April 14, 2008

In this issue:


A Liberal Dropping the "J" Word in Public  

Last week the House Health and Human Resources Committee considered a bill that would allow those who have had a sex change operation to change their birth certificate to reflect their "new" sex.  Of course, adding and removing body parts does not change genetics and chromosomes - women still have two "x" chromosomes and men still have an "x" chromosome and a "y" chromosome .  And, no doubt that is why Rep. Jason Mumpower (R-Bristol) made a motion to amend the bill to require that the new birth certificate reflect the existence of a sex change.

Adding and removing body parts does not change genetics and chromosomes.

It was then, right there in a public meeting where government policy is being made, that Rep. Jean Richardson (D-Memphis) conveniently vaulted over the "wall of separation of church and state" constructed and revered by liberals and dropped the "J-word."  Yes, that's right, she brought up "Jesus." Rep. Richardson, in response to Rep. Mumpower's physiologically correct amendment, chided him for his lack of compassion with a bizarre question to support her position, "What would Jesus do?"

Rep. Mumpower gave a fine response, but the extreme irony of her question is found in the fact that several weeks ago she voted against SJR 127, the resolution that would amend our state constitution and pave the way for partial-birth abortion being banned in Tennessee. 

Yes, you read correctly.  There is no enforceable ban on partial-birth abortion in Tennessee! And there won't be one without the passage of SJR 127.  In what is nothing short of a political bomb shell, our state Attorney General recently stated that even the same ban on partial-birth abortion the United States Supreme Court upheld would not be enforceable under Tennessee's Constitution.  (In Tennessee, an Attorney General opinion nearly carries the weight of law, particularly among legislators and the governor's administration). According to our state Supreme Court, even partial-birth abortion is a constitutional right in Tennessee.  That is, unless we amend our Constitution to say otherwise.

We wonder what Jesus would do about birth certificates for those who have changed their physical appearance, but we don't ask that question when it comes to protecting unborn children in the third trimester from having their skulls pierced or crushed and their brains removed.  Call me crude and insensitive, but those are the words the U.S. Supreme Court used when it said that partial-birth abortion could be banned.  When we use these "nice" but sanitized descriptions for abortion procedures, too many do not know what we are really talking about.  People need to know the cruelty of the procedure that was protected by Rep. Richardson's vote against SJR 127.  Protecting partial-birth abortion is not very compassionate.

Which raises another point.  Jesus was never asked about birth certificates.  So he never spoke to the issue directly. But he did say that whoever would cause one of these "little ones to stumble," it "would be better for that man to have a millstone tied around his neck and that he be cast in the sea."  When the House of Representatives sits by and makes it possible for even one partial-birth abortion to be performed and a whole state does not rise up to demand their elected officials act to change this, you have to wonder if there are enough millstones in Tennessee to go around.

Lastly, the press, as best we can tell, did not jump all over Rep. Richardson for bringing religion into the consideration of public policy, let alone the fact that it was Christianity.  I have no doubt that had I asked that same question of my fellow legislators when I was sponsoring SJR 127, I would have been crucified by the press and political liberals.  Maybe I should have asked and suffered the consequences. After all, we know what Jesus would do when it comes to being crucified for doing the right thing.

Protecting the Lives and Dignity of Chickens

Irony number two flows naturally from irony number one.  While partial-birth abortion remains constitutionally protected and other common sense abortion policies cannot be constitutionally enforced, a House subcommittee moved forward a measure that would crack down on cock fighting. Cock fighting is bad. And several other evils come with it, like gambling.

Surely the chickens would not have fared any better at the hands of that committee than pre-born babies.

But with the state serving as the bookie for the lottery, and chickens in the meat case at the grocery, one has to wonder how the evils of cock fighting compare to even one partial-birth abortion or one woman finding herself with breast cancer or infertility issues because no one told her at the time of her abortion that she was at higher risk of those problems. It's a good thing the cock fighting bill wasn't sent by the Speaker to the House Health Subcommittee where SJR 127 goes to die every year.  Surely the chickens would not have faired any better at the hands of that committee than pre-born babies.

 

Protecting Judges from Accountability

The last bit of irony for the week was the House Judiciary Committee defeating a bill that would make discussions by the Judicial Selection Committee public like all other decision-making meetings where public policy will be affected.  And please don't say picking judges has nothing to do with public policy. If you think that then you didn't read about our state Supreme Court making abortion a constitutional right without any input from the legislature.

But our legislators have, in their wisdom, decided without our input that we are not smart enough to pick our Supreme Court judges.

It is an unfortunate reality that judges do indeed make law and they do affect public policy. To keep Judges "honest" and accountable, our forefathers put into our state Constitution that judges should be "elected by the qualified voters" of the state.  It's the same language regarding elections as used for legislators and our governor.  But our legislators have, in their wisdom, decided without our input, that we are not smart enough to pick our Supreme Court judges.

In 1971, they took away our right to vote for these judges, instead allowing the Governor to select a judge for us and letting us decide a few years later if we want to "retain" the governor's appointment.  Perhaps feeling a guilty pang or two, the Constitutional Convention in the early 70's thought they ought to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would "ratify" the retention elections the legislature  had already given us. But, having their right to vote for Supreme Court judges still fresh in the people's memory, only one out of 13 amendments on the ballot in 1977 was rejected - the "retention election" amendment!

The legislature, seeing public reaction, repealed retention elections for Supreme Court judges, but once memories of the 1977 vote faded, in 1994 the legislature went back to retention elections.  So partial-birth abortion is given protected status by our Supreme Court judges, and no one can run against them.

Well that is going to change. We hope.  The current law that provides for retention elections will "sunset" - political-speak for "go away" - if the Senate Government Operations Committee has the courage not to renew the law.  But, hopefully, you - the voters - will be able to resolve this issue once and for all if a soon to be filed Constitutional Amendment can get traction this year.  Stay tuned...