The culture war

The stack of invitations sits next to my computer, signaling the start of graduation open-house season. Across America, high school graduation celebrations seem to vary by region. I happen to live in the Midwest, where no child matriculates without copious casserole dishes filled with cheesy potatoes served under rented tents in the back yard. It's just what we do.

For the two high schools of the Enfield, Conn., school district, graduation has taken on an unfortunate political context, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union (insert expression of mock surprise).

This time, in its effort to assure the civil liberties of high school graduates and their families, the ACLU filed suit to protect folks from seeing religious iconography while attending a graduation ceremony. It argued, and apparently U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall agreed, that simply walking into a church where Christian iconography is present constitutes a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

As a reminder, the First Amendment's establishment clause says, "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of a religion." Holding a high school graduation at a local church involves neither Congress nor a law, but this is the ACLU we're talking about. Their copy of the Constitution is probably stuffed under a table leg to keep it from wobbling.

If you're a parent, you are probably too busy doing the day-to-day work of raising your children to worry about an international treaty that could actually undermine your authority over them.

But if you've ever insisted that your teenager drag himself out of bed on a Sunday morning to attend church with the family, or required him to find a part-time job to pay for the increase in your car insurance, or — heaven forbid — if you've ever spanked a young child for an act of willful disobedience, there are folks who would like to override your parental judgment.

Folks like President Obama, in fact.

The issue of parental rights is at the heart of the ongoing debate over the U.S.'s failure to ratify the U.N.'s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Mr. Obama thinks it's a travesty that the U.S. and Somalia — a country not known as a beacon of human rights — are the only two nations that haven't ratified this treaty. Not only does he support its intrusions into our national sovereignty on behalf of children, he is openly embarrassed to be on the short list with Somalia.

Driving across town recently, I counted no fewer than a dozen cars sporting those annoying bumper stickers. No, not "Got tofu?" The ones that say, "My child is an honor student at such-and-such school."

Based on their bumpers, it seems most of the children in town are on the honor roll. Either I live in a place where high achievers breed like mosquitoes in a swamp, or those stickers are not difficult to come by.

The truth is, the bumper sticker that ought to be slapped on the back of a minivan or two is: "My child was sent to the principal's office."

I'm not holding my breath.

You have to wonder what God thinks when scanning recent headlines.

For example, "Comedy Central's 'JC' to Depict Cartoon Jesus" announces an animated show in development for the cable network that would portray Jesus Christ as a "regular guy" who moves to New York to "escape his father's enormous shadow." Reports say, "His father is presented as an apathetic man who would rather play video games than listen to his son talk about his new life."

Of course, that story only demonstrates that in America we protect freedom of expression, even if it potentially offends more than 80 percent of the citizenry that is resolutely Christian.

A more dangerous and disturbing story this week is titled, "Senior citizens told they can't pray before meals." In Port Wentworth, Ga., patrons of the Ed Young Senior Center, owned by the city of Port Wentworth but operated contractually by Senior Centers Inc., were told they could observe a moment of silence, but not pray aloud before eating their federally subsidized food.

The folks at Senior Centers, Inc. interpreted the guidelines issued by the state Office on Aging to prohibit the free and open expression of faith simply because $5.45 worth of the $6 per plate meal is paid for with federal funds.

No wonder Comedy Central thinks God is apathetic.

One solution for the seniors of Port Wentworth might have been to announce, "We are now going to bless the .55 worth of food on the plate that was not provided by the government."
 

Last Saturday, President Obama delivered one of four commencement addresses he will give this spring, but rather than inspire the new graduates of the University of Michigan to envision and embark on their own versions of the American dream, Mr. Obama offered a puzzling and preachy message on his version of civics.

Speaking at the "Big House," U of M's famed football stadium, the president instructed the 8,500 graduates and roughly 70,000 spectators in "Democracy 101." The edited version: Government is good.

Even Michigan grads didn't necessarily appreciate his remarks, and that's saying something. The school's student newspaper, the Michigan Daily, ran this headline: "Graduates offer mixed reviews of Obama's speech."

Full disclosure: I went to the school up the road. The one with Sparty. And Tom Izzo. And the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory.

Where I live, one gets used to a certain intellectual superiority emanating from Ann Arbor. I imagine it's a feeling similar to the smugness some schools have about always going to the NCAA men's basketball tournament rather than crossing fingers to reach the NIT — it's just a given. But I digress.
 

I learned long ago that shopping with teenagers requires me to patronize places I would otherwise avoid. The combination of loud, thumpy music, unreasonably priced clothing with manufactured holes in the knees and overly perky salespeople reminds me it is good to be a grown-up.

Recently, however, owing to his incessant habit of rapid growth, my 15-year-old son needed new shoes. Thus, I found myself in the chain store Journeys, where one finds all manner of casual footwear, including styles even a mother can approve.

The Journeys store at my mall is well-managed and well-staffed. The salespeople are truly some of the friendliest, most attentive and most competent I've found in a store that caters to young shoppers.

Still, I can't look these guys in the face. This is because despite their pleasant demeanor, every member of the sales team is pierced and tattooed in the extreme. They even sport "gauged" ear lobes — piercings that stretch the lobe to resemble elephant ears.

