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

Winning the Debate by Silencing the Opposition

Anyone who has taken a Constitution class in high school knows that the First Amendment protects the right of all people to express almost any idea they want in the public square (with the exceptions of inciting riots, threats of violence, etc). Yet there is one group the various pundits insist need to be silenced for the sake of our nation and that is Christians.

Recently, Lou Dobbs lamented the influence religion has on politics. He said churches “are driving that political adventurism as those leaders conflate religion and politics.” Apparently he suggests the government should do something about shutting up those damn Christians who keep expressing their points of view.

In a democratic republic such as this one, all people get an equal say in what they believe the state should be about. That includes atheists, agnostics, wiccans, Jews, Muslims and even those pesky Christians. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those groups expressing any of there views. A diverse and tolerant society requires nothing less.

The idea that the Bill of Rights, under the moniker of the Separation of Church and state, is designed to restrict citizens from petitioning their government based on some perceived ideological characteristic is absurd. We’ll skip past the fact that the First Amendment requires institutional separation, not state mandated atheism.

What Lou Dobbs, and others like him, are upset about is that they are on the losing side of issues. And what do they suggest to fix it? Convincing arguments? Helpful debates? No. They want to silence the opposition. This is un-American and the citing of “national values” to stifle free speech borders on absurd. If you can’t handle a country where all people get their say, well, I do question your patriotism.

The bold assertion that the people in the pews are separated from the people behind the pulpit is novel and interesting, considering it is coming from someone who has little grasp on what people in the pews believe or want. Apparently Dobbs things that the people in the pews are at once automatons that follow whatever their pastor says but at the same time acutely aware that their pastors “are a class unto themself.” Either they’re stupid or their not. With the amount of “church shopping” that goes on, it’s pretty clear that if the people don’t like the message, they go somewhere else.

Most importantly, what Dobbs is lamenting is that people aren’t blaming immigrants for the immigration problem. When the government of the United States and Mexico signal to their people loud and clear that they aren’t going to enforce the law, what did you expect was going to happen? Imagine a college town saying they aren’t going to enforce drinking laws for a weekend. You’d have a town full of drunk freshmen passed out in the gutter. Duh.

There is more to the debate than blaming immigrants versus amnesty and proposals take that into account. Of course people think the border should be secured but they don’t necessarily believe that immigrants should be rounded up for what really amounts to a failure of the government.

The attempt to silence Christians should be called what it is, censorship. No one is trying to mandate forced Christianity down the throats of citizens. No one is attempting to silence non-Christian points of view. It is long past time that Christians are cynically discriminated against simply because they don’t hold to whatever elites consider the “right point of view” to be. Because you know if those same Christians were saying the same things, they’d be pointing towards them as proof they’re right.

May 14th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, Freedom of Speech, Immigration, Politics, The MSM | 30 comments

Home Rule Begins in Northern Ireland Once More

Northern Ireland has for years been ruled from England. There have been several attempts to come to a compromise solution to let Northern Ireland rule itself since the Good Friday agreements. It appears that finally home rule is about to begin again there.

This is good news, not only because home rule is beginning again, but because both sides are expressing hope that it will work this time. Both Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness have said they believe the bloodshed over the territory has come to a close. However, this bright spot on another conflict coming to a close was overshadowed by the press inserting their politics into the story.

The conflict is not or has never been about religion. Ever. Yet the press continues to write on the conflict in terms of a fight against Catholics and Protestants. A few details would be helpful.

For many years, the British exerted complete control over Ireland. In 1921 the Irish Free State was formed free of British control. However, this territory did not include what is now called Northern Ireland. Many Irish believe that those territories rightly belong to Ireland as they were taken from them by the British centuries ago. Since that time, the nationalists had fought against the unionists to gain control over Northern Ireland.

Ireland is basically a Catholic country; England is obviously Protestant under the Church of England. The two nations have obvious religious identities. However, because a nation has a religious identity does not mean that every action that nation performs finds its origins in religion. The nationalists believe Northern Ireland is theirs (Ireland), the unions believe it belongs to them (England). The basis for those arguments have no support or recourse to religion.

The attempts to make the conflict (or hopefully the former conflict) about religion is politically driven by ideologues who want to paint religion as nothing but causing wars, devastation and destruction. It is disheartening, to say the least, that the so-called objective media has fully-throatedly adopted the propaganda of the anti-theists.

