John Fund has a good round-up of the recent Supreme Court 6-3 ruling upholding Indiana’s voter fraud laws.  There was one thing, however, that the justices were unanimous on.

In ruling on the constitutionality of Indiana’s voter ID law – the toughest in the nation – the Supreme Court had to deal with the claim that such laws demanded the strictest of scrutiny by courts, because they could disenfranchise voters. All nine Justices rejected that argument.

Even Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the three dissenters who would have overturned the Indiana law, wrote approvingly of the less severe ID laws of Georgia and Florida. The result is that state voter ID laws are now highly likely to pass constitutional muster.

As much as the Left has tossed that word around (and at times incorrectly), this is indeed a crushing blow to budding Mayor Daley’s of the world.

But read the whole thing.  The case was from Indiana, and there’s a very close Obama connection.  You’d expect him to want to avoid voter fraud, right?

Right?

Technorati Tags: John Fund, Supreme Court, Indiana, vote fraud

I’ve recommended audio from the Acton Institute before, and they just keep cranking out great commentary. Today’s recommendation is for Jay Richard’s “Is it Hot In Here? What Should Christians Think About Global Warming?” At an hour and 20 minutes, it’s a bit to take in, but it goes in depth into 4 questions that Jay considers the main issues.

1. Is the globe warming?
2. Is man causing it?
3. Is it a bad thing?
4. What can / should government do about it?

You’ll find that Jay does believe that we’re in a warming trend if you only look back to the mid-1800s, but there have been times when the Earth has been much warmer, and Jay mentions something I’ve touched on before; that Greenland used to be farmland before SUVs, and yet the polar bears survived.

He’s clear about what is his opinion and what is fact, so I think this is a balanced assessment of the situation.

Technorati Tags: environment, global warming, Acton Institute, Jay Richardson, Christianity

The violence has continued to increase, with no end in sight. 

An outburst of gunfire rattled the city during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence.

[…]

They included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store.

I think that if either Clinton or Obama are elected President, we need a timetable for our troops to pull out of Mosul Chicago.

Technorati Tags: Chicago, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Iraq

Shire Network News #126 has been released. The feature interview is with Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals and Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury, two of the Canadian bloggers being sued by former Human Rights Commission employee Richard Warman. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News, asking you to “Consider This!”

As you know, if you’ve been an SNN listener for more than a month or so, that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has been prosecuting bloggers, writers and journalists over thought crimes regarding their views of radical Islam. Publishing the Danish cartoons is not, apparently, the problem. Having the wrong thoughts while publishing them seems to be the horror that the Canadian HRC is trying to abolish (while, of course, enriching the plaintiffs’ wallets).

The United States, however, has apparently decided that it needs to keep up with the Joneses. In New Mexico, that state’s HRC has now decided what pictures you simply must take. You no longer have a choice in the matter.

The New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled on Wednesday that an evangelical Christian photographer discriminated against a lesbian couple by refusing a job to photograph the couple’s same-sex commitment ceremony. Religious rights attorneys plan to appeal.

The commission ordered Elaine and Jon Huenins, owners of Elane Photography in Albuquerque, N.M., to pay the lesbian couple $6,600 in attorney fees.

The old saying goes that when all you have is a hammer, everything around you looks like a nail. It’s also well known that government agencies tend to expand into areas not originally in their purview. I give you Exhibit A.

Contributing to its descent into being inaptly-named, the Human Rights Commission has now found that, in spite of our Constitution’s First Amendment protections of free speech and religion, people can no longer act on their conscience when picking up their camera. One might find it shocking hearing that, in Canada, an HRC investigator, when asked about freedom of speech, replied, “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” (One might find it odd to hear this when that “American concept” seems to have made it into section two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.) But if we were to assume that this idea is indeed an “American concept”, one then needs to be outraged that one of our American states seems not to give it any value, either. Guess “freedom of speech” is no long a human right, hmm?

You might be led to think that there was not a single other photographer in all of Albuquerque. You’d, of course, be quite wrong. My suggestion to Vanessa Willock, the woman bringing the complaint, is: Google is your friend. We still have, as far as I know, a concept here called “the free market”, even (I think) in New Mexico.

