Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Parents Outraged Over Transgender Bathroom Law




Thought Provoking Questions:


What happens when a community elects leaders who are too stupid to govern effectively or correctly?

What happens when a community or society slips out harmony with nature or the natural order of things?


I fully realize that these are extremely loaded and complicated questions - but certainly; they are worth pondering and searching for answers – are they not?

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday that he had signed AB1266 – seen as a landmark decision for transgender Americans. The new law gives students the right “to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities” based on their self-perception and regardless of their birth gender.

The law had the support of gay rights groups and many Democrats who said it would help reduce bullying against transgender students. It comes as the families of transgender students have been waging local battles with school districts around the country over what restrooms and locker rooms their children can use.

Detractors like Randy Thomasson of SaveCalifornia.com said allowing students of one gender to use facilities intended for the other could invade the other students’ privacy.

“Jerry Brown and the Democrats have targeted every kid in public school with gender-bending brainwashing,” Thomasson said, warning the law would trample parents’ rights and invade the “personal comfort zone of millions of California children for a handful of sexually confused children who need professional counseling.”

A thoughtful set of points to consider – from both a scientific perspective and a personal experience perspective.

I grew up in Southern California. I attended school, worked at jobs, and socialized alongside many gay people. I think it’s important to point out that fair-minded individuals (and I consider myself one), do not deny jobs, promotions, services and basic human rights to any people - including those from the gay community. More than just as an individual, but as an individual leader in the business community who has been responsible for the hiring, mentoring, leading and even promoting of hundreds of individuals at five different employers in the past 28 years - I have never tolerated even the slightest hint of immoral and what is illegal discrimination towards any individual - gender identity or any other group.

That being said, there is a powerful faction within the gay community whose ultimate goal is to silence opposition, or any objective criticism of homosexuality. I find this not only disturbing, I also find it immoral and completely contradictory to the principles of freedom. In particular, the freedom of thought and expression - as articulated in our Constitution.

Unfortunately, this highly vocal and activist subsection of the homosexual community have navigated themselves into a position where they are now using our legislatures and force of law to change people’s thought, opinions, and stance regarding the real-life issues of homosexuality. (For a detailed post on this tactic – please see a former blog post – Same Sex Marriage - The law is a great teacher, and it encourages or discourages behavior).

They openly accuse people of being bigoted and ‘homo-phobic’ and go as far as calling you a ‘Bully’ if you so much as question the homosexual life style. I challenge you to visit any of their online community, blog sites, etc. and post any of your own concerns or opinions that may be in opposition of embracing homosexuality; and see just how quickly they then ‘bully’ you into silence. In effect – this is the same tactic that ‘race baiters’ use when trying to silence any critics of Black American community leaders; etc. How many people are called ‘racist’ for criticizing our President policies or opposing the views and tactics of Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson? Watch how quickly the ‘Bullies’ who support these folks will attack you.

But what happens when we; society and a community of people, choose to ignore what is the natural order of things. I find it interesting that we can show the anatomy of a man and woman, (both internal and external) to the average grade-school age child; and they can quickly and intuitively determine what is the natural order of things and even explain why we are designed the way we are. However, in today’s day and age – those apparently obvious truths of nature need to be re-defined in order to appease those who want to pursue what we can demonstrably show is a destructive lifestyle.

The word ‘demonstrably’ is defined as –
adjective

  • Capable of being demonstrated or proved.
  • Clearly evident; obvious:


When issues like these become muddled by all of the voices – what I often refer to as the ‘noise’; I think it is necessary and healthy to take a step back and look for ‘evidence’ that corroborates one opinion/position or another. Much in the same way that a prosecutor in a court of law; working with investigators takes various and often independent pieces of evidence and combines them together to provide ‘Proof beyond a Reasonable Doubt’. We can weigh the evidence that supports conclusions in one direction or another – and come to a confident and defensible position or opinion. Put another way – What does the preponderance of evidence – when viewed in totality – tell us about whether or not a society is correct to fully embrace, endorse, promote and even legislate the homosexual lifestyle?

So – let’s take a look.




Health Facts of Homosexual Activity

Even if we ignore the cultural issue of procreation or any arguments based on religious grounds, the evidence shows that homosexual unions are medically inferior to man-woman unions.

Homosexual behavior:

  • Results in numerous health problems to those who practice it, including increases in AIDS, other STDs, colon and rectal cancer, and hepatitis. According to the Center for Disease Control, more than 82 percent of all known sexually-transmitted AIDS cases in 2006 were the result of male-to-male sexual contact. Moreover, gay and bisexual men account for more than 60 percent of all syphilis cases.

  • Shortens the life span of homosexuals, probably by eight to twenty years (see data on homosexual life span studies, some of which are controversial). Smoking, on average, reduces life span by seven years. Since we discourage smoking, why are we thinking of endorsing homosexuality?