That said, I’m hopeful like other bloggers that the conflict is over.

May 8th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | International, Military / War, Politics, Religion, The MSM | one comment

France Becomes Respectable Again

Sources are reporting that center-right French Presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has won the election by about ten points in France. The results mark the latest European government to make a rightward lurch in political orientation in the last several years.

Despite waging a dirty campaign that included a spam campaign suggesting riots and damnation should Sarkozy win, the voters came out in droves to elect Sarkozy. The attacks were reminiscent of campaigns in America, particularly dirty and deceptive campaigns against Barry Goldwater. Many people went to the airwaves to diagnose Sarkozy with mental illness, much like leftists in this country do against George W. Bush. Voters in France have rejected the fear-mongering campaign of the socialists, much like voters rejected similar attempts by Democrats to do the same in this country. Once again we see demonstrated that in the battle of ideas, socialists fight unarmed.

Sarkozy is most known for his previous post as interior minister by holding a tough law and order stand. The Paris riots by Muslim immigrants were considered stoked by Sarkozy who took a tough stand against such behavior. The fact that such a large turnout fell strongly behind Sarkozy indicates that France will not go silently into the night.

It is likely that France-U.S. relations will see a marked improvement with this election. Socialist candidate Royal not only ran a smear campaign, but was the latest socialist to run against George W. Bush and lose (a peculiar choice considering Bush wasn't on the French ballot). France for the past few years has been antagonistic towards the United States under Chirac including undermining the Iraq sanctions in the Oil-for-Food scandal which led to the ultimate renewal of conflict with Iraq. Sarkozy will likely end such antagonism and return to being a helpful international partner again.

The most telling part of the election results is that what is considered a bellwether bastion of socialism in Europe has overwhelmingly voted to reject socialist politics. Royal clearly made her platform of strong welfare policies and social platforms known and Sarkozy clearly indicated that he wanted to cut down on high unemployment by getting people to work. France follows Germany in moving to more conservative policies and governments.

This is little less than a revolution in France against an ideology that has become stagnant and a demonstrable failure. France's economy and society have been dragging behind the rest of the world and the French citizenry has decided they had enough. Likely pundits will shake their heads at voters deciding against "their own economic self-interest."

The lesson in France is that whenever conservatism is on the ballot (unhindered by corruption, bad implementation of policies, or personal problems) conservatism wins. Today France joins the world in adopting more sane economic and governmental policies.

May 6th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, European Union, International, Politics | no comments

Why Abstinence Education Does Not Work (and It’s Not What You Think)

Every few months the abstinence education advocates and the comprehensive sex ed advocates trade studies back and forth. “Comprehensive sex ed works!” “Abstinence education works!” The back-and-forth clubbing of studies may make for good headlines but largely misses the point.

While it can be argued that comprehensive sex ed may increase sexual activity (much like the anti-drug program DARE has increased teen drug use in many cases), the success or failure of abstinence education relies on factors largely outside the classroom. Simplistic one-factor statistical analysis is not useful in dealing with a problem that involves more than one variable.

The fact is, teenage (and childhood) sexual activity is a new historical phenomena. Abstinence education was all that there was for centuries and it works. The spread of sexually transmitted disease, teenage motherhood, single motherhood, and broken homes being the norm has never been seen on this magnitude in the history of mankind. It is naïve to think that a 45 minute lecture will be all that is needed to reverse that tide in any meaningful way.

The problem found its biggest catalyst in the sixties under the guise of the “sexual revolution”. It is important to realize that it is the generation of youth in the sixties who are making the policy decision today. That generation steeped themselves in anti-authority rhetoric; it should come as no surprise that they now rail against parental involvement.

For some time, it has only been that generation who has been preaching the sexual liberation message from the rooftops. Those who held to chastity simply remained effectively silent out of a false sense of modesty. It was a “false sense” because modesty strives to put sexuality in its proper place, this reaction however was not modest, it was prudish which seeks to avoid all discussion to begin with. It is this prudishness cloaked in modesty that has led to one of the biggest criticisms of the chastity ideology… that it really is about “sex being a dirty thing.” I know of no one who believes in chastity that thinks sex is some dirty chore married people are bound to do from time to time.

