Newspaper Page Text
OpEd
Tolerance needed
for religious heritage
“In God we trust!" There,
I’ve said it! It is on our currency,
in our Constitution, in our
Pledge of Allegiance, and
engraved on public buildings. It
does not disturb me that it is not
on every building or on every
document that is issued by the
governments of the world. I am
not appalled that some people
do not see eye to eye with me
on all my religious beliefs. Am I
in the minority?
Rabbi Marc Gellman wrote:
"All religions teach us to help
people whenever we can. All
religions teach us to play fair
and not to hit or steal or cheat.
All religions teach us we should
be forgiving and cut people
some slack when they mess up,
because someday we will mess
up too. All religions teach us to
love our families, to respect our
parents and to make new fami
lies when we grow up.
Religions all over the world
teach the same right way to
live.”
In school we studied about
western civilizations, the cru
sades, wars, religions and the
other major incidents of history .
We had our minds open to dis
cover the many interesting
details of life in other nations.
At least in my time, teachers
believed all history was impor
tant.
In nations around the world
there were many religions.
Many of these had thousands of
years of historical facts and had
artifacts preserved to verify their
existence for future generations.
Some of these religions caused
us to wonder whether we could
make the sacrifices expected of
their followers. Some w ere strict
in their beliefs about marriage,
family, what to eat. and when to
attend worship services. We had
a learning experience about
Ethics & Religion _
Politics may doom needed
initiative in welfare reform
Last week the Senate
began debating re-authoriza
tion of welfare reform that
includes a "Healthy Marriage
Initiative" to increase the per
centage of couples who marry
and enjoy healthy mar
riages. The House passed its
version of the bill a year ago.
Only 54 percent of adults
are married today and half of
new marriages end in divorce.
When welfare reform was
passed by Congress in 1996, it
was denounced by Sen. Pat
Moynihan as “the most brutal
act of social policy since
Reconstruction. Those
involved will take this dis
grace to their graves." Marion
Wright Edelman of the
Children’s Defense Fund,
called the law “an outrage ...
that will hurt and impoverish
millions of American chil
dren."
However, welfare reform
has been spectacularly suc
cessful at two levels. First,
welfare rolls have plunged by
60 percent, as welfare recipi
ents were required to go to
work and day care was provid
ed for their children. Even
during the recession, when
experts predicted that welfare
rolls would grow again
they continued to fall.
In the 25 years before wel
fare reform, 40 percent of
black and Hispanic children
were poor. In 2002, the per
cent fell to 31.5 among blacks
and 28.6 of Hispanic kids.
Similarly the percentage of
single mothers in poverty fell
from 50.3 to 39.8. People
earn more working than on
welfare.
On the other hand, welfare
reform had no impact on out
of-wedlock births, which grew
from 1.26 million to 1.35 mil
lion children. A third of all
births are now to unwed par
ents.
Therefore, President Bush
proposed a “Healthy Marriage
W fjl Julianne
Bo! ’ ng
them.
While every nation of the
world may now recognize
Christianity as a religion, it has
not always been so. However,
most people believe in some
thing or someone even if that
someone is an unknown entity
who controls their salary better
known as “the powers that be".
Every state in the United
States acknowledges God in
their state constitution. The
national government has always
recognized God's favor as need
ed in political documents. Even
the Supreme Court, the highest
court in our land, begins each
session with the words: “God
save the United States and this
court."
How have we come to this
point in history when we want
to wipe away every indication
that God has been an influence
for right and wrong? What has
brought about the fear that we
may upset a few people by con
tinuing to preserve the docu
ments and heritage of hundreds
of years with the wording that is
recognized as meaningful to our
ancestors?
Even though all believers do
not think alike this may be the
time and place to say, “Enough
is enough ". Perhaps we should
recognize that there is an impor
tant aspect to our heritage and
preserve those artifacts of our
country in their original state.
Would that hurt anything?
Cumming resident Julianne
Boling's column appears each
Sunday.
Mike
McManus
Initiative" to reform Welfare
Reform that would earmark
SI4O million a year of federal
grants to promote marriage
education and another SIOO
million a year if states put up
SIOO million.
“The President feels
strongly ... about the need to
increase the number of chil
dren who are growing up in
healthy, married households.
They do far better than on
every measure of child welfare
compared to children growing
up in unmarried households,”
said HHS Assistant Secretary
Wade Hom at a press confer
ence Wednesday.
Kansas Sen. Sam
Brownback provided evi
dence: “Children growing up
without fathers are five times
more likely to be in poverty,
are two to three times more
likely to suffer from emotional
and behavior problems as
teenagers and to drop out of
school. They are more likely
to commit crime, engage in
early promiscuous behavior
and commit suicide.
“By contrast, marriage is a
good way out of poverty. It
would lift 70 percent of those
in poverty out of it if two peo
ple are working in a family
rather than one.”
How marriageable are the
poor, and are they even con
sidering marriage?
