So, is anyone else a bit distracted by the pink shoes, pink arm bands, and hats with pink stripes that our World Champion Green Bay Packers and other NFL teams are wearing this month?  What’s sad is that I’m sure a majority of the players and the management don’t really know what they are supporting when they’re sporting pink all October.

All of this pink display is sponsored and promoted by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, an organization that has made its fame and fortune in promoting finding a cure for and ostensibly preventing breast cancer.  Lest anyone think I am against finding a cure for this dread disease—or better yet, preventing it, rest assured that my heart goes out to those who are currently fighting breast cancer, and to their families—as well as to those who have lost loved ones to this pestilence. 

By having Major League Baseball teams use pink bats and wear pink accoutrements on Mothers’ Day, having the NFL devote October to promoting its work, and doing a host of other promos, the Komen organization is fund-raising for its work.  The money the Komen Foundation raises then goes to other groups that are doing research or are doing screening and education work in the breast cancer area. 

For several years now, the Komen Foundation has been giving to Planned Parenthood affiliates to supposedly help fund their breast cancer prevention, education and screening work. 

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Recent polls claim that more and more Americans—including Wisconsinites—believe same-sex civil unions or domestic partnerships are just fine and should basically be treated like marriages.  And, of course, those promoting acceptance and normalization for their non-traditional relationships are touting these polls as being the barometer of what is right.

Let’s make this very clear: Truth is not subject to nor is Truth swayed by public opinion polls.  God’s Truth stands independent of all of man’s machinations. Public opinion may or may not reflect accurately where a group of people is on a certain issue, but that by no means makes public opinion right—or good for the public, for that matter.  The Word of God is the arbiter of right and wrong, especially on issues such as marriage.

It’s hardly surprising that the polls show that people are saying individuals in same-sex relationships should be treated just as if they are married. The media has done a fabulous job of beating that drum at every opportunity. The schools have opened their doors to groups such as GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network and others who want to promote and normalize homosexuality from kindergarten up.

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Bullying is bullying—and it’s always wrong.  Intimidating, harassing, and threatening someone until you scare them into doing what you want is bullying—no matter who’s doing it.  And it’s always wrong.

However, those are the tactics of the people who push the homosexual agenda, including those who support same-sex marriage.  Whenever people have had the audacity to speak out as pastors, business owners, politicians, or even just individual citizens, the bullying begins.  I know; we’ve watched it and been involved with it for years.

In 2006 when our organization was involved in educating people on Wisconsin’s Marriage Protection Amendment that would receive a statewide vote in November that year, we learned just how effective such bullying can be.  In September, in the heat of the campaign, our graphic arts designer and web site host, called and told me that her company was immediately dropping us as a customer.  We would need to find a different designer and another company to host the Vote Yes for Marriage site.  When I asked why, the owner hesitated until I said, “You’re getting threats, aren’t you?”  Reluctantly but with some relief she said, “Yes.  I’ve been told if we keep doing work for you, those who oppose you will basically run me out of business.”  She wasn’t willing to run the risk of losing everything she’d worked for—and she should have never been put in that position. If that’s not bullying, then what is it?

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I call it the muzzle.  Some call it the Johnson Amendment. It’s that IRS rule that restricts churches and pastors from endorsing or opposing a candidate or a party. 

Did you know the church didn’t wear this muzzle until 1954?  In 1954, Texas Democrat Lyndon Johnson was facing re-election to the US Senate.  Two not-for-profit anti-Communist groups were attacking Johnson’s liberal agenda.  Johnson retaliated with the force of an incumbent.  He inserted language into the IRS code that prohibits not-for-profit organizations, which includes churches, from endorsing or opposing candidates running for political offices.  Congress went along with the idea, in spite of the fact that many believed and still believe this prohibition violates the First Amendment.

Whether or not Johnson intended for all churches in America to be affected by his “muzzle” is not clear.  Nevertheless, intended or not, the muzzle was slapped on America’s churches, too.  And it’s remained firmly in place since then—and we know the rest of the story.  Johnson eventually becomes president of the United States and the churches remain sidelined and silenced in some of the most important issues of our day.

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The Constitutional Convention really was all about the kind of government this new nation would have for generations to come.   The men who represented the 12 colonies that attended –all the original colonies except Rhode Island send delegates—knew that they faced yet another defining moment in the young country’s history. 

As the summer wore on, they knew they had to get it right.  Too much was at stake.  So they stayed. They again made personal sacrifices on behalf of future generations–and on September 17, 1787, the Constitution was signed by a majority of the delegates.  And, now 224 years later, their original words still form the bulk of the rule of law in this country.  Their gift to future generations is truly a gift that keeps on giving—providing a framework for governing a country for generations, unlike any other document before or since has done or is doing.

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So, what is with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the presiding official at the 10^th commemoration of 9/11?  What doesn’t he understand about America?   Why ban clergy and prayers from this service at Ground Zero?  What lies has he believed? 

Some Bloomberg defenders ask how we would decide who would pray. How could we possibly choose one clergyman to represent most Americans? And after all, they say, a 6-minute time of personal meditation will be offered—whatever that means. 

Mayor Bloomberg has shown an utter disrespect for one of the greatest traditions in this country—turning to God in times of grief and tragedy—and in the times we remember and commemorate those national tragedies.   He has shown a disrespect for our clergy in general. 

