Part-Time Pundit

16-Year Old Girl Denied Bail for “God Hates Fags” Flyer

Two girls were arrested in McHenry County, Illinois last week for distributing flyers at their school that depicted a male classmate kissing another classmate and had the words "God Hates Fags" on the flyers. The two were charged with disorderly conduct and felony hate crimes. As can be expected, debate has been generated on the wisdom of hate crimes laws, debate that's not confined solely to the right. Even gay sites are not entirely behind the arrest and charging of these girls for a minor stunt.

The ACLU, predictably, said it indicates the struggle between protecting targeted groups and free speech, which apparently means hate speech directed at whites, Christians, or men is a-ok in the ACLU's book.

However, while the media focuses on the hate crime debate, an obvious injustice is missed that is far more concerning. One of the girls at her arraignment was denied bail for her actions, and the other was effectively placed on house arrest. It should be noted that they have not yet been tried, only charged. If the McHenry juvenile detention facility is anything like most county jails in the state, the girl will be allowed two 20 minute visits a week through a plexi-glass window with her friends and family.

In almost every single criminal case, bail is set to something. Most murders get bail. There are only two situations were bail is inappropriate: where the accused is a flight risk in a serious case and where the accused would pose imminent danger to society if released. As an illustration, in Champaign County a man was arrested for brutally raping his girlfriend with a weapon and threatening to kill her. His bail was set at $250,000.

In a Sangamon County case in Illinois, a murder suspect, Mark Winger, was given $1,000,000 bail, and, while he was out, he tried to have a key witness murdered. Muaz Haffar in Chicago was arrested for allegedly beating a victim to death with a bike lock and promptly fled to Syria while on bail.

The cases go on and on. However, in this case a 16-year old girl, who certainly is no innocent victim, has been denied bail because she's had run ins with the police before. Those include curfew violations, having cigarettes, having booze, and once for possession of marijuana. In short, she is a mischievous teenager no different than most other mischievous teenagers. If this girl brutally raped her neighbor and then killed him, she would have bail right now as long as she didn't say the word "fag" while doing it.

The judge, in commenting on denying bail, said that the girl's home situation was unacceptable. It's unclear how a judge can legally take a child out of their home simply because the child shows up in the courtroom for an obnoxious high school prank. We have the Department of Children and Family Services for that. In fact, the judge likely only spent a few moments looking at court documents (that had no home investigation) in making his sweeping judgment about the fitness of the parents. At least DCFS would conduct an investigation before taking custody of kids.

The situation of the other girl, getting house arrest, is also problematic because no adult criminal would be placed under house arrest simply by the virtue of being arrested… even in cases where such a sanction would be warranted. This is made laughable absurd by the fact that the maximum sentence the girls could get is 30 days in juvenile detention. The girl sitting in detention without bail will spend likely an order of magnitude more than that waiting for trial.

What these girls did was obnoxious, but it is certainly no catastrophic threat to society to have them out of jail. It is unclear whether the judge is using the hate crimes law or something else to enforce these ridiculous bail decisions. It is obvious to every child who is watching that society will treat them like thugs to be looked up than actual human beings. They are guilty until proven innocent. And we wonder why society is raising such dysfunctional adults.

May 24th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, Education, Illinois, Law / Legal Issues, Politics | 7 comments

Ramming Values Down American Parents’ Throats

The war against abstinence education wages on across the country. The comprehensive sex ed crowd was apoplectic with the results of a Mathematica study that showed kids who had abstinence education programs were just as likely to engage in sexual activity with the same rates of “dangerous” behavior. The flip side of the study showed that abstinence education also “did no harm” in that the “risky” behaviors were just as frequent between both groups, but that got ignored. Predictably, the studies that show abstinence ed works also go ignored.

The study itself has recycled some of the same claims that come up every time someone objects to abstinence education. Representative Waxman did a study in 2004 that purported to show all the damage abstinence education does, but between outright stupid objections and showing that some programs do work, his attempt failed.

The push for comprehensive education is nothing more than an attempt to ram values down parents’ throats. The United States is a values pluralistic society that works precisely because other people’s values are respected and tolerated. Except in the narrow case of values that are criminal or quasi-criminal, the government shouldn’t start dictating to citizens what values they must have, religious or otherwise. In short, if government education programs are going to deal with sex (and it’s not clear that this is a necessary area for government to be involved in) they need to do so in a values neutral manner.

A reasonable position would be to allow comprehensive sex ed, abstinence ed, or no sex ed at all to be choices available at the sole discretion of the parents. Parents, as a rule, know their children the best and are best able to make the most informed decisions about them. However, far too often the government turns the school system into a parole office for which parents must issue an accounting of their decisions after committing the crime of conception.

