Cartoonist Hangs Voters out to Die
No one has ever mistaken Tom Toles as conservative. But when the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist called for marriage supporters to "hurry up and die," it didn't exactly tickle the funny bone. Last week, Toles celebrated the President's "evolution" by drawing two men at the altar. The person marrying them tells the guests, "If anyone here objects to the marriage of these two men, speak up now because opponents are aging and dying off and soon won't matter anymore." In the lower right corner, a man at a desk (presumed to be Toles) says, "Is it okay to yell 'Hurry up'?"
Like most liberals, Toles is under the impression that young people are the key to redefining marriage in America. But new polling from North Carolina shows their support may be greatly exaggerated. If young voters are going to tip the balance, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) says, it will be at a "far more glacial pace" than activists think. Analysts dug deeper into the North Carolina polling data and found that young voters (18-30) were only narrowly opposed to the marriage amendment. "There is a difference between opposing something less stridently and actually supporting it," the experts write, "and all the evidence available from both the results in last Tuesday's vote on Amendment One in North Carolina and Public Policy Polling's (PPP) final poll before the vote show that voters under 30 opposed the amendment only marginally."
That's especially significant coming from a liberal polling organization. "While this may seem counterintuitive," AEI explains, SurveyUSA... found a similar result both overall (57%-37%) and among young voters (51%-48%)." By AEI's calculations, "[E]ven if nobody over age 45 had voted Tuesday, the amendment still would have passed by around eight percentage points, according to the adjusted data." What's more, voters do their own evolving as they age, and the radical views many Americans hold in college often change when they marry and have children.
Besides, the President will need a lot more than the youth vote to keep him afloat. In North Carolina, which has the tenth most electoral votes, Gov. Mitt Romney now holds a 51-43% lead . That's quite a shift from early last week when the two candidates were in a dead heat. After the President's announcement, even one in five (18%) Democrats now favor Gov. Romney in North Carolina. Obviously, a lot can happen between now and November. But even if the controversy dies off, it looks like the opposition won't. (Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Toles!)
Steubenville Loses Its Patients with Mandate
If you like your student health insurance plan, you can't keep it--at least not at Ohio's Franciscan University. This month, the Steubenville university became the first in a long line of colleges to reconsider its student health coverage after the President's contraception-abortion pill mandate. In an email to students, Franciscan explained the change. "W e will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate Catholic Church teaching on the sacredness of human life in the future. Due to these changes in regulation by the federal government, beginning with the 2012-13 school year, the University will no longer require that all full-time undergraduate students carry health insurance, will no longer offer a student health insurance plan, and will no longer bill those not covered under a parent/guardian plan or personal plan for student health insurance ... These are challenging days for everyone as we strive to understand the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed into law in 2010. If the federal regulations change in the future, we will re-visit this decision and determine whether a different course of action is appropriate. In the meantime, you need to be aware that this legislation does affect you..."
And it will affect plenty of families too. Policies like this one tend to have a domino effect, especially as students are forced to rely on their parents' plans for the coverage they need. Franciscan may be the first campus casualty of the President's war on religious freedom, but it won't be the last. This is just a precursor of what's to come as more schools weigh their options under the mandate. And for most of them, violating faith is no option at all.
The ENDA the Rainbow
If liberals think they can intimidate Congressman James Lankford (R-Okla.), they picked on the wrong guy. Last week, the far-Left's ThinkProgress tried to ambush Rep. Lankford on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which gives special workplace rights to homosexuals and cross-dressers. FRC has argued against the policy for years. Not only is it unnecessary, but it would be used as a weapon to bludgeon religious employers and businesses.
In ThinkProgress's video, the interviewers ask Rep. Lankford if he could "support a law that says you can't fire someone for their sexual orientation--similar to protections for people on gender?" The Congressman replied that "[R]ace and sexual preferences are two different things. One is a behavior-related and preference-related and one is something inherently--skin color, something obvious, that kind of stuff. You don't walk up to someone on the street and look at them and say, 'Gay or Straight?'"
The crew pressed him more, asking if he believes people are born gay. "Do I personally? No. I don't. I think it's a choice issue. Are tendencies and such? Yes. But I think it's a choice issue." That day, ThinkProgress posted an outright lie as its headline, suggesting that Lankford wants to make it "legal to fire someone for being gay." Of course, he never said that--but ThinkProgress never lets a little thing like the truth get in the way of a good story. Since then, the Left has launched an all-out smear campaign against the Oklahoma Republican, hoping he'll back down. He hasn't--not even when threats to his office started pouring in. "Businesses hire and fire people based on their performance at work, not in their private lives outside of their work," he said.
The entire episode has been a case study in liberal tactics. Time and time again, the Left tries to bully or intimidate people into submission on their agenda. But when Americans are undeterred, as Rep. Lankford is, liberals are at a complete loss. Usually, after a few failed attempts, they become frustrated enough to move on to the next target. Bend and be trampled. Stand and be left alone. In the meantime, it takes lots of courage to weather the storm. Contact Rep. Lankford (202.225.2132) and tell him you're grateful he has!
