Idaho Values Alliance: Making Idaho the Friendliest Place in the World to Raise a Family

September 8, 2010

Random Thoughts

The Idaho Affiliate of the American Family Association

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Bryan Fischer, Executive Director

Greetings from Tupelo, Mississippi!

The IVA is still in “whisper mode,” but I’ve been following events in the Gem State and the City of Trees as best I am able, and wanted to share a couple of thoughts on some issues in Idaho.

BOISE CITY COUNCIL UP TO OLD TRICKS

Mayor Bieter and his accomplices on the city council are eager to build a boondoggle of a downtown trolley, a feel-good, ribbon-cutting project which will be horribly expensive and drag Boise taxpayers into a financial sinkhole for time immemorial.

In order to get $90,000 to hire some PR firm to flack for the project – knowing it’s a project that is offensive to any sane resident of Boise – the Mayor tried to sneak the appropriation for that onto the “consent agenda” at a city council meeting Tuesday night. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for Boiseans, he got busted, and the city council has been forced by public reaction to put off the vote.

This is virtually the same stunt they pulled to get the Ten Commandments monument yanked from Julia Davis Park in 2004. In that case, they put the item on the pre-meeting agenda – rather than the full council agenda - at 5 p.m. on a Friday, at the last possible legal moment, cleverly concealed the agenda item under an innocuous title, and hoped nobody would notice. They got busted then too.

I understand citizens will have some choices this November, with regard to city council seats, and here’s hoping they exercise them. This election may be the last chance clear-thinking Boiseans have to reclaim their city from the left.

BIBLE JUST FINE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The Idaho commission that charters public schools, as you of course are aware, has issued a stupendously wrong-headed decision which makes it impermissible to study the Bible, Roman history and Greek mythology in public school classrooms, since all of them deal with religious themes.

It’s a ridiculous ruling on its face. You cannot study Greek history without reading about the pantheon of Greek gods. You cannot study Roman history without learning about the Roman gods and the temples dedicated to them. You cannot study Western civilization without understanding the influence of the Bible on its history, literature and art.

The works of Shakespeare, for instance, contain over 1300 allusions to scriptural themes. It’s impossible to study the world-changing impact of the Reformation without knowing something about the biblical controversies that inspired it.

Commissioners have done so on the grounds that Idaho’s constitution prohibits the use of “sectarian” literature, which it certainly does. Unfortunately for these misguided souls, the Bible itself is not “sectarian” literature, since the Bible is the foundational document for all “sects” or denominations and cannot itself therefore be “sectarian” in nature. What Idaho’s constitution prohibits is denominational, or “sectarian,” doctrinal statements and literature being distributed to students in class.

(The same section of the state constitution also prohibits the distribution of any kind of political or campaign literature in public schools. You might want to ask your friends on the left and in the teachers’ union how faithfully that particular provision is being observed.)

If the charter school commission remains determined to saddle Idaho students with an alarming level of ignorance, it’s time for Governor Otter to get himself some new commissioners. We need students who are educated enough for the 21st century.

WINMILL DOESN’T NEED PROOF – HE’S JUST STALLING

Apparently federal judge Lynn Winmill has decided that Republicans first have to prove that actual and harmful crossover voting takes place before he will allow them to exercise their constitutional right to freedom of association in the conduct of their primaries.

He does or should know better. The Supreme Court has already ruled that the Democrats in California can have closed primaries just because they want to, since the Constitution guarantees them freedom of association.

Winmill’s position here is judicially ludicrous. What other constitutional right is dependent on your ability to prove that you need it? Can you only get a trial by jury if you can prove that you will be harmed if you don’t get one? Of course not. That’s what makes it a “right.”

The Republicans don’t have to prove anything to this constitutionally-challenged judge other than that they want a closed primary, and they of course have proven that beyond any shadow of doubt.

It’s likely that Winmill doesn’t want to give them their closed primary, and is trying to figure out some way to do it without getting smoked by the Supreme Court on appeal. He is judicially ambitious, and doesn’t want to get hosed again by having another one of his decisions reversed. That can only happen so many times before your future begins to dim.

TUNE IN TO “FOCAL POINT” WHEN YOU GET THE CHANCE

I’ve just passed my three-month anniversary as a talk show host on the American Family Radio network, and extend another invitation to you to tune in. I’m on from noon to 2 p.m. Boise time, live, Monday through Friday. Although we have about 140 stations in our nationwide network, we don’t yet have one in Idaho. But you can tune in by taking advantage of both our audio and video streaming options at the URL below.

http://www.afr.net/

VALUES VOTER SUMMIT SPEECH ONLINE

I had the privilege of representing the American Family Association at the recent Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., shortly after House minority leader John Boehner and shortly before former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

If you’d like to catch my remarks, you can access a video of my speech at the following URL and scroll down until you see my name. The speech lasts about 16 minutes.

http://www.frcaction.org/vvs-webcast