SALISBURY POST
SUNDAY, MAY 16, 2010 • 3D
OTHER OPINIONS
Senators should have ‘the guts to go public’ Bipartisan effort to change obscure rule shows promise he U.S. Senate likes to think of itself as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Lately, however, it has often resembled the Iraqi parliament, a legislature where sectarian hostility undermines any chance for cooperation across tribal lines. But there’s one small change in Senate procedure that might actually improve the climate on Capitol Hill: Ending the insidious practice of secret “holds.” Part rule, part custom and all murky confusion, holds allow one senator, actCOKIE AND anonymousSTEVE ROBERTS ing ly, to stop any bill or nomination from coming to the floor. The touchstone of any effective democracy is not guaranteeing majority rule; it’s protecting minority rights. But permitting a single lawmaker to paralyze the entire Senate — without taking any responsibility for the consequences — is an absurd abuse of a noble idea. Democracy requires accountability, not secrecy. Now, in what amounts to a minor miracle, a senator from each party — Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa — are working
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together on a fix. They would not end the practice entirely (which we would prefer); they would simply require all senators to acknowledge their holds publicly within two days. “If any of my colleagues have holds on either side of the aisle,” says Grassley, “they ought to have the guts to go public.” A hold can serve a legitimate purpose. Lawmakers (and their constituents) should be protected against unscrupulous leaders who try to sneak measures through without thorough debate. But the concept made a lot more sense when people and information traveled slowly over long distances. Now holds are about as sensible as recording congressional debates with quill pens. In fairness, Democrats have abused holds in the past, but the practice spiked sharply upward after President Obama took office. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the
Democratic whip, recently estimated that 96 administration appointees are currently blocked by Republican holds. That compares to 20 nominees held up by Democrats at a comparable point in the Bush presidency. Previous attempts at reform have all failed. In 1997, Republican Trent Lott and Democrat Tom Daschle briefly abolished the practice but were forced to back down by rebellious backbenchers. In 2007, the Senate OK’d a reform mandating that all holds be announced within six days. But Republicans quickly invented a way around that. The real problem is not the hold rule but the culture of the Senate. If lawmakers from rival parties trusted one another, or even talked to one another, holds would be invoked far less frequently. But the rise of confrontation and the decline of comity are getting worse, not better. Look what happened to Sen.
Robert F. Bennett, a three-term conservative Republican from Utah. An inquisition masquerading as a political convention denied him renomination by his own party. The evidence of his sinful heresy: He was responsible enough to vote for the bailout bill that rescued the financial system, and actually co-sponsored a healthcare bill with — oh, the horror — a Democrat. And he was not the first victim of Republican purists. Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate from Pennsylvania, was driven out of the party altogether; so was Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who abandoned a bid for the Republican Senate nomination and is running as an independent. Arizona Sen. John McCain, who worked often and honorably with Democrats during his long career, is fighting for his life against a primary opponent who has branded him an infidel. The Democrats have their own jihadists. Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas is facing a primary challenge from leftists who think she should vote and act like a New Yorker — an inane, if not insane, idea. And a more liberal rival could wipe out Specter in the Democratic primary. If that’s the outlook for the next Senate, then changing the hold rule is more imperative than ever. No more secrecy. No more games. It’s time for senators to have the guts to take responsibility for their actions. • • • Steve and Cokie Roberts write columns for Newspaper Enterprise Association. Contact them at stevecokie@gmail.com.
