Ok, its official, we live in a crazy country populated with those who have only the most tenuous contact with relatity. We just need to decide who is the more crazy: the wacko’s who bring suits like this, or the cities who bows to them.

This from The Conservative Voice:

Warwick, New York has made the decision to ban Santa Claus from its annual “Breakfast with Santa” scheduled for Saturday at one of the city’s elementary schools. Instead, it is now calling the gathering a “Winter Wonderland Breakfast”.

One parent, who refused to be named, complained that Santa Claus is a “religious figure”. When confronted as to how the students would take this news, School Superintendent Dr. Frank Greenhall said: “If you make it an issue, the kids will make it an issue.”

Santa is a religious figure? And just which religion would that be? I sure can find no mention of him in my Bible, and I am sure I would have heard if he was in the Koran or Torah. Unless we decide the Capitalism is a religion (Hmmm - a sequel for Ann Coulters Godless?) then I think it is fair to say this parent, who was to ashamed to be named, has had too much eggnog.

This is an interesting lesson in the direction of political correctness in this country. If we can honestly ban Santa from a “Santa’s Breakfast” then there is little hope for us. That the Warwick school board has decided to, without even token resistance, take this action just because a parent was offended is a sad testimony for those that people Warwick is entrusting with the education of their children.

Wake up people, we do not have a constitutional right to not be offended. If anything, we have a right to offend others. Foolishness like this continues only because there are people like the ACLU and clueless judicial appointees who seem bent on perpetuating it. This is the politics of preposterous!

Bring back Santa. And while we are at it, lets bring back the Nativity, the Baby Jesus, the Salvation Army, and our right to eat ourselves to death on candy canes.

A republican group at Boston University decided to stir the Affirmative Action Pot and has begun offering a White Only Scholarship with the sole intention of sparking a debate.

From the Boston Globe:

Boston University’s Republican students group has started a scholarship for white students, to spark debate about race-based programs.

“We are trying to convey the absurdity of any race-based scholarship,” said Joseph Mroszczyk, a senior from Danvers who is president of the university’s College Republicans. “I don’t think race should be part of any scholarship. It should be based on merit or economic need.”

The $250 scholarship, which will be funded by the chapter and will do little to meet the university’s base tuition of $33,330, has ignited a debate on campus about whether it is the right way to address views on race-based scholarships and affirmative action.

I am glad someone took this on in a direct and overt way. The racial playing field is much more leveled today that it was 15 or 20 years ago and it is about time program, like scholorships, which are affirmative action based, are leveled as well.

By using a very small dollar amount, and specifically mentioning the goal of the scholarship is to spark a debate I believe the group may have taken some of the emotion out of the discussion. There is no menevolence in this - its all about reasoned discussion. I hope the opposition replies in kind.

Naturally, the University is taking steps to distance itself somewhat from any potential blow ups.

Kenneth Elmore, BU’s dean of students, said in a statement that the scholarship goes against the university’s goal of increasing diversity on campus. He agreed the issue of race-based programs is worthy of debate, but questioned the group’s approach.

“It appears to me that they’re trying to push a debate as it relates to affirmative action and American society,” Elmore said. “I want students to know that I encourage debate and will help students foster creative debate around the university. I hope the College Republicans and other students will try to do the same.”

Unfortunately, the local Republican Party is trying to distance themselves even more. Why is having a backbone and politics so dynamically opposed?

Brian Dodge, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party, said the state party did not endorse the scholarship. “Their actions are misguided and offensive,” he said.

A national party spokesman called the scholarship “highly inappropriate.”

Wimps.

So far all I have found is commentary from the student base which is mixed. I would be verry interested to see what national organizations who are pro-affirmative action (NAACP, ACLU, etc) have to say.

Also Reporting:
Stop The ACLU

You can see my previous posts on ACLU vs Mt Juliet here and here and here.

The following press release comes to us from Bob Cooker, a candidate for Senator from Tennessee.

U.S. Senate candidate Bob Corker today said the Tennessee chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is woefully wrong to have filed what he called a “frivolous liberal lawsuit” against the Wilson County School District alleging a morning prayer endorsed by Lakeview Elementary School officials is a constitutional violation of church-state separation.

