Supreme Court overturned Proposition 22, the [affirmation of] marriage that voters approved eight years ago, and ruled that marriage was a fundamental right under the state Constitution.
Even if that were true, everyone had access to that “right” before the court ruling.
Proposition 8 seeks to embed wording in the Constitution that would eliminate the fundamental right to…marriage.
Actually, Proposition 8 seeks to restore common sense and self-government.
It's a rare and drastic step, invoking the constitutional-amendment process to strip people of rights.
Oh yes, rare and drastic… you mean like publicly flouting the laws to “wed” a brideless or groomless couple in a deliberate attempt to manipulate the courts to subvert the will of the people?
All the more reason for voters to weigh carefully what would be wrought by this measure.
Proposition 8 won’t hurt anyone, actually.  Any same-sex couple can register as domestic partners and get all of the trappings that California applies to marriage.
In a meeting with The Times' editorial board, supporters argued at length that children are best off when raised by their own biological, married mothers and fathers. Even if that were true -- and there is much room for dispute -- this measure in no way moves society closer to such a traditional picture.
Sure it does.  Without Proposition 8, it will be the official policy and teachings of the state (which runs schools) that there is no difference to the state between a couple with only one of the sexes or a couple with both of the sexes.  Clearly, there is a difference.  One is how we all got here.  One is the only kind of couple that naturally produces new citizens.  One has been the foundation for ordering society through all of history. The same can’t be said for the other.  Without Proposition 8, the state’s default position is that marriage can’t be about children.

But notice that the people in control of the content at the Los Angeles Times can’t even grasp the painfully obvious – that all other things being equal, a child is best off with a mother and a father who are married to each other.
Gay and lesbian couples already are raising their own children and will continue to do so, as will single parents and adoptive and blended families.
Wrong.  Gay and lesbian couples are raising children that they did not bring into this world as a couple.  Either one of them made that child with a prior partner of the opposite sex, or they used at least one third party and medical technology to intentionally bring that child into a situation where there is either a father or a mother missing.
Using the supporters' own reasoning, it would be better for same-sex parents to marry.
Actually, it would be better if people didn’t make babies outside of a stable marriage to a capable, devoted person of the opposite sex in the first place.
Still, there are differences. Some are statutory -- domestic partners must share a residence, while married couples can live separately
Okay, so do you want to extend the legal trappings of marriage to people who never live together?  I bet you aren’t in favor of extending marriage licenses to platonic roommates.  So the conclusion here is that you want the state to issue marriage licenses because two people are engaging in sodomy, which contributes nothing to society, unlike coitus.
-- and others are pragmatic -- studies have found that domestic partners do not receive the same treatment or recognition from hospital staff, employers and the public as spouses do.
Sorry, but neutering marriage licenses for this reason is like burning down a house because there was some termite damage found.  What happens when people still tilt their head when a man claim’s to be another man’s husband?  Will we have to step up school and workplace “sensitively training” laws?

The fact is, California treats domestic partners as spouses.  If there is a problem with someone in a workplace or hospital, it is a problem with that person or the training at that facility.
But it was Ronald M. George, chief justice of the California Supreme Court, who cut through to the essence of the issue in the May 15 opinion he wrote: "[A]ffording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will, as a realistic matter, impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children, because denying such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples."
You can’t force dignity into a situation.  Marriage carries with it things that existed long before the State of California, and no judge can force those things to magically appear between two men or two women.  It’s like saying that “The sun now rises in the west.”  Well, okay… you can pretend it does.  It does not make it so.
In other words, the very act of denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry -- traditionally the highest legal and societal recognition of a loving commitment -- by definition relegates them and their relationships to second-class status, separate and not all that equal.
Actually, in most places, through most of history, marriage has not been about “love” – at least not as the paper is using the word.  And there is still no “love test” when you go to get a marriage license.  There never was.  Their arguments continue to be so much slight of hand and shifting definitions and demanding mutually exclusive rights, such as the right to privacy at the same time as a right to public affirmation.