LETTERS Downfall starts with ‘toleration’
Say goodbye to democracy
At the recent Lutheran Forum held at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Professor Mark Powell stated that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) recognizes, but doesn’t endorse, monogamous gay and lesbian relationships. In 1871, Charles P. Krauth, a Lutheran theologian who was a forerunner of ELCA, made this applicable statement: “When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and weak; only let us alone; we shall not disturb the faith of others. Indulged in this for a time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are two balancing forces. The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth. From this point, error soon goes on to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy. Error claims a preference for its judgment on all disputed points.” In which stage does ELCA presently find itself? The real issue is not same-sex marriage and the ordination of practicing homosexuals. Rather, the real issue, as always in the church, is the authority of scripture. Until a pastor, lay person, church or church body comes to grips with this issue, all else is superfluous. Until the Bible is regarded as verbally inspired, inerrant and infallible, as Krauth believed, the church will always find itself at one or the other of Dr. Krauth’s three stages in the progression of error. Where is ELCA? And more importantly, where are the churches who are threatening to leave? — The Rev. Fred Archer
Chip. Chip. Chip. What is that sound ? It is the sound of America’s founding rock, democracy, being worn down by apathy. Ms. Pinkston (May 1) told us of her shock, then her hurry home so she could cry after seeing middle school students “preferring” to do other things (one even fixed her nails) while their teacher and a couple of students recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Wood, a legal immigrant now a citizen, told us (May 7) how angry he was to hear of the pledge situation in our county’s school. (I had a similar experience in an elementary school I will share in another piece.) But then they are children, and the law is on their unappreciative, disrespectful side. But, how about adults with their little “chisels?” Chip. Chip. Chip. On May 4, we Rowan adults appeared to have adopted a form of government to replace democracy. That would be a form called oligarchy which is “government by the few.” A mere 15 percent of voters went to the polls, which equates to the “few” telling the majority of the citizenry how we will be governed. Voting is a right of citizenship, just as is respecting the flag/nation by proudly saying the pledge. Rights are made to be exercised. My sincere fear is that as we allow our apathy to permit the “chip, chip, chip” to continue, our moral values decay with it. Someone or some group (the few) will move into the moral vacuum and seize control, and the “American way” will cease. Country singer Aaron Tippin wrote in a song, “If you don’t stand for something; you will fall for anything.” My, how true ! Fellow Rowanians, don’t just stand there; do something ! — Ty Cobb Jr.
China Grove
Rockwell
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White House fatness scare Exaggeration is bigger problem than obesity isten up, America, all you idiots who honestly think you are competent enough to be free, you clods incapable of crossing the street without a federal bureaucrat holding your hand, you dolts who can’t begin to raise your own children without guidJAY ance from the White AMBROSE House. The Nanny State is getting reading to bring out the whip. I am talking about First Lady Michelle Obama and her Task Force on Childhood Obesity, which first off wants to scare you to death with prattle about a fat kid “health crisis,” and has more in mind if you don’t salute — new infringements on free speech and new taxes to grab your attention but good. Fail to get your children skinny in a hurry, and I mean in a real hurry, and you will have the Federal Communications Commission in your face. Or rather in the face of commercial producers. Popular characters on the tube will no longer be allowed to praise anything but healthy foods. “Come on my young buddies,” some winsome clown will say, “eat a carrot today. No, three. Make that three carrots today.” That’s just the beginning, because next in line are
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state and local sales taxes. The task force can’t command the states and localities to do anything, of course, but just may bring pressure to bear to increase taxes on pizzas and other foods the commission doesn’t care for. Excuse me, I know I am out of line in a day and age that revels in pointless fears, but, to begin with, the obesity problem has been dramatically overstated — the real crisis is a crisis of exaggeration, not health, of sloppy science using suspect criteria to determine how fat is too fat, of selective readings of what studies say and of ignoring an extraordinary phenomenon of us humans getting both bigger and, yes, healthier. That’s right, both adults and children are healthier than they have been in any previous era, as is pointed out by Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado. While we are heavier, we are also taller, smarter — our IQs have been rising over the past quarter of a century — much longer living and a lost less prone to most illnesses, according to an article in The New York Times. A lot of things are at work, it seems. One of them is better nutrition than in the past, not worse. But listen, the scaremongers screech, obesity is a disease. Not really. A Time magazine piece is among those noting that while obesity is associated with a number of diseases, it is not a disease itself. The association may have more to do with eating the wrong foods and a lack of exercise than with the mere fact of being fat, a Reason magazine article notes, and meanwhile,
we should be careful not to mix up the ultra-fatness we call obesity with being merely overweight, which is not so bad a thing. Here’s something gleaned from reading on the subject the first lady and her friends may not wish to share: By the light of at least one study, being overweight is as healthy as being a perfect weight and actually healthier than being skinny. What’s dangerous are starvation diets. Look, it’s a very good thing to exercise, to watch what we eat and for parents to make sure their kids don’t stuff themselves with crud and loaf around watching TV all day. But the last thing we need are mandatory instructions of a kind that caused my favorite economist, Donald Boudreaux , a professor at George Mason University and creator of the Internet’s “Cafe Hayek,” to respond to another professor calling for a junk food tax. “I propose,” wrote Boudreaux, “that all articles and books advocating that government intrude into people’s private choices be taxed at very high rates. Socially irresponsible producers of such ‘junk’ scholarship churn out far too much of it.” To which I say, amen. • • • Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay@aol.com.