Even the ACLU, an organization that allegedly exists solely to protect the bill of rights, demands that only comprehensive sex ed be taught because that’s supposedly the only legal way to do it. Apparently the Constitution requires nothing less than full and complete courses in sexual technique and pleasuring for six year olds.

The reason for forcing the government to present only comprehensive sex ed from the highest levels is clear when it is realized that parents want abstinence ed for their children by a 2:1 margin. The ACLU always stands ready to thwart the democratic process by forcing their values down the throats (and into the pants) of Americans by going to unelected judges to force the issue.

The message is clear, not only parents can’t be trusted to make this decision for children, but lawmakers cannot be trusted either. All that is left to do is for the ACLU to shop for the right judge to give them what they want judicially for what they could never win democratically.

Instead of looking at the reasons why children engage in sexual activity when and how they do, comprehensive sex ed advocates try to bypass parents to present cookie-cutter values without parental involvement. There are some interesting studies, for instance, that show that intelligent kids don’t have sex.

The school system in this country has enough problems producing students that can compete in a global economy. They certainly don’t need to have days taken out of their classes every year while they are already being left behind by the rest of the world academically. Schools should spend their time focusing on academics, not on being one-step social service agencies.

A constant refrain in politics is anger at the “Christian Right” forcing their values on American society. How about some reciprocity? Let’s leave the parenting to the parents.

May 3rd, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, Education, Law / Legal Issues, Politics, Sex | 2 comments

Does the University of Illinois MBA Program Hate the Troops?

Breaking News: This will be updated in this post as more information comes in. (Hat Tip to Marathon Pundit.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has established an innovative program specifically targetted to Illinois veterans of the War on Terror. Basically, the state and the University will allow them to get a FREE executive MBA from UIUC (in there Chicago office) or attend the MBA program in the Champaign campus by having the state pay for the program with Illinois Veterans Grants (IVG) and the College of Business picking up the rest (about 54% of the total yearly tuition). The program was touted far and wide by Rumsfeld, Congressmen, and the State of Illinois. There were 110 slots for veterans. In the end, according to varying reports, 46 were accepted. The details of the program can still be viewed on the College of Business website.

The architect of the program has left the University and has filed a lawsuit, alleging anti-military bias and discrimination. The University of Illinois system is the same system that employs William Ayers as a distinguished professor of education. That’s the same Bill Ayers that tried to blow up government buildings and infamously quipped that people should kill their parents.

According to Robert Van Der Hooning, the architect of this program, the University (specifically Dean Ghosh) tried to scale back the amount of “jarheads” in the program. He alleges that the criteria for acceptance was changed after the vets were promised slots. That is why only 46 of the 110 slots are currently taken by students. According to anonymous sources, the reason that the number is so low is that the remaining applicants did not meet the criteria for acceptance by the appropriate deadlines. One would assume that a free executive MBA would draw more than 110 applications and that applications denied for cause would not have lead to a high-profile administrator in the College of Business not only leaving the University but filing a lawsuit.

Currently, Dean Ghosh is referring all questions to the University Public Relations office and Lt. Gov. Quinn is unavailable as of this writing to comment further.

According the University spokesperson Robin Kaler, the EMBA program only has a capacity of 60 students. The room will only accomodate that many students and there is only enough faculty to handle one class of those 60 students. The program has cost the College of Business $650,000 and according to Kaler, “all commitments were honored regardless of whether they were authorized or not.”

At present, the facts on hand don’t warrant the kind of article that Marathon Pundit put up (and Pajamas Media linked to). I’m not saying the University is in the right, I’d like to see more information.

Possibility 1: That Ghosh and company did in fact have a problem with too many jarheads in the program. This, after having supported the creation of a program almost exclusively for jarheads.

Possibility 2: Miscommunication about what can and cannot be done with Van Der Hooning over-extending the University.

Possibility 3: Van Der Hooning is engaging in a press push to keep the heat on the University while his lawsuit is working his way through the court of claims in Illinois.

Kaler made some pretty good and fatal points to Van Der Hooning’s claims. One of them is lying, the facts will determine which one.

More facts need to be had before condemning the University, or at least Dean Ghosh, of being on an anti-military crusade. There are more questions to ask, and the downside of blogging, is that people want to rush their stories to the web without doing all the footwork to get the facts straight. Will update with more information when I get it.

(Waiting on calls back from others in the know, will update as I get it).

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March 5th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, Education, Military / War, Politics, University of Illinois | 12 comments

Response to Candidate Questionnaire from Campaign for Comprehensive Sex Education / Planned Parenthood

The conventional political wisdom is not to respond to candidate questionnaires from “hostile” political organizations. It just doesn’t sit well with me not telling voters or political groups where I stand though. So this is what I sent Planned Parenthood in response to whether I would support a standardized comprehensive sex ed program for Unit 4.