While we have incredible diversity and no state-mandated religion, we identify strongly with a general Christian religion—over 78% of Americans self-identify as some type of Christian, the majority, over 50%, as some type of protestant.  Finding members of the clergy to represent Americans and to offer prayers at the 9/11 service next Sunday wouldn’t be difficult.

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So what is a family—and does it really matter how we define family in our culture and in our law?

If you listen to the media or debates on the floor of the legislature or Hollywood, you would think that family is whatever anyone wants it to be—a traditional married mom and dad, a single parent and child, two persons of the same sex with or without children, friends living together as roommates or housemates, cohabiting heterosexual couples with or without children.  Whatever.

Government has made it clear that it is all for promoting a variety of definitions of family by enacting public policy that all too frequently treats them all the same.  For instance, State Senator Glenn Grothman has pulled together numbers that show between the state and the federal governments single mothers can get over $38,000 a year in tax-free benefits through programs such as Earned Income Credit, food stamps, state-funded day care and more.  

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For the most part, I loved school and felt very secure there—until the day came when we had an announcement over the PA telling us we would be having a special drill—in case of a missile attack.  “A what?  From where?”  I wondered as I took cover under my desk.

Mom picked me up from school that day and on the way home talked to me as an elementary student about Cuba, Castro, Kruschev, the Soviet Union, Communism and the Cold War.  It was the first time I felt unsafe in my home and my school.  In a sense, some of the innocence of my childhood was gone. 

From my perspective, nothing could destroy America—especially not a madman on a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea, or some man whose name I couldn’t pronounce living on the other side of the world.  And, we did avert those external threats and crises. 

But what I didn’t know until years later was that the philosophy and worldview of the Castros and Kruschevs of the world had taken firm hold in my homeland—and that those ideas, slowly worked into the fabric of our society, would one day destroy us without a missile ever being fired.  

I was rewarded Saturday for being a political junkie.  I couldn’t help myself, so I tuned in to catch part of the televised Iowa Republican Presidential Straw Poll, sandwiched between the Brewer game and the Packer pre-season opener.

As is typical, I was braced for hearing a great deal of moderate mush, especially on what some fondly, and some not so fondly, refer to as “social issues.”  You know, these supposedly throw-away issues such as life and marriage—those issues that are so divisive that only the true radicals really care about them, much less make them a litmus test for candidates.  At least that’s what many politicians, party faithful, and campaign consultants try to tell us.

However, I found my bracing was pretty much unnecessary.  Many of the candidates mentioned at least one of these social issues and several mentioned both.  It was encouraging to hear the candidates stake their claim as being pro-life and pro-marriage without having to have a question from the audience or some other external prompting, as is so often the case.

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Districts’ total votes (in vote total order):

SD 8 (Darling beats Pasch):  73,567                           2011 Supreme Court Race: 57,780  total votes
SD 10 (Harsdorf beats Moore):  64,349                     2011 Supreme Court Race:  38,161  total votes
SD 32 (Kapanke loses to Shilling):  55,124                2011 Supreme Court Race:  44,187  total votes
SD 18 (Hopper loses to King):  55,124                        2011 Supreme Court Race:  40,945  total votes
SD 14 (Olsen beats Clark):  50,919                               2011 Supreme Court Race:  42, 396 total votes
SD 2 (Cowles beats Nusbaum): 47,005                      2011 Supreme Court Race:  43,998  total votes

Point spread, in rank order:

SD 10 (Harsdorf 37,099 58% v. Moore 27,250 42%):  9,849 votes        Kloppenburg won-51.3%, 19,572 votes
SD 2 (Cowles 27, 035  57% v. Nusbaum 19,970 43%):  7,065 votes        Prosser won – 57.6%, 25,362 votes
SD 32 (Kapanke 26,724 45% v. Shilling 33,192 55% ):  6,468 votes       Kloppenburg won – 57.7%,  25,473 votes
SD 8 (Darling  39,471 54% v. Pasch 34,096 46%):  5,375 votes               Prosser won-57.4%,  33,147 votes
SD 14 (Olsen  26,554 52% v. Clark 24,365 48%):   2,189 votes                Prosser won -54.7%, 23,181 votes
SD 18 (Hopper 26,937 49% v. King 28,187 51%):  1,251 votes                  Prosser won – 53%, 21,686 votes

Political consultants and strategists really didn’t have a lot to go on to gauge how these elections would go.  They were unprecedented in number and in time of the year, for starters.  Most experts thought that the recent Supreme Court race would be a pretty decent recent election to use for targeting, comparisons, etc. since many of the factors affecting that race would presumably affect these recalls.  The one “for sure” in these elections was that everyone agreed that it would be “base against base,” meaning whichever candidate/side did the best job of getting their core faithfuls to vote would win, which by the way was pretty much the strategy for the April Supreme Court race.

Interestingly, in every recall race, the voter turnout solidly beat the turnout for the Supreme Court race, which had record numbers.  To me, that means both sides did a really good job of getting their people to the polls.   These elections tracked the Supreme Court candidate that won in these same districts, with the notable exception of SD 10 and SD 18.  Lots of room for post-election chatter on those.  In SD 32, it’s pretty apparent that the Democrats’ efforts to mobilize their base worked, with the Republicans’ efforts working well in SD 10, which had the second highest voter turnout and the biggest spread between the candidates.

Much more can be done with the numbers here, and there are many more numbers that could be compared–and should be.  We’ll start seeing some of the in-depth analysis before too long.  But for now, what story/stories do the numbers tell for you?