It is important to also take into account all the messages children get about sex from sources outside the classroom. One only needs to watch a few sitcoms, listen to a few of the Billboard Top 40 songs, or look at a few magazines, and we see only one ideology of sex presented (i.e. loose and cheap sex). When no other message is conveyed, we should not be surprised that “kids will just have sex.” That is also why it is so invidious that organizations would use the hammer of the United States Constitution to drive out any competing ideas (or at least those that treat chastity seriously) out of the public square.

On a personal note, before I was married I had considered the priesthood. I found it quite telling that the most frequent response people had to that (including Catholics) was “but you can’t have sex!” It was as if they thought I didn’t already know that and the Church was hiding it from me. Hey, thanks for the hot tip guys!

However, the most important implication about those exclamations was that it was about sex. Not that I couldn’t have a wife, or a family, or that I could get lonely (and in fact, I never heard those objections). Celibacy, or more crudely not having sex, is viewed not as an acceptable sexual option but an outright heresy. Life without sex is a life not worth living, apparently.

The common social idea, even among adults, is that not having sex is a crime against humanity. Take a look at the number of people who insist that the Catholic Church should allow married priests even though they explicitly reject the Catholic Church and its doctrine outright. People who have no interest in the Church, her ministers or her teaching are passionately and loudly interested in the sexual freedom of her clerics.

Further, the reduction of sex to a “medical issue” has dehumanized it and drained it of its value. The comprehensive sex ed crowd describes their material as “medically accurate”. Abstinence education, the last time I checked, doesn’t try to rewrite our biological knowledge. When the only consequences considered are disease prevention and pregnancy, is it any wonder that men and women can’t relate to each other as well anymore?

This creates a situation where people are less free to choose to be chaste. Or more accurately, they are pressured to not be chaste. It’s an unacceptable lifestyle. It’s a socially intolerable lifestyle. People who don’t have sex are pariahs. Is it any wonder “kids just have sex?” Society insists nothing less. That’s why people will argue with a straight face that because X% of people have premarital sex that makes it okay and moral to do so.

Abstinence education will always be handicapped in a society that insists from every quarter that free sex is the only way to live. Until our movies, music, television, and magazines reflect a level of sexual maturity beyond that of a seventh grade boy, this trend will likely continue. Parents will have to display and engender the sexual morality they wish their children to have. In the meantime, those who can speak intelligently, passionately, and openly about chastity must be allowed their say in the public square. A free country requires nothing less.

May 4th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, Culture, Pro-Life, Religion, Sex, The MSM | 3 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

Review: Emma’s Journal by Juli Loesch Wiley

As a male reading Emma’s Journal by Juli Loesch Wiley, I was somewhat uncomfortable. The book reads is if I picked up a diary of a woman who I did not know and started flipping through it. The account is a frank and open recollection of a 5 year period of the author’s life. That is, by far, the book’s biggest strength.

Juli is a vastly talented writer and it comes out in her book. She describes events and her inner struggles with wit and candor. She writes from the backdrop of the 80s as a peace activist and pro-life activist. That combination of activities when you include a serious and devout Catholic faith creates a unique life situation that comes out in the first few chapters.

The oddity that more a group or individual tends to take up social justice or peace activism, that they become less pro-life and less orthodox merits exploration (that is beyond the scope of the book). It’s rare that an individual synthesizes all those positions and you can’t help but feel the loneliness of someone who does, because they find themselves in “no one’s camp”.

The book is less a story of conversion (the author was a practicing Catholic at the time the journals begin), but a struggle of trying to live within the bounds of chastity in an environment and society that certainly isn’t built to foster that. The book retells events that seem to be familiar among other women I know, men who are out to simply bed women as if they were objects.

At points, the book does get somewhat detailed into various scenes of sexuality in the past of the author which could cause some to be a little squeamish. However, there needs to made a strong distinction between chastity and prudishness. Chastity seeks to put sexuality in its proper and sacred place; prudishness seeks suppression of any mention as if sexuality was some dirty and forbidden thing.

If the arguments for chastity are to make any inroads into society; people need to bare their souls and talk modestly about sexuality. That does not translate into an injunction against all discussion. Juli should be praised for her openness and courage in baring her soul in this way, much as Dawn Eden did in her book, Thrill of the Chaste. More books like these need to be written.

The book is an easy and enjoyable read along Juli’s 5 year journey chronicled in journals. I highly recommend it, particularly for Christian women, who are looking in frank personal testimonials in the trials and tribulations of being chaste in an unchaste country.

May 2nd, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Book Reviews, Features, Pro-Life, Religion, Sex | one comment