The question of sexuality, particularly sex education, is invariably tied into a question of values and value systems. As such, any discussion immediately becomes polarized between right and left. The options are either abstinence-only or comprehensive-only sex education. This is a false dichotomy, but also makes a dangerous assumption about the role of schools and government.

The United States is a values-pluralistic society. With rare exceptions (e.g. crime) all values should be respected and the government should not try to mandate one set of values over another. Many players in this debate are encouraging exactly that: a mandating of a particular set of values.

It is my belief that parents present the value system of their choice to their children, and the schools and government should respect that. I do not support a standardized sexual health curriculum for Unit 4 because that would entail me making a decision on what values are important for someone else’s child, a decision I would not want imposed on myself as a parent.

I believe the policy of the Board should be to, as far as practical, handle the issue as the parents decide they want it handled. If they wish to have comprehensive sex education taught to their child, that is there choice and it should be available to them. If they wish only abstinence education be presented, that is likewise their choice. If they wish to handle the matter themselves in private with no interference from the schools, that should also be respected.

It is my firm and unwavering belief that the schools are not a tool to be used by government to prescribe value systems to our children aside of what is necessary to be a good citizen. The diversity of our nation and community requires that governmental leaders allow these value system choices be made by individuals and parents, not by elected officials.

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March 4th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, Education, Elections, Politics, Unit 4 Race | one comment

Why Normal People Don’t Run for Office

I decided to run for the Champaign Unit #4 school board because I was tired of complaining in my columns and to others of my dissatisfaction with Unit 4. I ran to try to be part of the solution, not to be another pundit engaging in a blog B&W session. For this, I have been rewarded with being accused of 83 felonies that carry a maximum penalty of 457 years in prison and that’s not even counting the misdemeanors.

It’s not that I have a problem with Mr. Brayfield challenging my petitions. It’s not a problem that he sees problems with the school board and is trying to do what “one man can do” to help fix it. It’s that his attacks are personal, destructive, and undemocratic.

Despite claims to the contrary, these challenges are not democratic. Democracy entails the freedom to choose when voting. That freedom is not enhanced by one person showing up in a hearing in which the public can witness but not participate (except for public comment which has no bearing on the objections themselves). That freedom is not enhanced by attempting to take away people’s right to choose from a variety of diverse candidates and making sure they are only presented with candidates that fit some preconceived ideological mold. These objections aren’t democratic, they are undemocratic and they are an affront to everyone who has fought and died for democracy to suggest otherwise.

I will criticize no one for attempt to contribute constructively to Unit 4. Even if I disagree, I will welcome any participation. If you have ideas, I will make sure you have the resources to bring solid and complete proposals to the Board, even if I disagree with them. However, that does not give license to individuals to contribute destructively by disparaging people in the press and in objections for running massive criminal enterprises just to get 50 or more signatures to run for the unpaid position of school board member.

I, and the other 4 candidates, have been accused of fraud, perjury, forgery, and conspiracy and on that basis we should be removed from the ballot. These accusations are not presented with any factual basis whatsoever. One candidate, a bank executive, has had to explain to his superiors and co-workers the nature of these allegations of fraud. Fraud, for a bank executive, is a career-ending proposition.

All that Mr. Brayfield has accomplished with this stunt is to discourage honest people running for school board in Champaign. Why would anyone submit there name to have the Brayfields of the world run to the press and start accusing them of being criminals? It has been said that there is something about running for and holding office that will turn honest people into felons (ok, I said it), but this is a little off the mark. The biggest threat to democracy is that only a certain class of people runs for office, and Mr. Brayfield is part of the ongoing actions that discourage all but the most pathological from running.

It is clear from his selection of candidates that he objected to, that he has an ideological agenda and has engaged in a radical smear campaign to destroy the integrity of the people he disagrees with. If he has a problem with a candidate, then those issues can be addressed on April 17th in the ballot box. Exactly the way democracy is supposed to work.

February 24th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, Education, Politics, Unit 4 Race | 3 comments

Acceptable Bigotries: ASU Perpetuates Negative Christian Stereotypes

Imagine a mandatory training exercise on a college campus for new Resident Advisors. During the course of this training the following image was spoken: black residents all listen to loud rap music, hold licentious parties and are probably dealing drugs out of their dorm rooms. That individual would be dragged in front of disciplinary committee after disciplinary committee. If they were lucky, they’d get off with sensitivity training.