The actual AIDS figure is probably higher than 82 percent because nearly all of the supposedly heterosexually-transmitted cases have a “risk factor not specified.” Since homosexual contact is one of the most efficient ways of transmitting the disease, many of those not specified cases probably originated with homosexual contact.

(See Center for Disease Control, Cases of HIV infection and AIDS in the United States and Dependent Areas, 2006 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, Volume 17, April 2008. See Table 17: Reported AIDS cases, by age category, transmission category, and sex, 2006 and cumulative—United States and dependent areas). Available online at:

According to the Centers for Disease Control, gay and bisexual men account for the vast majority of syphilis cases (more than 60 percent in 2005). See also William Dunham, “Syphilis rise in U.S. gay, bisexual men causes worry,” Reuters, May 4, 2007.

John R. Diggs, Jr. M.D, “The Health Risks of Gay Sex,” Corporate Resource Council, 2002. Available on-line at http://www.corporateresourcecouncil.org/white_papers/Health_Risks.pdf

R.S. Hogg, S.A. Strathdee, K.J. Craib, M.V. O’Shaughnessy, J.S. Montaner, and M.T. Schechter “Modeling the impact of HIV disease on mortality in gay and bisexual men,” International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 26, 657-661.

Jeffrey Satinover, M.D., Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996).

For a recent study on HIV soaring among men having sex with teenage boys, see

More controversial studies have been conducted by Dr. Paul Cameron

Some researchers and many homosexual activists question the methodology of Dr. Cameron’s life span studies which found that the median age of death for male homosexuals is in the forties and lesbians in the fifties. A summary and discussion of Cameron’s research can be found in “Only the gay die young”? An exchange between Warren Throckmorton, Morten.

Additionally – Homosexual behavior:


  • Spreads disease to innocent people who never engage in homosexual sex. A prominent example is Ryan White, the teenage boy who died of AIDS after a blood transfusion. There are thousands of Ryan Whites—according to the CDC, there are nearly ten thousand known cases of innocent people in the United States who have contracted AIDS the same way, including 160 in 2005 and 131 in 2006 (this despite improvements in blood screening). Moreover, there are thousands of innocent heterosexuals (many are spouses) who have contracted STDs via sexual contact with bisexuals.

Center for Disease Control, Cases of HIV infection and AIDS in the United States and Dependent Areas, 2005 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, Volume 17, Revised Edition, June 2007. See Table 17: Reported AIDS cases, by age category, transmission category, and sex, 2005 and cumulative— United States and dependent areas.



for 2006 number.

Homosexual behavior costs Americans millions in higher health insurance premiums because increased health costs from homosexual behavior are reflected in those premiums. In fact, the homosexual lobby has induced some states to prevent insurers from asking potential consumers any medical questions, including if they are HIV positive! As a result, every consumer is paying a higher premium because insurance companies are prevented from identifying clients who engage in high-risk sexual behavior.

The bottom line is that homosexual behavior is unhealthy. All sexual behaviors are not equally beneficial, and some of them can have negative consequences; both private and public consequences. Innocent people can and do get hurt. Due to the devastating health effects of male homosexuality, most of the research into gay health issues has been concentrated on homosexual men. However, the research that has been conducted with respect to lesbians does not yield good news. Lesbians experience many more health problems than heterosexual women.

Even the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association admits the following about lesbian women:

Lesbians have the richest concentration of risk in the following area:

  • Factors for breast cancer than any subset of women in the world.
  • They have higher risks for cervical cancers.
  • They are more likely to be obese.
  • They use more tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.

A study of over 1,400 lesbians found the following:
  • Lesbians experience higher rates of bacterial vaginosis and hepatitis C.
  • They have more than twice the number of male partners than heterosexual women (only 7 percent who identify themselves as lesbians never have sex with men).
  • They are 4.5 times more likely to have fifty or more male sexual partners in a lifetime.
  • They are three to four times more likely to have sex with men who are at high risk for HIV— homosexuals, bisexuals, and IV drug users.

Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, “Ten Things Lesbians Should Discuss With Their Health Care Provider,” http://www.glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageID=691

They are six times more likely to abuse drugs intravenously. Other studies also confirm lesbian health problems.

Many homosexual activists get angry when you cite these health facts. But why would anyone get angry over facts?

As Augustine said, we love the truth when it enlightens us, but we hate it when it convicts us.

Links, Sources & Resources

All quotes and statistics above – otherwise not referenced can be found in:



For a summary of lesbian health problems, see John R. Diggs, Jr. M.D, “The Health Risks of Gay Sex,” Corporate Resource Council, 2002, pgs. 5-6.

David Dunlap, “In Age of AIDS, Love and Hope Can Lead to Risk,” New York Times, July 27, 1996.

Mike Stobbe, “CDC understated number of new HIV infections in US,” Reuters, August 2,2008.


Jeffrey Satinover, M.D., Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996), the data from which Dr. Satinover draws these figures is the Sex in America survey published by researchers from the University of Chicago in 1994.

