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Listen to Commentary # 116

MOODY COMMENTARY #116                MILITARY COHESION
  
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, has commissioned an 11-month review of our policy regarding homosexuals serving in the military with an eye towards getting Congress to change the law. In 1993, by a veto-proof majority, passed a bill affirming that homosexuals are ineligible to serve in the armed forces.     The Uniform Code of Military Justice states that: (quote)  ”Homosexuality is incompatible with military service.”    ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ is not the law.  It’s a policy, really a compromise and its title describes it well.
 
The policy serves to keep open homosexual behavior in the military at bay.  Our president has pledged to get rid of it. Secretary Gates supports this....but says it’s not all that simple because of the military’s necessity to maintain certain conditions These were laid out in a recent Wall Street Journal column by Mackubin Thomas Owens, a Marine infantry veteran of the Vietnam War and editor of Orbis, a quarterly journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
 
First, he points out, the military exists to win wars. Success on the battlefield depends, in large part, on military organizations’ ability to mitigate three natural phenomena that affect the individual soldier: paralyzing fear, friction, and uncertainty. This is done by fostering what Owens describes as, “an ethos that stresses discipline, morale, good order, and unit cohesion.”  He writes that there is a “nonsexual bonding”....what the Greeks called philia, “the bond among disparate individuals who have nothing in common but facing death and misery together.”
 
Congress, in passing the 1993 law, acknowledged the consensus that the presence of open homosexuals in the military threatens this military ethos.   Allowing gays and lesbians to serve on ships or in military units injects another kind of love: eros.  This love is sexual, individual, and exclusive. It undermines  philia which, Owens writes, depends upon an atmosphere of  “fairness and the absence of  favoritism;” and also the lack of double standards.  With eros, you get “sexual competition, protectiveness, and favoritism.”
 
Why don’t these arguments preclude women  from serving in the military? At least, women are visibly women, they don’t shower and sleep in barracks with men.  Plus they are not supposed to serve in full combat.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman...Admiral Mike Mullen, supports allowing homosexuals to serve openly.  He says the military will adjust. But he’s having trouble convincing many of his fellow top leaders who have been steeped in this military ethos and are convinced of its necessity.
 
Richard Black, former chief of the Army’s Criminal Law Division, also wrote recently about the importance of discipline in the military.  In a Washington Times column, he describs several disturbing incidents perpetrated by recruits, male and female, and one by a gay drill sergeant.  He also wonders how open gay sex... when others are present... will affect morale and respect for rank.
 
Military law discriminates....it’s supposed to...so those serving can do so effective. Let’s not make their job harder.
 
That’s my view....and I’m Penna Dexter...for Moody Radio 

 

Listen to Commentary # 115

MOODY COMMENTARY #115              MARRIAGE ENRICHES MEN
  
In a federal trial in California, attorneys and witnesses have been arguing the benefits of marriage.  Advocates for homosexuals, the traditional family, and children told their stories and cited research attempting to convince the judge that marriage is good  for their particular group.  As the arguments wound down, a new marriage study was released...one that participants in the Prop 8 trial did not cover.  This report ...from the Pew Research Center shows that marriage gives men an economic boost.  Conventional wisdom is that women gain economic security from marriage....and they do.  But, according to the Pew organization’s analysis of census data from 1970 and 2007, men are financially enriched by marriage...even more than women.
  
Of course this reflects the fact that there are more women overall, and specifically more wives, in the workforce now than there were 40 years ago. Back then, most wives did not work outside the home.  Now most do.  But this study of census data on U.S.-born men and women aged 30-44  also found that more men are married to women whose education and income exceed their own.  In 1970, four percent of husbands had wives who earned more than they did. Now about a quarter of men do.
  
The report’s authors conclude that, at least from an economic perspective, “these trends have contributed to a gender role reversal in the gains from marriage.”
Now it’s also true that the financial circumstances of married people, men and women and also unmarried women have improved since the 70’s.  Median household income for those three groups rose 60 percent.  It rose only 16 percent for unmarried men.
   
A  couple of factors help to explain  these trends.  First:  education.  Today, more women than men get college degrees.  And their earnings have risen 44 percent since 1970, compared  with just six percent for men.  Secondly:  In recent decades, the economy has shed manufacturing jobs, which once enabled men without college degrees to earn enough to support a stay-at home wife and family.
The recent downturn has reinforced this role reversal, with men losing jobs at greater rates than women. 
  