“Fragile Families” research
of 4,700 new and unwed par
ents in inner cities found that
at the birth of the child, half
are living together, and anoth
er quarter are romantically
involved.
Furthermore, the fathers
are much more “marriageable”
than has been thought. Some
Flanking the Sept. 11 panel
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Doing the right thing for the
wrong reason gets you points
in this town, because so rarely
is the right thing done at all.
So everybody is now prais
ing the Bush administration for
allowing National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice to
testify under oath and in public
before the Sept. 11
Commission.
For months, the White
House has refused to allow
this, citing a sacred and invio
lable Constitutional principle:
the separation of powers.
Rice could not testify, the
White House insisted, because
unlike Cabinet members whom
Congress approves, she is a
White House staff member and
has no responsibilities to the
legislative branch.
For that branch to demand
her appearance in public and
under oath (she had already
testified in private and not
under oath before the commis
sion) would violate the separa
tion of the executive and leg
islative branches.
So even though Rice blan
keted the airwaves giving her
version of events, which con
flicted with the version pre
sented by former counter-ter
rorism chief Richard Clarke,
she would not do so in front of
the commission.
But what happened last
week? Why did the White
House change its mind? Well,
one unnamed White House
source told a reporter that
“Bush advisers concluded that
Rice can effectively counter
Clarke in a high-profile public
forum. The official also said
polls showing Bush leading
Sen. John Kerry, the likely
Democratic presidential nomi
nee. made this an opportune
time to yield to the commis
sion’s demands."
Constitutional principle?
Oh, yeah. that. Well, we can
forget about that.
The Sept. 11 Commission
was very happy with this, but it
still had one more demand: that
82 percent are employed and
earn $17,500 on average. Two
thirds have at least a high
school education. Only 2 per
cent had hit or slapped the
mother.
And most important, four
out of five of mothers and
fathers are considering mar
riage. But a year after the
child’s birth only 15 percent
are married.
The Healthy Marriage
Initiative would provide funds
to help those couples improve
their skills of communication
and conflict resolution so they
might actually marry and
be equipped to build a healthy
marriage.
"The need is clear."
observed Family Research
Council President Tony
Perkins. “For every SI,OOO we
spend on public programs
addressing the breakdown of
the family, we only spend $1
trying to prevent that break
down in the first place. The
President’s initiative puts the
emphasis in the right place
prevention.”
The funds can also be used
to help those in the middle
class build, enrich and restore
marriages. This is away to
prevent families from falling
into poverty.
However, passage of wel
fare reform with the Healthy
Marriage Initiative is very
uncertain.
Democrats who opposed
the bill in 1996 are tacking on
so many amendments that a
compromise may be impossi
ble.
It appears that the Senate’s
49 Democrats do not want to
give Bush “another victory" in
an election year. They can
block its passage.
It would be tragic if parti
sanship kills this bill that
could lift millions out of
poverty
Mike McManus is a nation
ally syndicated columnist.
vjTf Roger
Simon
George Bush and Dick Cheney
face questioning by the entire
commission. (The White
House had wanted only the
chair and vice chair to do the
questioning.)
The session would be
closed, the two men would not
be under oath and no transcript
would be made, which was a
pretty sweet deal for the White
House, when you think about
it.
The White House finally
agreed to questioning by the
entire commission, but only
after extracting a very interest
ing but little commented-upon
concession: The White House
insisted that Bush and Cheney
be questioned together and not
separately, like all other wit-
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FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS - Sunday, April 4,2004
nesses.
Commissioner Slade
Gorton, a former Republican
senator from Washington, said
of that agreement on
Wednesday, “It’s curious.”
It’s very curious. Does
Cheney have to be in the room
with Bush to make sure Bush
does not screw up again like
when he told Bob Woodward
in Woodward’s 2002 book
"Bush at War” that Al Qaeda
was not his focus before Sept.
11? “I was not on point,” Bush
told The Washington Post
reporter. “I didn’t feel a sense
of urgency.”
And if Bush starts going
down that road with the com
mission, is Cheney supposed to
kick him under the table?
At a press conference
announcing the deal with the
White House, Commission
Chairman Tom Kean had the
following exchange with a
reporter:
QUESTION: “Can you say
PAGE 17A
why you would agree to have
the vice president and the pres
ident testify at the same time?
To someone else, it might be to
allow, you know, Mr. Cheney
to help Mr. Bush with the
answers. And I’m just confused
why you would allow them to
go together. It seems like it
compromises your investiga
tion to have them answer ques
tions at the same time."
KEAN: “Well, we recog
nize that Mr. Bush may help
Mr. Cheney with some of the
answers. (LAUGHTER) But it
was the suggestion of the
White House.”
No kidding it was at the
suggestion of the White House,
The White House’s first rule is
that you never want the presi
dent facing questions alone. He
could say anything. Like the
truth.
Roger Simon is a nationally
syndicated columnist. His e
rnail address is Writeßoger-.
@ aol.com