Quoted in Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D., “Chris Matthews’ Hard Sell: Pay attention to the common Assumptions about Gay Marriage,” online at http://www.pfm.org/AM/Templatecfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=13210


Thursday, August 1, 2013

Detroit’s Death by Democracy – What are the Lessons for Charlotte?





Over the first 30 years of my life; I grew up in Southern California. During my early career, I worked all across the region for the Los Angeles Times Newspaper. At one point in time; I moved east to the suburbs in San Bernardino County.

I lived and experienced first-hand as a citizen, and as a member of the business community – the politics, policies and outcomes of local government being dominated and controlled by progressive democrats. Having had a front row seat and living in the middle of it all – let me tell you something with absolute certainty… Ongoing and long-term Democrat control of local policy and spending is virtually guaranteed to be a death-spiral.

Detroit is now beyond any doubt a ‘poster-child’ for why we should not allow decades of control by progressive liberals. It is also an example of the terrible outcomes we get when we do not have a thriving two-party representative process in a region or a city.

Detroit – Death by Democracy
This bedraggled city’s decay poses worrisome questions about the viability of democracy in jurisdictions where big government and its unionized employees collaborate in pillaging taxpayers. Self-government has failed in what once was America’s fourth-largest city and now is smaller than Charlotte, N.C.

Let’s take a look at a couple more of our cities to the west.

Los Angeles
The fact is that there is more margin and opportunity for tax revenue in a place like Los Angeles. We have to remember that the number of highly profitable business and industries in LA County are numerous. You have Hollywood and all of the various facets of the Entertainment Industry – movie studios, music industry, etc.

Oh… there is certainly an irony and hypocrisy in the fact that so many anti-capitalist Hollywood Liberal-Progressives make millions of dollars from capitalism. But; that’s a subject for another article.

According to Hoovers 2010
  • Los Angeles is the largest major manufacturing center in the United States.
  • Steel fabrication is the second largest industry in manufacturing, followed closely by fashion apparel.
  • Los Angeles is the nation's largest port in terms of value of goods handled and tonnage.
  • The banking and finance industry in Los Angeles is one of the largest in the United States. More than 100 foreign and countless domestic banks operate branches in Los Angeles, along with many financial law firms and investment banks.
Entertainment, in the form of film, television, and music production, is the best known industry in Los Angeles, focusing worldwide attention on the city and making Los Angeles a major tourist destination. Tourism employs more than 468,000 people in the entire metropolitan area.

This massive volume of ‘Capitalist’ free-market business activity generates an enormous level of prosperity and certainly provides a large and wide local tax base. This massive diversity in industry and capital has allowed the City and County of Los Angeles to weather the recent economic storms fairly well. Los Angeles officially re-entered the black on their balance sheet just this year.

The City of San Bernardino
In my early 20’s I moved out to Rancho Cucamonga, which is at the western end of San Bernardino County. I had family who lived in the area, and my mother had retired to the City of San Bernardino. For several years I watched as our local elected officials basically try to emulate what they saw happening immediately to their west in LA; but they ignored some very important realities. San Bernardino is simply not the same power house of economic activity as is Los Angeles. Something that apparently the elected officials failed to consider in their calculations.



What lessons do we find for Charlotte?

How about Charlotte?
As a citizen of Charlotte NC; I have to tell you that I followed and watched the budget battles and the CIP with Charlotte City council in 2012 closely. As for the recent Mecklenburg Board of Commissioners decision to raise taxes across the county – during a time when we are still struggling with high unemployment; when we need jobs and industry back up to par in our area – it concerns me greatly.

We need a careful and realistic assessment of just how big an economic engine we currently have here in Charlotte Metro. What are we doing to get more industries and jobs here? In the meantime; what are we doing to prioritize spending. We must remember that every additional dollar we spend is coming from the limited pockets of the revenue generators – the citizens of Mecklenburg County!

To the citizens, voters, leaders in office and certainly those who are running now and in the future; I strongly suggest you take some time to study the histories of San Bernardino and Detroit. These cities had their local boards and commissions ‘Democratically Elected’. Yet - they have certainly suffered ‘Death by Democracy’.

There is a lesson for us in this – be careful who we vote for. When a candidate asks for your vote – be sure they can express to you in understandable terms just how they can bring more businesses and jobs to the region. If they spend more time promising you ‘stuff, handouts or programs’ but are not telling you how they’re going to raise the money to pay for these - by any means other than raising your taxes – you better beware! If they increase spending – raise taxes – but do not offer policies to increase economic activity – you can be certain we are on the same path as Detroit and San Bernardino.

Democracy is not the end-all. Democracy can bring both bad and good outcomes.

Do we want ‘Life more abundant by Democracy’ – or – ‘Death by Democracy’?

It all rises or falls on leadership; and the leadership are those you elect.


Links & Sources