
 |
|
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
May 14, 2012/ 22 Iyar, 5772
Fairness? The struggle in our public spaces is about competing worldviews, not neutrality
By
Star Parker
| 
|
|
|
| |
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
President Barack Obama now commands center stage following his formal announcement that, yes, he supports same sex marriage.
But for perspective on how we got to this point, we should shift our sights to three days before the president's announcement. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared on MSNBC where he responded "yes, I do" when asked if he supports same sex marriage.
Duncan at best raised a few eyebrows by stating his support for same sex marriage.
If he had said that homosexuality is immoral there would have been demands for his ouster.
How have we gone from a nation where our first president, George Washington, admonished that religion and morality are "indispensable" to political prosperity to one, today, in which our president says "same-sex couples should be able to get married?"
On the marriage issue, the national transformation has been breathtaking. A new Gallup poll shows the nation evenly divided -- 50 percent saying same-sex marriage should be valid and 48 percent saying it should not be. When Gallup asked the same question in 1996, 68 percent opposed legalization of same sex marriage against 27 percent in favor.
In just 16 years the gap between those opposed and in support of same sex marriage has gone from a 41 point difference to practically zero.
Our public schools are controlled locally. But the influence of the federal government is substantial. The Department of Education, per its website, "administers a budget of $68.1 billion in discretionary appropriations serving nearly 16,000 school districts and approximately 49 million students."
It's not trivial that Duncan, the man who oversees this massive enterprise molding the minds of our nation's youth, publicly rejects the traditional definition of marriage in favor of one saying it just takes two (so far) warm bodies of any gender combination.
The president brandishes one of his favorite words in explaining his support for same sex marriage. "Fairness."
Actually, this is about unfairness.
We have bought into a grand illusion that we can make our public spaces value neutral. But this is impossible.
The struggle in our public spaces is about competing worldviews. Not neutrality.
As one court ruling after another has purged religious expression from our public spaces, we have unfairly suppressed traditional values in favor of promoting alternative secular views.
As we have sanitized our public schools from prayer, from displays of the Ten Commandments, from any teaching that can be associated with biblical sources, we've put government monopoly power behind moral relativism.
California, for instance, has a new law mandating teaching gay history in public schools. A similar mandate to teach Christian history would be challenged constitutionally.
2011-2012 Resolutions of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, include support of same sex marriage and sex education programs that appreciate "diversity of ...sexual orientation and gender identification."
Randi Weingarten, president of the nation's second largest teacher's union, American Federation of Teachers, lives in an open lesbian relationship.
It should come as no surprise when Obama says he sees much of the growth in support for same sex marriage as "generational," with strong support coming from our youth.
Attitudes reflect education. We have created a world in which it is illegal to teach youth in our public schools traditional religious values but it is not illegal to teach them competing values of nihilism, materialism and relativism. And these competing values are actively promoted.
As elsewhere, the main victims are poor, minority kids, often from broken families, held hostage in these public schools and prohibited from being taught the very values that could save their lives.
Is there a way out? I only see one: Universal school choice. Liberate parents and kids from government and union controlled schools. In a free America, parents who don't share Arne Duncan's values shouldn't have them forced on them.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education.
Previously:
• 05/07/12: Morality and economy are separate universes?
• 04/30/12: How to keep the poor poor
• 04/23/12: Obama's real 'stay-at-home mom' problem
• 04/16/12: Obama makes foul call for economic 'fairness'
• 04/09/12: GOP's black, Hispanic problem
• 04/02/12: A wakeup call to a nation still sleeping through a crisis
• 03/26/12: Supremes to confront new, energetic efforts to undermine the principles upon which this nation stands
• 03/19/12: Republican race is just getting started
• 03/12/12: Contraception flap 'defines deviancy down'
• 03/05/12: Breitbart's final message to the Left
• 02/27/12: Support for Santorum will grow despite attacks
• 02/20/12: Libs' recent victories fuel Santorum surge
• 02/06/12: Memo to Mitt: Whole nation is on government plantation
• 01/30/12: Obama's vision puts America last
• 01/23/12: Court ruling on ultrasound law worth celebrating
• 01/16/12: Capitalism on trial
• 01/09/12: NAACP plantation masters play race card again
• 01/02/12: Youths' support for Ron Paul is misplaced
• 12/26/11: In search of an ambiguous conservative leader
• 12/19/11: Thank U.S. troops, notably wounded warriors
• 12/12/11: Land of the envious and home of the victim
• 12/05/11: Payroll tax cut is another welfare scam
• 11/28/11: Pray every day that America does not lose its way
• 11/21/11: We're ignoring the Constitution
• 11/14/11: The central issue of our time will define the 2012 presidential election
• 11/07/11: Separation of . . . morality and economy?
• 10/31/11: Every American should listen to Paul Ryan
• 10/24/11: Disrespect for life and disrespect for property go hand in hand
• 10/17/11:The right argument for Cain
• 10/10/11: Occupy Wall Street: More from the culture of narcissism
• 10/03/11: Why so many blacks continue to fail
• 09/26/11: So many GOP debates, so few candidate revelations
• 09/19/11: The the last vestige of the triumph of hope over experience is throwing itself a party. They'll be passing out palms-up portions of pity, but few solutions
• 09/12/11: I'll defend Perry on Social Security Ponzi scheme
• 09/05/11: Marco Rubio's Courageous speech
• 08/28/11: The Steve Jobs/Martin Luther King Jr. Connection
• 08/19/11: Blacks' dilemma with Obama
© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|