North Carolina “Bully Bill” A Trojan Horse

The North Carolina House School Violence Prevention Act (HB 1366) is supposed to address the problems of bullying by mandating schools to adopt policies which would, hopefully but doubtfully, prevent or minimize this major discipline problem in public schools.  One of the strange and interesting aspects of this particular bill, however, is that it also creates special protections (extra rights) for students based on their sexual orientation.  In blunt terms, what this means is that if a bully hits your son who happens to be a heterosexual male, the bully will (hopefully) be punished according to standard policy.  If the bully hits another male student, who happens to be a homosexual, then the incident will have to receive extra attention and the bully would receive more than the standard punishment (treated more seriously).  In essence, the North Carolina House is identifying a special group of students (homosexuals) who will receive more protection than other (heterosexual) students.

The North Carolina Senate has already wisely rejected this bill once by deleting its pro-homosexual language and sending it back to the House for concurrence.  The House has now voted to send it back to the Senate in its original form.  The bill will probably come to the Senate floor for a vote by Friday, July18th.

The problem with this bill is that it will require schools to set up discipline policies that are very much like “hate-crime” laws.  “Hate-crime” laws should be unconstitutional because they give some citizens more rights and protections than other citizens.  The concept of “all men being created equal” and deserving “equal protection under the law” is tossed out of the window and under the bus when we start giving special protections to certain classes of citizens.  The whole idea of deciding if something is a “hate-crime” or not puts the judicial system in the mind-reading business.

Principal to Student Bully: “Bully, did you hit John because he is a homosexual or was there another reason?”

The fact that Bully hit John becomes less important than figuring out why he hit John and the “why” becomes the basis of punishment (if you can figure it out).  A crime is a crime.  Breaking school rules is breaking school rules.  Punishments should be consistent for all students who break the rules and all citizens who break the law.  A crime is no less a crime because it was committed against someone in a group that is not designated a special, protected group by the government.  Such thinking destroys the concept of “equal protection under the law.”

With Friends Like These, Obama Doesn’t Need Political Enemies

The new cover of the New Yorker magazine portrays Obama in a turban and an American flag burning in the fire place.  The left wing rag also portrays his wife carrying a gun.  Is that a picture of Osama bin Laden over the fireplace?

Obama’s campaign has condemned the magazine’s cover.  A New Yorker spokesman claims it is a satirical lampoon of the right-wing’s caricature of Obama.

Personally, I see this as the product of escalating poor judgment by the liberal media.  The cover is an offensive portrayal of a candidate for the American Presidency.

How Can We Persevere?

“But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:25, ESV)

I think that all of us, at one time or another, face a season of storms in our lives.  These storms may be past or future, or they may be occurring right now in your life.  Sometimes it seems as if troubles never end.  You may feel so overwhelmed by what has happened or is happening that you want to scream aloud in anger.  Perhaps you even feel that you would like to punch God in the nose.  You don’t believe you can take it another day as the question repeats over and over in the back of your mind – “What did I do to deserve this?”

Karl Olsson tells the story of Marie Durant in his book, Passion.  She was one of the early French Protestants who were called Huguenots.

“In the late Seventeenth Century in . . . southern France, a girl named Marie Durant was brought before the authorities, charged with the Huguenot heresy.  She was fourteen years old, bright, attractive, marriageable.  She was asked to abjure the Huguenot faith.  She was not asked to commit an immoral act, to become a criminal, or even change the day-to-day quality of her behavior.  She was only asked to say, “J’abjure.” No more, no less.  She did not comply.  Together with thirty other Huguenot women she was put into a tower by the sea. . . .  For thirty-eight years she continued. . . .  And instead of the hated word J’abjure she, together with her fellow martyrs, scratched on the wall of the prison tower the single word Resistez, resist!

The word is still seen and gaped at by tourists on the stone wall at Aigues-Mortes. . . .  We do not understand the terrifying simplicity of a religious commitment which asks nothing of time and gets nothing from time.  We can understand a religion that enhances time. . . .  But we cannot understand a faith which is not nourished by the temporal hope that tomorrow things will be better.  To sit in a prison room with thirty others and to see the day change into night and summer into autumn, to feel the slow systemic changes within one’s flesh; the drying and wrinkling of the skin, the loss of muscle tone, the stiffening of the joints, the slow stupefaction of the senses – to feel all this and still persevere seems almost idiotic to a generation which has no capacity to wait and to endure.” (Quoted from Battling Unbelief by John Piper, pp.72-73)

There is a profound difference between the Christianity of a Marie Durant and the Christianity that most of us claim in today’s world.  It is so profound that we can barely read such an account without thinking that Marie Durant was too extreme –  or fanatical – or a little nuts.  The difference in our understanding of Christianity lies in what we hold to be most precious.  A Christian, such as Marie Durant, finds her greatest treasure in God alone.  Most modern Christians desire God and. . . . (You fill in the blank.)

The problem is you cannot serve God and. . . . Man was created to find satisfaction in God alone.  Perseverance in trial or circumstance requires that the ultimate source of delight comes from our relationship with God.  If God is your treasure, you will persevere.