I am aware that several Virginia colleges and universities have included “sexual orientation” in their respective policies. For the reasons stated, any college or university that has done so has acted without proper authority…Accordingly, I would advise the Boards of each college to take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and the public policy of Virginia.

The Virginia chapter of the ACLU is predictably indignant over this development. Exec. Director Kent Willis:

“Regardless of state law or policy, not only should universities prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but they are required to do so under the U.S. Constitution.”

Required, eh? That’s quite a stretch.

And if you don’t remember what the problem is with those non-discrimination policies, let me remind you.

For 35 years, mandatory disclosure of political contributions has been the most popular part of the campaign-finance “reform” agenda. Yet the idea that Americans should report their political activity to the government is, in many ways, the most un-American part of that agenda. Excessive disclosure invades privacy to little benefit and provides government—and others—the information they need to retaliate against people holding unpopular or inconvenient views. Moreover, compulsory disclosure sends the message that identity, not ideas, matter. Call the result “ad hominem democracy,” an atmosphere in which serious, civil debate about issues seems ever harder to find.

The usual defense for disclosure laws is that they are needed to prevent corruption of the candidates and, hence, the process. But Smith points out that federal laws mandate disclosure of all donations over $200. And 40 states have a threshold of $100 or less. Can anyone seriously argue that you can buy a candidate for those amounts? And most of those states and federal government require the disclosure of the contributors’ occupations and employers. To what end?

Some of the stories of intimidation and retribution that Smith recounts in the name of “disclosure” are pretty eye-opening. It’s worth a read.

Signed,

Publius

A recent study, “The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and for All Fifty States,” shows that divorce and family fragmentation is very expensive for taxpayers.  In addition to the pain experienced by children and their parents, taxpayers pick up the costs to society due to:

… taxpayer expenditures for antipoverty, criminal justice, education programs, and through lower level of taxes paid by individuals who, as adults, earn less because of reduced opportunities as a result of having been more likely to grow up in poverty.

The principal investigator, Benjamin Scafidi, used a low estimate in his conclusion, but it’s an unbelievable amount.  The final estimate was that “family fragmentation costs U.S. taxpayers at least $112 billion each and every year.”

As an international organization with outreach to hurting families around the globe and our nation, it goes without saying that Focus on the Family would like to see more children growing up with their married mom and dad. This research helps reveal that marriage is a great investment for our communities.

Read more about this report at The Institute for American Values Web site.

NPR did a great piece about Colbert Williams, the teacher who became his guardian, and the how Williams, a father at 16, raised his son.  It’s a story that continues to give—a quietly inspiring story of sacrificial fatherhood.

On becoming a father Williams said,

I guess as a 16-year-old who came from a situation where there wasn’t a father, you know, my confidence level was probably as low as it possibly could get because I realized that I was going to be responsible for some person,” Colbert said. “So I was scared.”

And today Focus on the Family celebrates the part we played in helping to place half of Colorado’s children eligible for adoption in forever families.

Tiffany Beal, now a 20-year-old college senior in Colorado Springs, was in foster care for about three years before her adoption at age 11. She urges people to go out on a limb and adopt — because it’s the best thing they can do for a child.

“The most amazing part of being adopted was that no matter what, I always had a home. I had someone to call Mom and Dad,” Beal said. “Even at 3, my little brother knew he wasn’t home in foster care. He kept asking me, ‘When are we going to go home?’ “

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14516591#ixzz0hK2S2Fa7

The “Hotshot,” a small condom specifically designed to fit 12-year-old boys. Because handing out Jr. Condoms to Junior at school will fix the slightly more-than-concerning problem of pre-teen boys having sex, right?

The U.K. Telegraph reports that Family Planning groups along with the Swiss Aids Federation, lobbied to have the smaller condom produced. No surprise here. International Planned Parenthood wants to “help” children as young as 10.

Even Joe Leprechaun doesn’t have to eat Bangers and Mash to know that throwing condoms – even little condoms – to lads and lassies will not fix the U.K.’s core behavioral problem of kids having sex with kids.

Sex should never be promoted as an acceptable activity for children, little condom or not. Government and schools should not be teaching to the lowest standard, unless they hope to “achieve” the lowest standard.

Isn’t it due time the FCCY and other government entities to raise the standard, rather than listen to “Family Planning” groups, whose very existence depends on children having sex with children and propagating dire, desperate circumstances?

What children need is more parental communication - including instruction about sex – and more school advocacy for higher sexual standards and a touch (perhaps a load) more discretion from the media. What they don’t need is a smaller condom.

But more gambling for state revenues, especially in today’s climate, is a bad hand. A sucker bet. Fool’s gold.

The Gambling Cash Cow is running dry, but states are slow to learn. As of early March, Maryland alone had 26 new gambling bills introduced just since 2010.

The Gambling Empire takes dollars and exports pennies and addiction. This makes gambling a bad neighbor, and gambling also fails the cost-benefit test.

In a recent Parade Magazine article, Robert Ward of the Rockefeller Institute of Government concluded, “Gambling has grown because it is less unpopular than other steps, like broad-based tax increases … Plugging the hole this way just pushes the problem down the road.”

The Rockefeller Institute published a grim forecast on the Luck Cartel’s future. Nearly 30 states, all banking on more gambling to save the day, must have missed the report, however, alongside multiple headlines describing gambling’s persistent decline.

According to the Nevada Gaming Abstract 2009, the new generation of Nevada tourists is drinking more than they are gambling. Nightclubs and alcohol are in, gambling is out.