Another phenomenon has arisen... a marriage gap. The National Marriage Project studied this same census data and found that Americans who are college educated are more likely to get and stay married. In those without college, we’re seeing more cohabiting parents and single parenting.  So how do these trends affect children?
The battle over same sex marriage is forcing a national conversation about marriage.  A key argument against gay marriage is that children do best when raised by both their biological parents.  Our side contends that marriage, defined as the union between one man and one woman, promotes stability in the lives of America’s kids. But as more moms become the major breadwinners, as more parents never bother to marry... the stability factor suffers.  The church must promote policies... and help families to address these trends.
  
That’s my view.......and I’m Penna Dexter...for Moody Radio

Listen to commentary #103

MOODY COMMENTARY #103          TOWARD EUROPEAN HEALTH CARE

Right in the thick of the debate about establishing a federally controlled health care system in this country, my daughter, studying in Rome, ran smack into European health care.  It started out not to be an emergency, but after a couple of days and several contacts with the system, it became one.

One cannot assess an entire system based upon one experience with it.  But a common criticism of Italian universal health care is that there's a bias against proactive prevention... in favor of waiting until there's an emergency to take a problem seriously.  Proponents of national health care here in America claim we'll realize huge savings from practicing more preventative medicine.  Perhaps Italy, whose universal system has been in place since 1978, has learned it doesn't work that way.

 Health care socializers here in America complain doctors order too many tests, one of the reasons our system is so expensive. But there's something reassuring about a doctor thinking through the possibilities that could be causing your acute symptoms rather than sending you home with a prescription he hopes will work.

It took several days and finally a trip to the emergency room to figure out my daughter had a bee sting which was, by that time, badly infected. That Saturday night I prayed for her pain ...and that the 2000-page Pelosi bill would go down to defeat. It passed narrowly...curiously...due to a pro-life amendment.

The World Heath Organization ranks the Italian system number two....just after France's. They rank the U.S. number 37.      But a common criticism in the French and Italian plans is that...they're underfunded. Soaring costs are pushing both systems into crisis.  As Congress fights over whether America's system should be more like France, the French government is trying free market solutions... that would make its plan more like what exists here..

The only way to make a national universal health care system work is to focus mostly on costs. Better to encourage the free market which is normally great at finding efficiencies. Rather than squelch the entrepreneurial spirit in medicine, we should foster it. Profits encourage creativity and innovation allowing the system to get better at helping patients. 

The health care system needs reform. But what's being debated right now is not about making health care more available and affordable for people. It's about putting federal bureaucracies in control of a large portion of the economy and involving government in the most personal of individual concerns. The push is, according to the Wall Street Journal "...intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the ‘umbilical cord' of universal health care."

Minnesota Congressman Paul Ryan, who has his own conservative plan to reform health care agrees .  He told reporters the House bill replaces the American idea with a European-style social-welfare state. We won't like such a system.  Let's not get stuck with it.

That's my view...and I'm Penna Dexter...for Moody Radio

 

Listen to Commentary #102

MOODY COMMENTARY #102          HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL VS. SENIORS

One of the realities permeating the health care debate is that the bulk of medical spending occurs in the last few years...sometimes the last few months....of people's lives.  That's why the idea of government-run health care raises not-unreasonable fears... of rationing, the dreaded death panels.      We are on the threshold of a tidal wave of baby boomers entering their peak healthcare-consuming years. Medicare is already facing its own financial crisis.  Proposed healthcare legislation funds itself, in part, by cutting Medicare further just as the boomers turn 65 and increase enrollment in the program by thirty percent.

Betsy Mc Caughey,    chairman of a group called the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths,   has been a voice opposing a nationalized healthcare system.  In a recent Wall Street Journal op ed she argues that the current plans amount to an "...Assault on Seniors." Ms. Mc Caughey, says this assault began in February with the stimulus package, which contained over a billion dollars for comparative effectiveness research, code, writes Mc Caughey, for "limiting care based on the patient's age." 

Rationing care is central to the proposed overhaul. One of President Obama's key advisors on cost-efficient health care is Ezekiel Emmanuel (brother of Rahm Emmanuel, White House Chief of Staff.) Dr. Emmanuel's 2009 Lancet article on the allocation of medical resources advocates a concept called "the complete lives system."  If you've reached a certain age...say around sixty-five...you have lived a "complete" life.  Scarce medical interventions should be directed to the 25 year-old.  

Once the system is government controlled....the current plans give us a few years to get there...inevitably, medical bureaucrats will ration lifesaving care for the elderly. In Betsy Mc Caughey's words, they'll "doom baby boomers to painful later years." In another column she quotes top oncologist, Dr. Seymour Cohen, who says, "When we went to medical school people used to die at 66, 67, and 68.....we're the bad guys.  We're responsible for keeping people alive to 85.  So we're now going to try to change health care because people are living too long." 

Dr. Cohen laments the bias against specialists in this plan.      In creating a cheaper system, the heath care bills punish fields like cardiology and oncology.    Proposed regulations change how doctors are paid to benefit general practitioners, internists, and family physicians, considered in short supply.  Okay fine. 

But ObamaCare cuts funding for cardiology , specifically stress tests (by 42 percent) and heart catheterizations (by 22 percent) This will mean practices close their doors. Seniors wait longer.  The rap on cancer doctors is they order too many MRI's and CT scans.  Those are set for big cuts... as are funds for anti-tumor radiation therapies. 

The plans on the table will, in the course of a few years, squeeze market forces out of health care.  When that happens, you get scarcity, shortages. This takes us in precisely the wrong direction.

That's my view...and I'm Penna Dexter...for Moody Radio

MOODY COMMENTARY #95          REVISING SOCIAL STUDIES

By Penna Dexter
The state of Texas is in the midst of a mandatory, every-ten-year review of its social studies curriculum for public schools.  This is important to the whole country because textbook publishers develop material based on their largest market, Texas.

The biggest news from this process is that the sixth grade curriculum-writing team removed Christmas from a list of religious holidays.  The standards currently require sixth grade students to be taught the significance of Christianity’s Christmas and Easter, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.  The committee proposed removing Christmas and Rosh Hashanah and adding Dwali, a Hindu festival.

This is not just the war on Christmas. In a note, explaining the change, team members wrote that the examples include the key holiday from each of the major religions.  They’re deleting Christianity and Judaism from the list of America’s predominant faiths.

I doubt this recommendation will stand because Texas parents are getting wind of it. Their complaints are flooding into Austin where the State Board of Education is meeting this week to consider the proposals. But it’s one of many heartbreaking changes being recommended to the Texas social studies standards.

This is happening because      the sixteen curriculum writing teams are overloaded with representatives of the educational establishment and underloaded with the type of citizens the legislature specifies: parents, industry representatives, and employers.

One of the few volunteers from the “average citizen” group is Bill Aames, a well-read grandfather from the Dallas suburb of Richardson.  Bill says      there are two agendas at work:  One is to paint the United States in as negative a light as possible.  The second....and this explains the demotion of Christmas...is to add as much multicultural content as possible, with little regard for the significance or proportionality of contributions.

Hence, this attempt to erase Christianity’s role in the establishment and strength of the United States of America.      Aames reports that in the 8th grade History of the Revolution section, the proposed curriculum removes the instruction to “describe how religion contributed to the growth of representative government in the American colonies.” In the High School requirements for teaching History Since Reconstruction the new curriculum adds political groups that have been influential, like NAACP, LULAC, NOW.  But it makes no mention of the Christian and conservative groups like Christian Coalition, Family Research Council or the Heritage Foundation.

A modern Texas historian wrote “The ultimate goal of teaching history is to make students feel they are part of the story.”  No it isn’t.  If that were the real goal, these educational change-agents would be failing at their task.  Christian kids compose by far the largest contingent of public school students.  But Christianity’s contribution to America’s founding and success is being systematically stripped from the curriculum.

Concerned Texas parents will get Christmas back into the lesson plan.  But that will only be the beginning of the battle.

That’s my view....and I’m Penna Dexter...for Moody Radio

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FIRST-PERSON: Let your voice be heard about abortion funding

By: Penna Dexter

Original article can be found here, http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?Id=31157.