The relationships are not equal - by their very nature.  One contains both sexes and is therefore a microcosm of society.  The other one excludes one of the sexes.  It isn’t the place of the government to slap approval or recognition on “love” between two adults.  The law deals with facts, like whether someone is male or female.
Whites in the South vehemently rejected the 1954 Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools. For that matter, Californians have accused the state Supreme Court of obstructing the people's will on marriage before -- in 1948, when it struck down a ban on interracial marriages.
Again with the false comparison.  Marriage has always, in every religion, in every state, in every country, all through history – been recognized as uniting the sexes – until very recently in a few places.  “Interracial” marriages were banned in a few – not all- states.  There is hardly a comparison.
Fundamental rights are exactly that.
And this is not a fundamental right.  Notice that nobody had to cooperate or give you your fundamental right to free speech when you woke up this morning.  In contrast, with state-licensed marriage, you have to find an eligible, consenting person to agree to marry you, and then you have to go ask the people of California for a license.

Now, marriage licensing has been changed for EVERYONE.  It wasn’t that same-sex couples were given access to marriage licensing – it was that marriage licensing was neutered for everyone so that neither brides or grooms are recognized or honored.  Glad I got a real marriage license.

Then they go on to comment about how homosexuality advocacy is causing problems for Anglicans.
Still, tensions were evident between liberal bishops from North America and conservative ones from the "Global South." The archbishop of Sudan demanded the resignation of Gene Robinson, the openly gay New Hampshire bishop whose ordination in 2003 was the casus belli of the crisis. A female bishop from the United States suggested that "many of our bishops come from places where it is culturally accepted to beat your wife."
You see, wanting your CHRISTIAN church to adhere to clear teachings of the CHRISTIAN Bible is akin to approval of wife-beating, apparently.
The dispute among Anglicans may seem a strictly religious argument, turning on whether biblical prohibitions of homosexuality should be interpreted literally or softened, as scriptural condemnations of divorce have been without much protest from conservatives.
Churches should definitely enforce standards about divorce.  But there is little the church can do other than 1) refusing to perform a marriage when one person should reconcile with their former spouse, or 2) kick out the offending divorcee.  But divorce is a different issue.  The Bible teaches that sex is for marriage, and that marriage unites a man and a woman.  A Christian church should no more “soften” a stance against homosexual behavior than it should on unmarried fornication or adultery.

Then we get this doozy:
In the culture wars, there is no separation of church and state.
Hmmm.  Interesting.  Have they tipped their hand?  My guess is that they will use such thinking to insist that churches should not be able to refuse to perform state-licensed marriages.

Well, there’s another example, like with the UMC, of where homosexuality advocates are trying to get the church to pick and choose which Biblical teachings to follow.  Everyone else is supposed to sacrifice their faith, their intuition, their needs, their traditions on the altar of homosexually-induced orgasms and esteeming the sinner.
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Dorgan’s Whining About Companies Unfounded

A Congressional report that says most companies in the US do not pay federal income taxes is making the news.  Jennifer C. Kerr, Associated Press writer, reports.
"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.
Senator Dorgan is either 1) a complete idiot when it comes to economics, business, and finances, or 2) he’s counting on you to be a complete idiot in those areas.

First, I’ll let others explain what is going on here.
An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.

"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.
You see, people immediately think of a corporation like ExxonMobile when they hear this story, but in reality, most companies are simple legal entities set up by an individual, a couple, or a small group of people; they are paying taxes on all of the money the company makes via their personal income taxes.  Your favorite band could be such a company.
It said companies may escape paying such taxes due to operating losses or because of tax credits.
If a company is losing money, good luck taxing them.  And tax credits are things that Congress set up in the first place.  It always amazes me when politicians complain about people have the audacity to play by the rules that they themselves set up.
About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts.
Assets?  Well if they own property they are no doubt paying property taxes.  Or if those assets are things like machinery, they paid taxes on the purchase of the machinery, or the parts they used to make it.

Regardless, we get this:
"It's time for the big corporations to pay their fair share," Dorgan said.
Who decides what is “fair” anyway?  Beware when a politician says such things.

Guess what the dirtiest little secret of all is?  Corporations don’t really pay taxes at all.  Corporations are comprised of 1) investors/owners (like shareholders… people like you and me and anyone who has an IRA or 401(k); 2) employees.  So guess what happens when an corporation is taxed?  Either the 1) the investors pay with smaller dividends or reduced capital; 2) the employees pay through a smaller bonus or delayed raises or even pay cuts; 3) the customers pay through higher prices; 4) a combination or all of the above.

So don’t let the politicians fool you.  The only people who pay taxes are individuals like you and me – anyone who resides in the U.S., earns income in the U.S., invests in companies in the U.S., buys anything in or from a business in the U.S.  If taxes are raised or "loopholes" closed, it means you and I will be paying more.

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