This is obviously a case of using the club of government to beat into submission those who do not agree with you. How “tolerant” and “open minded”. I’m so glad that homosexuals don’t want any “special rights”. Choosing who you enter into a contract with is still a matter of some personal choice, unless the HRC thinks that lesbians now have some sort of “special right” to force you into signing on the dotted line. The Supreme Court said the Boy Scouts had a choice in the matter vis a vis homosexuals. Unless Elane Photography is government run or government funded, which I rather doubt, chances are they get the same choice.

Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School professor and noted constitutional scholar put another ironic twist on this. Seems that the law says that the government can only compel someone to violate their religious beliefs if there is a “compelling government interest”. The twist is that New Mexico does not recognize same-sex marriages! So the only compelling interest there might be is for the HRC to justify its existence, or perhaps to pander to the compelling liberal interest groups that traffic in political correctness.

Well lemme’ tell you; Canada is not going to one-up the good ol’ US of A when it comes to bureaucratic silliness and big-government insanity. That, may I say, is truly an “American concept”.

Brian of London, welcome to my country. I’m glad to have you, but consider that.

Technorati Tags: human rights, Canadian Human Rights Commission, New Mexico Human Rights Commission, New Mexico, Elaine Huenins, Jon Huenins, Elane Photography, freedom of speech, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Vanessa Willock, homosexuality, Christianity, First Amendment, Eugene Volokh

Should a painter be allowed to decide what he or she paints?  Should a musician be allowed to decide what music to play or write?  Should a photographer be allowed to decide what pictures to take? 

In New Mexico, the answer to that last question is a resounding, "No."

The New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled on Wednesday that an evangelical Christian photographer discriminated against a lesbian couple by refusing a job to photograph the couple’s same-sex commitment ceremony. Religious rights attorneys plan to appeal.

The commission ordered Elaine and Jon Huenins, owners of Elane Photography in Albuquerque, N.M., to pay the lesbian couple $6,600 in attorney fees.

"It is just a stunning disregard for the First Amendment," said Jordan Lorence, a senior legal counsel for the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the photographer couple in court.

Canada’s Human Right Commission has been, at the same time, busy accusing Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn and others of thought crimes (covered by the Shire Network News podcast here and here with many more details at FreeMarkSteyn.com), with the idea of "free speech" being considered foreign.

In fact, for an organization that is supposed to promote "human rights," the HRC’s agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the [Marc] Lemire case, [Dean] Steacy [HRC investigator] was asked "What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?" — to which he replied "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value." (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

If a photographer doesn’t want to take pictures at a same-sex commitment ceremony, but will get fined if she doesn’t, how soon before the First Amendment become a value-less concept within our own borders?

And this is not just a general free speech issue.  From the original article:

"[Vanessa] (Willock) had requested via e-mail for Elane Photography to conduct photography for her commitment ceremony, and the owner of Elane Photography responded that she would not perform that photography session because it was a same-sex commitment ceremony," [Carrie] Moritomo [public information officer for the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions] told Cybercast News Service .

No punitive monetary damages were awarded because Willock did not seek damages, Moritomo added.

Lorence said the Huenins, who are fervent evangelicals, politely declined the request because they did not want to use their art to disparage traditional heterosexual marriage. That should have been the end of the matter, he said.

"The Constitution prohibits the state from forcing unwilling people to promote a message they disagree with and thereby violate their conscience," Lorence said. "Christians should not be penalized for abiding by their beliefs.""

Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School professor, constitutional scholar and contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy blog (where he’s blogged about this issue separately from the new story) is quoted, noting parallels to hypothetically requiring a freelance writer being forced to write for a pro-Scientology web site words that he does not believe in.  He also points out a bit of inconsistency.

"The law says that only when there is a ‘compelling government interest’ and applying the law is essential, only then can the government compel someone to violate their religious beliefs," Volokh said.

The fact that New Mexico does not recognize same-sex marriage makes it hard to argue that government has a compelling interest in protecting same-sex commitment, he added.

Human Rights Commissions are becoming less and less aptly named, and are instead becoming mere tools in the hands of liberal interest groups to silence dissent.  Where the legislative avenue doesn’t work, these commissions and activist judges are the Left’s next front to get their way in social law when the people are clearly against them.

Technorati Tags: New Mexico Human Rights Commission, free speech, Christianity, religion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, Elaine Huenins, Jon Huenins, "Vanessa Willock, Alliance Defense Fund, Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, Eugene Volokh

Uh oh, don’t these Democrats realize that you simply can’t talk about this sort of thing in polite company?