Anti-gay: You know the type H
e purported to cure homosexual urges. But if that were possible, you’d think he’d have started with himself. Meaning psychologist Dr. George Rekkers, 61, a leader of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. NARTH believes gays can be made straight. It is a belief the organization now struggles to reconcile with Rekkers’ rather contradictory LEONARD behavior. PITTS As initially reported in Miami New Times, Rekkers recently went on a two-week vacation to Europe. He took with him a male traveling companion, one Jovanni Roman — alias “Geo,” alias “Lucien,” age 20. Rekkers found said traveling companion advertised on rentboy.com, a Website featuring images of admirably fit young men whose gym fees evidently leave them little budget for clothing. Rekkers paid Roman’s expenses and gave him $75 a day. He certainly had the wherewithal to do so, having recently pocketed more than $120,000 from the state of Florida to testify in favor of the state’s ban on gay adoptions. So in effect, Florida taxpayers helped Rekkers rent his rentboy. Florida, for what it’s worth, is projecting a $6 billion budget deficit for next year. Both men say Rekkers did not purchase sex. Roman says he did, however, give Rekkers nude “sexual massages” that stopped short of sexual release. Rekker’s explanation? He needed someone to carry his luggage. If all this sounds like a rerun, that’s only because it is. Indeed, in recent years, the crusader against gay rights who is revealed to be secretly gay himself has become a “type,” ubiquitous to the point of cliche. The list includes disgraced evangelist Ted Haggard, the late former Spokane, Wash., Mayor James West, California state Sen. Roy Ashburn, Mel Stewart, ghost writer for the likes of Jerry Falwell, who became a gay activist, and my personal favorite, Michael Bussee, a founder of Exodus International, another group that purported to cure homosexuality. He gave it up when he fell in love with a guy named Gary Cooper. As much free material as fellows like this provide for the likes of Jon Stewart and David Letterman, it is important to remember that this is not harmless. We are, after all, talking about men in positions of authority and reach, men who could make laws and influence public perception and who used that power against their own. Put yourself in the shoes of the teenager, bewildered and frightened by these feelings he or she is not “supposed” to have, feelings of sexual attraction to people of the same gender. You try to deny them, try to ignore them, try to suppress them, but they will not go away. You are all alone, isolated behind a secret that presses down on you like weights, a fear of rejection that haunts you like ghosts. And here comes Dr. Rekkers telling you that you are abnormal, telling you that you are bad, telling you he can cure you, as if you had a disease like measles or the flu. Then, in his off hours, he’s trolling rentboy.com looking for young men to handle his, ahem ... baggage. That’s more than hypocrisy, more even than self-loathing. It is a betrayal of one’s own, a sellout of the most vulnerable. And what’s sad is not just that a George Rekkers would do this, but that ours is a culture that would encourage and reward such duplicity in the first place. He purported to heal homosexuals? One is reminded of an injunction from the book of Luke: “Physician, heal thyself” (4:23). Rekkers would be wise to heed that advice. Homosexual urges are the least of his afflictions. • • • Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald.