IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE
By Hetty Gray
# 211
April 8, 2015
“Sticks and Stones”
Some days, common sense is absent from the public forum. So it has been for the past several weeks here in Indiana. A law that simply prohibited any level of government from making a law infringing on religious liberty was skewed to imply that it promoted discrimination of a very small portion of our population. Ah, yes, those persons within what is deemed the gay community took on a law that parallels the one signed by President Clinton
–– a law co-sponsored by Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich. Bi-partisan? Yes.
This unexpected onslaught of misinformation placed a pall over the state to the degree that national media focused on it day after day, impugning the state’s credibility and making our governor out to be far less a man that he is. Not that that was a big surprise. Mainstream media, combined with a liberal bent in education, never ceases to push their favorite causes. It is their influence, in combination, that endangers American life as we know it.
A champion for freedom long before he went to Washington, D.C. to serve in Congress, Mike Pence hosted a radio show for years. His down to earth comments were not lost on Hoosiers. In only a few years, his fine reputation went beyond the airwaves to the political scene.
A conservative pledged to the liberty of all Americans, Governor Pence has suffered the unwarranted slings and arrows of a determined minority bent on making everyone else in society fall into line with their beliefs. Hoosiers are divided on whether he should have asked to have the law amended. Clearly, it could have stood on its own.
Maybe the gay community should take note of those who initially came out in support of it, only to end up in the stands to watch the Final Four. Did they stay home from the best possible site to see collegiate basketball? Nope. Take Apple CEO, for example. He stormed forward with comments that soiled Indiana’s reputation and then blissfully flew into Indianapolis for the NCAA National Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium. Maybe someone should ask him to defend his sales practices. His company sells products in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries where homosexuals are put to death if identified. Maybe he should remove Apple iPhones and iPads from outlets in those locations. If he is such a strong spokesman for the gay community, perhaps he — using an old phrase — put his money where his mouth is! Don’t hold your breath for that one.
Freedom of choice is sacrosanct in America, but some aspects of life should be kept private. No doubt, sexual preference apart from the majority heterosexual persuasion has been around for a long time. However, the current, incessant push to scream “civil rights” is not only disappointing, but also threatening. Why threatening? If taken to every level of daily life, it endangers the spirit of the entire population. And a dispirited people does not band together easily.
It’s time that the gay community tried to rehabilitate itself into a group that, while defending its beliefs, ceases to constantly impinge on those of the rest of us in order to make a point. That kind of rhetoric wears on many of us.
As a grandmother, I do not want the gay lifestyle marketed to my grandchildren under the label of tolerance. Tolerance is a two-way street. Maybe it’s time that the gay community toned down its language and metered its actions. Not that I expect that to happen.
For decades, the schools have been more intent on gender sensitivity than to teaching basic skills. Try to explain to a teenager at a cash register that you received too much change. Try to fathom why that same teen has no idea that 88 cents is just 12 cents from a dollar. Yet, that same teen would be very apt to come to the defense of the gays as a legitimate group. Go figure… Sorry about that, figuring was a poor choice, wasn’t it?
Too many of our young people rely so much on electronic devices and popular culture that they no longer think on their own. Sad. Combine the specter of a stilted view of sexuality with a reliance on devices over brain matter and you have the ingredients for disaster. Heaven forbid if we find ourselves fraught with the failure of those wonderful little devices.
A whole lot of good that sensitivity will do for the younger set then. Do have empathy for those who live a lifestyle that we cannot defend or understand, but also do remember that a house divided against itself falls. (Thanks, Abraham Lincoln.) We are more a divided people today than any time in our history, and widespread support for traditional marriage and religious liberty among our young people is fading fast.
I guess the old saying goes, “As you sew, so shall you reap.” Well, we may be in for a bitter harvest. Think about it.