Last night the local Fox News affiliate here in Philadelphia chose to devote a large portion of their 10:00pm news program spotlighting what they call "The Pension Problem" in Philadelphia, New Jersey and other places. In calling pensions the problem, Fox misled the public and missed an opportunity to highlight the truth for tax-payers.
Once again, the local news media, this time Fox in particular, cow-towed to liberal politicians and let them off the hook for a mess that they singularly have created. But not only that, they also portrayed hard-working city and state employees as the problem, seemed to be trying to pit tax-payers against pensioners, and never once keyed on the real problem.
That real problem? Out of control spending on issues, services, and frankly outright budgetary 'pork' over decades and decades as well as regular, intentional under-funding of employee pensions. All of that going on with little to no outcry from media watchdogs.
Fox missed an opportunity when they once again identified the real problems improperly in stating that "Pensions are at the heart of budget troubles in the state of New Jersey and in the city of Philadelphia."
Pensions are not the problem, politicians are the problem. Politicians who spend money that the city's citizens simply do not have and never did have on programs that make them feel and look better.
No, I am not going to take any time whatsoever to point out any particular program or project that I feel falls into this category. I will make one simple statement, however. If any fiscal conservative individual had been put in charge, this would not have happened.
It might be a bit too premature and over dramatic to use such terms, but it is not very difficult to make the case that what happened yesterday in Massachusetts is not some isolated election anomaly, but part of a burgeoning nationwide American political revolution.
Since Republican Henry Cabot Lodge was defeated by a young, upstart politician named John F. Kennedy in November of 1952 and left office in January of '53, at least one of Massachusetts' two U.S. Senators has been a Democrat. Two years after JFK was elected to the Presidency in 1960, his brother Ted Kennedy assumed the seat and owned it until his death last year.
The other Massachusetts Senatorial spot was won by Paul Tsongas for the Democrats in 1979. He was succeeded in 1985 by ultra-liberal John Kerry, and so the Democrats have had solid control of both U.S. Senatorial seats from Massachusetts for a generation.
In what has to be a stunning, bitter, ironic defeat for the Dems, the seat virtually owned by the Kennedy's and controlled by liberal interests for over a half century was lost yesterday.
In the special election held yesterday to replace the deceased 'Lion of the Senate', 50-year old Scott Brown was chosen by the previously reliable voters of Massachusetts to become the first Republican U.S. Senator to represent the commonwealth in three decades.
All across the United States and all across the spectrum of ideas, liberals and progressives have been attacking traditional American values for the better part of a century now. These attacks have gained momentum in recent decades thanks to persistent, pervasive, and often subversive campaigns by leftist organizations.
One of the most recent attacks came in the State of New Jersey, where a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage was being pushed through the legislature and being vocally supported by ultra-liberal Governor John Corzine. In today's editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Corzine actually implied that gay marriage is a "fundamental human right" and to deny it would be a violation of civil rights and liberties.
Thankfully, the New Jersey Senate did not see it that way. They voted by a solid 20-14 majority yesterday to protect marriage as solely between a man and a woman, as God intended. The vote comes on the heels both of New York's rejection of the idea and the electoral victory of Chris Christie over Corzine in November. Christie will take over the Governor's office in 10 days and had promised to veto such a measure should it have passed.
The 'gay marriage' (sic) issue is yet another in a surge of issues over these last few decades that liberals and progressives simply could not win in referendums at the ballot box, and so they have resorted to pressuring and bribing politicians, infiltrating the media, and bringing law suits in jurisdictions where the courts are known to be solidly liberal in their rulings.
Traditional Americans are beginning to both understand these threats and to grasp the seriousness of their nature when taken individually and as a whole as threats to our society. True mainstream America has begun to fight back and win. In November 2008, California passed 'Proposition 8', which put an end to court-backed gay marriages begun months earlier and recognized marriage as only between a man and a woman. Maine voters then followed suit in November of last year.
The issue, of course, is not one of whether or not some State or Commonwealth may come up with some type of civil union legislation allowing couples of the same sex to reap the same civil benefits as opposite-sex couples. The issue is the protection of a particular type of union called 'Marriage' or 'Matrimony' the basis for which was established by God Himself as being between a man and woman at the creation and which has been in existence for millenia.
If there are men out there who wish to insert their penis in another man's anus or mouth and call that a normal, loving, sexual experience with a straight face, that is their business within the privacy of their own home. But for them to foist such an idea on the rest of society as something that we should all embrace as a normal, human act to be celebrated and sanctioned under the moral umbrella of 'marriage' is ludicrous on it's face.
Marriage about morality? You bet it is. How does that jive with the legality of divorce and the practice of adultery? It doesn't, frankly. Having gone through them myself, I can tell you that divorce and annulment are serious processes that should not be entertained, supported, or granted frivolously, and that certainly have no business being celebrated. And adultery may be the dumbest and most hurtful thing in which any married person could ever engage.
The marital ceremony is about bringing together a man and a woman as one, as were Adam and Eve by God. Marriage is about a loving celebration on a daily basis between a man and woman, husband and wife, in the course of developing more fully their own relationship with one another and with God, and in attempting to build a family. If you are not a man and a woman committed to these concepts, then you shouldn't be married or entertaining the idea.
I am extremely fond of my dog, Petey. He is a good dog. Loyal, faithful, fun. We have lots of great times together. In fact, I would say that I care more about Petey than some gay people care about their partners. Should I be allowed to marry Petey? I mean, I love him, and would love to have society pay for his veterinarian bills. If I have to pay for the medical bills of some gay person's 'partner' then why shouldn't they pay for Petey's vet bills?
Once men can marry men, and women can marry women, would we move next to allowing such further obscenities to the institution of marriage as me marrying my dog, or some farmer marrying his cow, or some shepherd marrying his sheep? What about a computer programmer marrying his computer-generated, life-like, animated, 3D female character? Where does it end?
Think that is stupid, inane, ridiculous, trivial? Well that is exactly how many of us in normal society sees the idea of men marrying other men, and women marrying other women. It has nothing at all to do with hate, or fear, or discrimination against gay men or lesbians. It is about protecting a particular God-given institution and Sacrament that is meant solely to be between a man and a woman. There is no Biblical or historical basis for, or constitutional right to gay marriage.
Currently there are 39 of the 50 U.S. states already fully and specifically prohibiting gay marriage with laws modeled after or pre-dating the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, including Pennsylvania, which thankfully despite the ultra-liberalism of the Philadelphia area actually remains the most socially conservative state in the northeast region.
We can no more make a gay person straight than we can make a stone come to life. Gay people were created that way by God. It is something with which they will have to go through life dealing. We don't need to hate, we need to be compassionate. But compassion does not extend to supporting every action of an individual. It also does not mean surrendering our most cherished institutions and our God-given Sacraments to the ideology of a tiny minority.
The State Senate of New Jersey got it right yesterday when they voted to hold back the abomination of same-sex marriage. They also got it right a couple of months ago when they tossed Corzine out on his typical high-taxing, low-morality, America-hating can. Here's to hoping that Americans continue to awaken to what has been going on in our country and continues to take it back, as New Jersey may have begun.