Wading back into the Democratic presidential race, billionaire businessman Bob Johnson said Monday that Sen. Barack Obama would not be his party’s leading candidate if he were white.

Yes, apparently Mr. Johnson does recall Geraldine Ferraro’s remarks, and in fact agrees with them.

Johnson’s comments to the Observer echoed those of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro. She stepped down as an adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton last month after saying Obama wouldn’t be where he is if he were white.

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith’ and he says I’m going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not… ."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial … it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

Well, I wouldn’t say Ferraro’s skin color was a "problem" in the general sense, because that shouldn’t have mattered.  Equally, Bob Johnson’s skin color shouldn’t matter either, but if you click here and pull up the web page for the article, you’ll notice that he is black.  Not only can he say that Obama’s color is a factor in his popularity, he can also say that it was a "problem" for Ferraro to say this because of her color.

Whether or not you agree with Johnson’s assessments, I highly doubt he’s going to come under fire nearly as much as Ferraro for what amounts to a restating and expanding of her comments.  Obama himself may take a shot back, but the uproar, or lack thereof, over this will be telling.

And again I have to come back to the question; who it is that really has a problem with this?  It’s Democrats, the ones who insist they have more common cause with Dr. King.  It’s not just that talking about racial issues (which they, like Obama, insist they want to have a conversation on) can be taboo, but it’s a different sized taboo (or none at all) depending on the race of the speaker.  Your opinion is simply not tolerated unless you are of a particular race. 

Isn’t that, y’know, the very definition of racism?  Isn’t this allegedly what political correctness — AKA liberal sensitivity — was supposed to remove?  And yet liberals find themselves yet again in a bed, nay coffin of their own making.  Identity politics is ripping the party apart, and now oversensitivity to racial issues is continuing the breakdown. 

The facade that is the Democratic party has some gaping fissures. 

Shire Network News #124 has been released. This week we have a deep and meaningful discussion that ranges across the political spectrum. Douglas Murray and Nick Cohenjoin Tom Paine to discuss the failures on both Left and Right to come to terms with a Jihadi threat. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News, asking you to “Consider This”.Last week in Pennsylvania, Barack Obama was speaking to a crowd about some of his political positions, including abstinence-only education. During that speech, he said this:

I’ve got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby….

Children are a punishment, eh? I’m sure your kids are proud to hear that, Senator.

Oh, you mean just unwanted, unplanned babies are a punishment? From whom? From God, perhaps? The God who put life into that baby? The God who said, in the Bible you hold dear:

Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one’s youth.

Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.

From That Guy?

Obama’s context was that all the information should be made available to kids (presumably in public school, safely out of earshot from those inconvenient parents), but it’s one thing to be concerned about curriculum, and another thing entirely to consider unplanned children “punishment” and worthy of disposal.

But considering this, and through our super secret backchannels in the Obama campaign, here, from the home office in Camillus, NY, are the top 9 other punishments Barack Obama wouldn’t wish on anyone.

9. Have their newly-washed car located underneath a flock of flying penguins. (Yes, I know it’s an April Fool’s joke.)

8. Listen to “You’re a Grand Old Flag Pin”.

7. Get their own money back from a >shudder< tax cut.

6. Not allow them to find out who the final human-looking Cylon is on “Battlestar Galactica”.

5. Get interviewed by Tom Paine. (He asks those tough questions.)

4. Spend a few years at the “Hanoi Hilton”. (Oh, sorry, that’s a punishment John McCain wouldn’t wish on anyone.)

3. Sit through an entire Michael Moore movie. (Hey, some things we can all can agree on.)

2. Be the unlucky superdelegate that suggests to Bill Clinton that he needs to “chill out”.

And the number one punishment Barack Obama wouldn’t wish on anyone:

Listen to Obama himself decide whether he’s for or against gun control, for or against decriminalizing marijuana, for or against mandatory minimum sentences, for or against…well, you get the idea.

Consider that.

The Columbia Journalism Review, no member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy ™ they, is calling out the press corps on their (lack of) coverage of a pretty blatant lie.  First they repeat the context in which John McCain said we may stay in Iraq for 100 years, picking a number out of the air while noting our lengthy, continuing presence in S. Korea (~50 years) and Japan (~60).  But then came the lie about it.