“When the President declared September 14, 2001 — just two days after the attacks of 9-11 — a National Day of Prayer, no one sued him for crossing some arbitrary line between church and state,” said Corker. “We just bowed our heads and prayed. When a school in Wilson County or anywhere in our country allows children to do the same on the National Day of Prayer, or at a gathering at the flagpole, the courts ought to stay out of the way.”

Corker said he supports the efforts of Mt. Juliet Commissioner Glen Linthicum, who said it was time for the community to take a stand against the ACLU lawsuit recently filed against the Wilson County School District. Linthicum co-sponsored a resolution unanimously approved last Monday night by the Mt. Juliet City Commission that encourages the elementary school and the Wilson School District to fight for their rights to religious expression.

“Like many parents across our state, I pray for my family everyday,” Corker stated. “We should never force anyone to believe a certain faith or pray a certain way,” Corker continued, “but if a school decides to set aside some time to allow children who wish to pray to do so, we ought to support that school and community. That is precisely what it means to protect our freedom of religious expression — and I will fight to do just that in the U.S. Senate if elected.”

I hope the fervor over these sorts of cases continues, and the ACLU is forced to consider carefully before harassing innocent schools in such a fashion. As I hear more I will post them here.

H/T Stop The ACLU

Most of you know about the monolog from Brian Rohrbough on the CBS “Free Speech” Segment this Monday. On the Tuesday night edition, Katie made a comment that the majority of the feedback received on Brian’s comments was negative. If not, you can find my post on it here.

From the CBS Website:

The mailman nearly suffered a hernia hauling in sacks of comments over Monday’s “freeSpeech” segment. (We took a few packages that were ticking and threw them in the creek…) Surf around the CBS News website and you’ll find all sorts of ideas and opinions about this. A tell-tale sign that this was going to be an especially interesting week: nearly every comment, on every post, for the last three days, has had something to say about “freeSpeech,” no matter what the topic.

Personally, I was struck by how many of the people who posted began their comments with one word: “Shame.” As in “Shame on you, Katie Couric.” (I might mention here that the majority of people wagging their fingers and using that word would proudly label themselves free-thinking, tolerant, progressive, maybe even liberal. Tolerance, it seems, has its limits.)

This all has me thinking about the numbers. Are there more liberals than conservatives, more left that right? Are we really in a world where the an utterance against abortion and the admonition of the Godlessness of our schools is really something that gets the masses in an uproar – or do we just have a vocal minority who are quick to take action and make their voices heard? And, most importantly, how do we answer that question?

Before I come back to the question of Political Life, the Universe and Everything, we should take a quick moment to set a baseline. The response to a CBS evening news commentary cannot be used to measure the numeric superiority of one group or another. CBS is, in the opinion of most conservatives, a liberal news outlet, and so not regularly watched by conservative minded people. We conservatives would be more apt to watch Fox News or a more conservative news source. That being the case, the response received should be in line with the viewers. The equivalent, if you will, of someone using Fox News to accusing Christians for the increase in school violence.

It dose, show us that people like the news to be agreeable to them. I am sure it was quite a shocker to most of the CBS news watchers on Monday night.

Also, before returning to the question at hand, a brief moment to shake my head at those enlightened liberals (i.e. Reed at De Rerum Natura with his article entitled “Brian Rohrbough is an Idiot”) who are attacking this man, personally, for what amounts to a video opinion column. Disagree with his comments, disagree with his sentiments, but it is bad form to attack him personally. Shame on you.

Now to the question at hand: how do we factor out as right and left in terms of minority and majority? I am certainly not the first to ask this question, so I rather than recreate the wheel, I pulled from some high quality sources.

I reference in the attached the following two studies: The American and Religious Landscape and Political Attitudes(2004) by John C. Green and The Eagleton Institute Ethnic Breakdown of Citizenry and Ethnic Voter Participation (2002). Sadly I was unable to find any more current data, even from the local library (ick – hard copy).

So what do these studies show?

42% of the US population aligned themselves with the Democrat party.
38% of the US population aligned themselves with the Republican party.
20% of the US population aligned themselves with another political party.