Now, let’s change the stereotype. Let’s say the image presented is this: Christians are hateful homophobes who run around telling everyone they are going to hell. They are largely a punch of rich white kids who get a free ride from society because they are white. What would the reaction be? Most of the cognoscenti in the academy would nod their heads in agreement. If a conservative student manages to break the code of enforced silence for a moment to complain, at best, he’d be ignored, at worst, he’d be told that the stereotypes are true. After all, these same stereotypes are present in the classroom being taught by these same professors.

The same image above was recently taught as part of a sensitivity exercise at Arizona State University. The training exercise was modeled on one developed for national leadership conferences. In short, this wasn’t one campus’ bad idea.

Of course, there are Christians who fit the mold above. Every stereotype needs its poster child. Surely one can point to Fred Phelps as an example of such a hateful and judgmental Christian. However, it should also be noticed that the attempts to keep him from funerals come from the right not the left. In fact, it is the ACLU not the ACLJ that is defending his free speech rights. In this case, unfortunately, the ACLU is right. Free speech does allow one to lack all sense of social decorum.

However, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 Christian denominations running the gamut from the United Church of Christ, to the Quakers, to Roman Catholics, to Mormons, to Southern Baptists. Some denominations have no problems with gays such as the Anglicans. Other denominations say that homosexual behavior is wrong but still try to reach out in human understanding, such as Roman Catholics. Others are outright judgmental preaching homosexuals as the harbinger of death and destruction, such as Fred Phelps and his gang. The problem with stereotypes is that it takes one case and then shrinks all others and forces them into a box. As is usual, reality is much more complex.

In a bizarre attack on language and common sense, such bigotry is justified in the name of diversity and tolerance. The idea that social harmony is brought about by relentless attacks on the perceived “majority” are novel and interesting, but unconvincing. Far from building a sense of community, it entrenches a reality of division. There is an “us” and a “them”, and they are at war on campus.

To be fair, minorities do face a variety of injustices perpetuated against them. However, by attacking the perceived majority as a suspect class only turns off those who would be most likely to help. Christians, at least the serious ones, do care about the poor and down-trodden. However, when they face constant attack from the public square as being “all that is wrong with the world”, all but the most charitable respond with “to hell with you and your problems.”

Diversity and tolerance do not require cookie-cutter people thinking prefabricated thoughts. It requires an attitude of “I disagree with what you say but respect you’re right to say it.” That attitude certainly isn’t shown when someone presents a “disfavored” idea and the response is an immediate ad hominem. Capricious charges of racism are not designed to encourage debate, they are tools to shut one down and force ideas.

No sense of community can ever be created until all ideas, ethnicities and people can be respected. Even Christians.

February 12th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, Education, Politics, Religion | 7 comments

Censorship in the Name of Inclusion: The Case of the Wren Cross

The prevailing mantra in higher education is being sensitive to other cultures and religions. Schools fall over themselves trying to prove that they are inclusive to a diverse background. Instead of “Merry Christmas” it is “Happy Holidays” so as not to leave out those who celebrate other holidays such as Hanukkah.

The battle of the Wren Cross at William and Mary is just another episode in the diversity wars. In the name of welcoming a diverse student body, President Nicol of William and Mary decided the Wren Cross must go from a Christian chapel overtly labeled as such.

The irony is that by promoting inclusion in this way, they are insisting on exclusion of Christianity from a Christian chapel. It’s quite paradoxical that in the name of “diversity” and “tolerance” certain ideas and populations are being run out of the public square. In fact, it is usually the same ideas and people that are excluded in the name of promoting diversity.

It is hard to view such behavior as anything other than revisiting the same slights on the group usually thought to have historically carried them out. In response to centuries of alleged Christian persecution, the modern response is to return the favor. The only thing a “tolerant” and “diverse” society cannot tolerate is mainstream Christian belief and practice.

From President Nicol’s State of the College address, he states, “The College of William & Mary strives to be a place where people of all backgrounds feel at home, where diversity is actively embraced, and where each individual takes responsibility for upholding the dignity of all members of the community.”

Diversity is the inclusion of all persons, not the exclusion of some disfavored group. How the cause of diversity is furthered by institutional censorship is beyond rational cohesion. In no small part it has resulted in much of the racial tension that exists on many campuses today. Instead of bringing people together as a unified community, it artificially creates camps of competing interests at war to protect their own. Far from promoting inclusion, it solidifies segregationist attitudes.

The removal of the Wren Cross sent a clear message to those who take Christianity serious… “You are not welcome at William and Mary. Your heritage is unimportant.” Rewriting the history of an institution to whitewash it in the name of inclusion is not diversity, its deception.

The days of censorship in the name of diversity need to come to a close. No real community can be accomplished when members are singled out and told to keep their ideas, beliefs, and heritage to themselves. Either support real tolerance or be honest about what the real goal is. Academic honesty still matters, doesn’t it?

February 7th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Culture, Education, Politics, Religion | 2 comments