It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long. That’s a very different thing. As he says, we’ve had troops in South Korea for over fifty years, but few people think that means we’re still fighting the Korean War.

Nevertheless, back in February, Obama said: “We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another hundred years.”

And, on a separate occasion: “(McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another hundred years of war in Iraq.”

But the big deal for the CJR is that journalists aren’t journaling.  If their job is to report the facts, they’re derelict.  Instead, they’re burying the lead or completely ignoring it, becoming co-dependents.

Still, some outlets continue to portray the issue as a he-said, she-said spat. A long takeout on the controversy by ABC News, opining that McCain’s comment “handed his Democratic opponents and war critics a weapon with which to bludgeon him,” is headlined: “McCain’s 100 Year Remark Hands Ammo to War Critics: McCain Haunted by January Remarks Suggesting 100 More Years in Iraq.” And today’s L.A. Times story, headlined “Obama, McCain Bicker Over Iraq,” is similarly neutral.

To be fair, the ABC News piece does provide the quote in its full context, giving enough information to allow conscientious readers to figure out the truth. That’s better than the L.A. Times piece, which says only that “McCain has stressed since then that he meant that U.S. troops might need to remain to support Iraqi forces, not to wage full-scale warfare”—instead of simply telling readers that it’s clear from the context that McCain did indeed mean that. Still, neither piece stated high up and unequivocally that Obama is distorting McCain’s words.

(Emphasis mine.)  When those who lean left can’t keep quiet about leftward bias in the press (and when they make their case in a journalism magazine), the game is up

Technorati Tags: media, Columbia Journalism Review, John McCain, Barack Obama, Iraq, media bias

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty has, as it’s quick mission statement:

The Mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.

Among their web site’s many features is the Acton PowerBlog, and a podcast of the various lectures and radio appearances of Acton staff as well as their recently-started "Radio Free Acton" with a bit more production value (hosted by an old blogging friend of mine, Marc VanderMaas). 

Recently in the podcast stream was a talk by Acton President Rev. Robert Sirico entitled "The Rise (And Eventual Downfall) of the New Religious Left".  It is a 35 minute speech in which Rev. Sirico covers the fallacies of the Religious Left by noting history, scripture, and church writings.  He particularly notes the Left’s penchant for increasing the power of government (which history shows never ends well) in the name of caring, when the role of the church in society is to change hearts and allow human society to come naturally along. 

I’d like to suggest this quick listen those, both on the right and the left, who would like to hear a well-reasoned examination of the role of government in Christian charity.  (The page linked above has an embedded audio player.)

Tom, a contributor to Stones Cry Out, a group blog I run, said recently, "These are tough times to be a Democrat."  A commenter, noting that line, replied, "It still appears that McCain can’t even beat Clinton – with her huge negative ratings – much less Obama."

If you put your stock in opinion polls, McCain’s looking better all the time.

The poll showed Arizona Sen. McCain, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, is benefiting from the lengthy campaign battle between Obama and Clinton, who are now battling to win Pennsylvania on April 22.

McCain leads 46 percent to 40 percent in a hypothetical matchup against Obama in the November presidential election, according to the poll.

That is a sharp turnaround from the Reuters/Zogby poll from last month, which showed in a head-to-head matchup that Obama would beat McCain 47 percent to 40 percent.

Now, as I’ve said, I’m not a big fan of opinion polls.  They tend to judge emotion moreso that anything else, as I think this one does.  Nonetheless, I think Tom’s point stands, especially when you consider, as he did, the primary season debacle.

So now Democrats find themselves in a thoroughly uncomfortable position. Their nominee will ultimately be selected by the party’s elite, unelected delegates rather than by the millions of voters who turned out in during the primary season. Depending on which way they go, they run the risk of alienating a huge portion of their base. They could potentially disenfranchise millions of voters (particularly if they cannot resolve the Michigan/Florida problem). It’s rather ironic that the same party that since 2000 has routine accused Republicans of disenfranchising voters may do the same to their own base. How they solve these issues in selecting their nominee could mean the difference between a huge victory in November and utter self-destruction.

It ain’t over ’til it’s over, right Yogi?

Technorati Tags: politics, Democrats, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, presidential primary, disenfranchisement