Are you frustrated by your state officials banking the budget on more gambling? Want to make a difference today?

Educate your elected officials by sending them the Rockefeller report.   Print off a double-sided (8.5×14), color fact-filled flyer. Send these items to your state officials and urge them to put the Gambling Cow out to pasture. She’s going dry!

Apparently afraid that the LGBT crowd might react in a hostile manner, the Elmira police arrested all seven of the Christians and charged them with disorderly conduct. Three copped a plea; four stood trial and were convicted. Of those four, three had their convictions overturned on appeal, and the fourth, Julian Raven, is appealing to New York’s highest court with the help of the Alliance Defense Fund. Mr. Raven’s conviction was not overturned in the lower court proceeding because he alone of the seven had been warned by a police officer not to go into the park (a violation of Raven’s rights, by the way).

I don’t know how many news stories I’ve read where Christian or conservative speakers are shouted down (or worse) by Lefties of all persuasions who show up for that single purpose, and who are never arrested or removed from the premises for actual, you know, disorderly conduct. But let a Christian rile things up by just showing up to silently pray for the people at an event, and the very essence of democracy is threatened.

The growing hostility toward religion in this country by those in government who are sworn to protect our religious freedoms is appalling.

“… a boy who identifies himself as a girl is by law allowed to use girls bathrooms, locker rooms and participate on girls sports teams, or vice versa.”  That’s the summary from Maine’s Bangor Daily News, reporting on school guidelines currently under development by Maine’s Human Rights Commission.

So now we are on the cusp of allowing boys into girls restrooms based on their stated identity choice of the day. It’s hard to imagine an environment more sexually confusing for kids—or fraught with risky situations— than that.

At issue is the Maine Human Rights Commission’s efforts to adopt guidelines for schools on how to deal with gender-confused students. While they are being touted as just “guidelines,” the reality is that schools found in violation of the commission’s policies are more vulnerable to losing a lawsuit.

Meanwhile, according to the Bangor Daily News report,  gay activist groups—in particular, the local Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) chapter—have helped develop these guidelines. (GLSEN is the controversial group founded by “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings. It is devoted to promoting homosexuality and ”transgender” behavior to kids all the way down to the kindergarten level.)

The Maine School Management Association has raised concerns that the Human Rights Commission is overstepping its bounds by giving schools specific mandates. And then there’s concerns from both secondary schools and colleges about “fairness” issues in sports  and how teams are classified under NCAA guidelines.

This is just some of the chaos we will continue to see if identity politics and homosexual activism are given free rein in our public school systems.

For more about how transgender-activism is affecting schools’ and states’ policies, check out our “Transgender” Madness commentary.

USA Today can’t carry all the blame for misleading—the writers repeated what Pamela Smock, University of Michigan sociologist said.  In contrast, the NY Times headline had a better grasp of the real takeaway, “Study Finds Cohabiting Doesn’t Make a Union Last.”

This is the truth.  Studies show that there is a difference in types of cohabiting—the sliding kind and the deciding kind.  The slide: Couples who never talk about marriage and “slide” into a cohabiting situation, usually break up.  The decide: Couples who had already decided to marry and then move in together, are more likely to marry and stay together.

Importantly, cohabitation in the best “decide” situation is only neutral–  research shows no positive effects on marriage, but lots of downsides are possible.  Children especially suffer when their parents share little more than toothbrush space and rental agreement, but adults lose without marriage as well.

Also significantly, marriage is the basis for stable relationships—physically, emotionally and financially.  There are a lot more reasons to encourage marriage than to scapegoat cohabitation.

Hmm. How to fix this problem.

Hey …I have an idea. What about actually making the schools accountable to parents? How about letting parents use a portion of their tax dollars to choose the best school, public or private, in their area?

That puts the power in parents’ hands. It’s a market-driven way to spur reform —and best of all, there’s factual proof school choice works.

Oh wait—that idea’s already been axed by the Obama administration.

That’s the problem with big government. It always wants to keep the power in its hands. In fact, when it comes right down to it, it looks like this government would rather support firing teachers, than empowering parents.

This week President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, stirred the waters by praising a Rhode Island school board that fired all the staff—teachers, principals, counselors, everyone— in a small-town high school that was graduating less than half of its students. The board took this action after the teachers’ union blocked reform efforts minus significant extra pay.

In fact,  President Obama has made the Rhode Island school board the new poster child for his latest education initiative— $900 million worth of federal grants so states can “turnaround” their lowest performing schools. (This follows last year’s $3.5 billion allotment.)

“Turnaround” means they have choices ranging from converting the school to a charter, putting it under new management or, as is happening in Rhode Island, firing and replacing at least half of the staff.

While the effort to rescue kids trapped in failing schools—and buck unions entrenched in the status quo—is extremely heartening, at the same time, a top-down, government-directed strategy remains short-sighted.

Because it still makes the schools primarily accountable to big government—not parents, who are actually closest to the kids and the neighborhood schools they attend, and therefore have the best understanding of what’s really happening on the ground.

For instance, parents in Chicago—where Arne Duncan first tried out this “turnaround” strategy—have voiced concerns about whether their children actually end up in a better school after the original one is transformed or eliminated. They pointed to a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research “showing that most students affected by closings were transferred into schools that also were academically weak,” reported a New York Times article.

Why not avoid these entanglements by just putting the power in the parents’ hands in the first place? After all, we know school choice works. But there’s scant evidence that turnarounds work.

And what was that again President Obama said about making “whether it works” the test for his policies?