Over 70% of the US population considers themselves to be “Christian”, the majority (over 50%) also believing that the Bible is absolutely literal and factual, including its position on abortion, creationism, and homosexuality.

Only 10% of the US population considers themselves to be Secular (not religious) or Atheist/Agnostic.

68% of those surveyed by the American Religious Landscape study said it is Important that the President have Strong religious beliefs. Oddly, that included 24% of the Secular and 6% of the Atheist / Agnostic groups.

76% of those surveyed by the American Religious Landscape study said it was important for Organized Religious groups to stand up for their beliefs.

63% said that religion was important, or somewhat important, to political thinking.

62% said the US has a right to engage in preemptive war. I am sure that numbers has gone down some in the two years since the study.

On the flips side, only 35% of the population agreed with the US support of Israel over the Palestinians. (38% against, 27% no opinion).

On abortion, 52% said Abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances. 48% said Abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances.

51% of the population is against any ban on stem cell research. (32% support a ban, 17 have no opinion).

Only 27% of the population supported same sex marriage, with 55% supporting only traditional marriage, and the remaining 18% supporting civil unions.

Both studies contain a considerable amount of additional data on various subjects. I have linked both above in case you are curious as to what else they have to say. If I do find more current data I will provide an update to this post.

So – what dose this all say about the political makeup of the country in general? I think it points to a roughly equal split between Democrats and Republicans with the Democrats holding a slightly higher major in numbers, though a noticeably lower % of Democrats vote. It also shows that we still consider ourselves to be a nation based on religious beliefs with the vast majority of people, be they Republican or Democrat, believing religion has its place in government and politics and it is important in choosing our leaders.

I think the numbers also show the being a Republican and Democrat is much less about a principle or belief makeup, and more about other unidentified issues. Perhaps many Americans choose a political party based on family history or geography. The voting record and belief constructs do not fit neatly into the two party systems. The Religious Landscape study actually broke the groups down into 10 major groups and another 12 smaller groups based on religious beliefs (or lack there of) and party standing.

Zooming back into the Brian Rohrbough issue, I think these numbers show that the vast majority of Americans not only would not have been offended by Mr. Rohrbough’s comments, most would agree with him. Even on the abortion issue, which is much less clear, the majority of Americans support some limits to abortion – only 17% believed it should be unfettered and at the whim of the woman.

There where not questions in the studies specifically about Intelligent Design vs. Evolution, so we have to assume that of the 70% who call themselves Christians most would support a creationist view point. At the very least we have to assume that the 50% who believed that the Bible is completely factually and literally accurate would take a stand supporting Intelligent Design over Evolution.

So, CBS, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Most of the American people agree with Brian Rohrbough, but most of your regular viewers must not.

And to those of us who are a majority, we need to make more noise. I hope we do not lack the courage of our convictions for silence in our political system is akin to concession. The vocal minority has the right of it, I cannot fault there fervor even if I cannot agree with the stand on most issues.

Thanks Brian, for speaking up for the rest of us.

I normally hate to post on things like this, as some topics should be ignored completely lest we accidentally infer some semblances of sanity to otherwise inane claims. Yet this story has an upside.

The following from New Hampshire WMUR webpage:

A small group of students has started a petition to remove a University of New Hampshire professor who believes that Bush administration officials planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks or knew about them and allowed them to happen. “Basically, we watch professors to just ensure they’re doing their job … they’re not biased in the classroom and are not teaching what they are not supposed to teach,” said Bill Hunt, chairman of the newly formed and unrecognized organization Students for Academic Integrity.

Woodward, a tenured professor, belongs to Scholars for 9/11 Truth, whose members question the official story about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and contend that the U.S. government either had knowledge of the attacks or had a role in them.  Gov. John Lynch called Woodward’s beliefs “completely crazy and offensive” and asked the trustees to investigate. 

Woodward has said he does not push his views on his students but has mentioned it in his classroom in the spirit of full disclosure.  Bruce Mallory, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs, said he has investigated the controversy surrounding Woodward and has not heard of the Students for Academic Integrity petition. He added that the university still stands by its position that Woodward acted within the bounds of academic freedom.