So gross.

So I adopt a strategy I have dubbed "Product Scrutiny." Basically, I focus all my attention on the shoes under consideration as though I have never before bought footwear.


On our recent visit to Journeys, it happened they offered a freebie — a hat — for which we qualified by virtue of the size of our purchase. Two pairs of shoes, two packs of socks, tell the folks what they've won.

It's been two weeks since Josie Lou Ratley, 15, was brutally beaten at a school bus stop outside the Deerfield Beach Middle School in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

She's been in a medically induced coma since the day of the attack. Doctors report she isn't getting any worse, but she isn't getting better either.

The story made headlines because another 15-year-old beat Miss Ratley — a high school boy named Wayne Treacy — who became angry over text messages sent to him by Josie Lou disparaging Treacy's late brother, who committed suicide last fall.

The texts prompted Treacy to announce to friends that he planned to kill the girl, and by all accounts that's what he intended when he pounded her head on the concrete sidewalk several times, and then kicked her repeatedly with his steel-toed boot.

The two teens didn't actually know one another. In fact, Treacy almost attacked the wrong girl until his girlfriend directed him to Miss Ratley.

According to reports, Miss Ratley had allowed the boy's 13-year-old girlfriend — a schoolmate — to communicate with Treacy by using her cell phone for text messages.

One report indicates Miss Ratley found the nature of the relationship between Treacy and her friend inappropriate and said so in texts to Treacy, which escalated into the insensitive and unkind message she apparently sent regarding the boy's late brother.

Treacy has been charged with attempted first-degree murder. He's being held in a juvenile detention center while authorities decide whether to charge him as an adult. His girlfriend also has been charged as an accessory to attempted murder. (Her name has been withheld due to her age).

Meanwhile, as she waits at her daughter's bedside for an outcome that looks increasingly bleak, Miss Ratley's mother, Hilda, bravely urged the public not to let the event simply pass by, but to use it as a teachable moment.

A magnanimous sentiment, but just what should the lesson of this teachable moment be?

The high-stakes political maneuvering leading up to the passage of Obamacare included a few moments of candor not often exhibited by members of Congress.

For example, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared on March 10, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

And during a meeting of the House Rules Committee on Saturday, Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida admitted, "When the deal goes down, all this talk about rules … we make 'em up as we go along."

With this sort of honesty from representatives in Congress, it's actually shocking that as much as 64 percent of the voting public strongly disapproves of the job they are doing.

Though the bill has been signed into law, the debate about the merits of the legislation continues.

In particular, proponents on both sides of the abortion issue question the compromise gesture of an executive order to limit federal funding of abortion, the solution that enabled Rep. Bart Stupak and other pro-life Democrats to join their party in passing the bill despite the lack of legislative language limiting federally funded abortion services.

Pro-life advocates note that an executive order is easily reversed and expect that President Obama will do so when the furor over health reform subsides. Pro-abortion advocates fear the executive order represents "a significant rollback in reproductive rights," a concern expressed by Jehmu Greene of the Women's Media Center, appearing on Fox News.

"Bart Stupak had an agenda," Ms. Greene said, "to have the government intrude, to come into my home and come into your home and insist on a medical decision that the government wants to see happen. Thats not what this bill does."

Sorry, Ms. Greene. That's exactly what this bill does.

An Open Letter to My Four Children:

I don't care what President Obama says, you may not remain on our health care policy until you are 26.

For the record, you also may not move into the basement and install black lights or hang Che Guevara posters (or posters of Barack Obama in the style of Che), nor may you consider our laundry room an intergenerational gathering place.

At 26, you will have been a legal adult for five years and will have obtained an education or professional training. You will have been taught to drive, cook, operate a power drill, call the cable company when the service goes down and, most important, prepare your own income-tax return.

You will be old enough to get married, enter into a binding legal contract, start a business, buy a home and even rent a car.

Twenty-six isn't terribly old, but it's old enough to know better. It is not adolescence, no matter what the American Psychological Association says.

Not to worry. We have confidence in you. Adulthood is not as hard as it looks.

Love and kisses, Mom.

Who would have thought you could contract carpal tunnel syndrome at the oral surgeon's office? After writing my initials and signing my name on roughly 217 consent forms, I was ready for an ice pack and a wrist wrap.

No surprise, really. After all, the surgeon was extracting seven teeth from the mouth of my 12-year-old daughter. Despite the fact that three of those were baby teeth, the risks of the procedure apparently are legion. With all the paperwork, I wasn't sure if I would find the tooth fairy or medical malpractice attorney Sam Bernstein in the parking lot when we were finished.

Of course, it would have been different if the procedure had been something insignificant and safe, lacking in any long-term physical or emotional ramifications, such as abortion.

For that, a minor girl can maintain her "right to privacy," and her folks don't necessarily need to sign a thing. That's because 14 states plus the District of Columbia allow teens to get abortions without parental consent, and Planned Parenthood's health counselors are adept at getting around the laws of the 35 states that do require parental consent or notification with a judicial bypass. (Utah has no bypass option.)

Thus, Planned Parenthood assures it never loses a sale.

Oops. Make that, assures that all girls get the "health care" they need.