DALLAS (BP)--CBS News Anchor Katie Couric asked President Obama last month whether he advocates federal funding of abortion in a health care plan public option. The president answered that he'd "rather not wade into" the issue, and he mentioned a "tradition" of excluding funding for abortions but did not say whether or not he supports that tradition.

In recent days, the Obama administration created a website to try and debunk the opposition's arguments against current plans for health care reform. Notably missing from the site is any mention of the criticism that the plan will lead to federal funding of abortion.

President Obama has left it to Congress to formulate legislation to enact his priority for national health care. House and Senate leaders, when asked whether abortion will be funded in any plan they pass, have attempted to get away with similarly vague responses. But the real answers are rising to the surface. In a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) smoked the truth out of Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.). Hatch asked Mikulski whether an amendment she had offered to the Kennedy health care bill would force insurance companies to contract with abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

She somewhat stammered through her answer, saying, "It would include women's health clinics that provide comprehensive services and under the definition of a women's health clinic, it would include, uh, it would include uh, Planned, uh Parenthood clinics.... It does not expand in any way expand a service." (Perhaps not, but Planned Parenthood already does plenty of abortions.) The senator continued, "In other words, it doesn't expand, um, uh, nor mandate abortion service."

Hatch then observed, "No, but it would provide for them."

Mikulski responded, "It would provide for any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate." Mind you, Planned Parenthood would be doing the "deeming." That being the case, Hatch said he'd have a tough time supporting the Mikulski amendment and asked for some language about not including abortion services. Mikulski was not willing to make such a change.

Mikulski's amendment passed the HELP committee, with all Republicans and Democrat Robert Casey (D.-Pa.) opposing it.

Three House committees have also passed national health care bills, and in all versions, attempts to exclude abortion funding have been defeated. One amendment would have prevented abortion coverage in private and public plans. It actually passed in the Energy and Commerce Committee, but the committee chairman, Democrat Henry Waxman of California, took advantage of a parliamentary procedure and voted for the amendment so he could call a revote. A congressman who had skipped the first vote opposed the measure. And Tennessee Democrat Bart Gordon, part of the Blue Dog coalition, switched his vote, killing the pro-life amendment.

Earlier, another member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Lois Capps of California introduced what she called a "compromise" amendment. The measure requires that every area of the country include a health care plan that includes abortion and one that does not. It seeks to soften the blow with an accounting gimmick by which a public plan can cover abortions as long as the abortion is paid for out of enrollees' premiums. Pro-life leaders call it a bookkeeping scheme that really amounts to an abortion edict. The Capps Amendment, or something like it, is meant to allow Democrats from conservative districts to claim they oppose an abortion mandate as they vote for heath care reform that will, in reality, provide unrestricted funding of abortion.

As the House was preparing to take up health care reform several weeks back, 19 House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, insisting that abortion be excluded from any "government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan." This is in keeping with current policy where federal funding for abortion is prohibited except in cases of rape and incest or where the life of the mother is threatened.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, says the Senate's (yet unnumbered) Kennedy bill, and the health care legislation advocated by House leadership, would result in "the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe vs. Wade" and would mean "federal funding of abortion on a massive scale."

Thomas Jefferson once said, "To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." In the battle over federal funding of abortion that has been waged since Roe made it legal, pro-lifers have largely prevailed. During what's left of this August congressional break, lawmakers must be convinced that this nation is repulsed by taxpayer-funded abortion.
--30--
To contact your representative or senator, call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or click here. Penna Dexter is a conservative activist and frequent panelist on "Point of View" syndicated radio program. Her weekly commentaries air on the Bott and Moody Radio Networks. She also serves as a consultant for KMA Direct Communications in Plano, Texas.

Copyright (c) 2009 Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press. Visit www.bpnews.net. BP News -- witness the difference! Covering the critical issues that shape your life, work and ministry. BP News is a ministry of Baptist Press, the daily news service of Southern Baptists.

 
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Commentary

MOODY COMMENTARY   #50                     AFTER THE ELECTION

 

After every election, my former boss, Christian talk radio pioneer, Marlin Maddoux said the same thing. He found a different way to say it every time, of course….but it was essentially this:  After elections, Christians tend to drop out of politics.  If our guys and gals win, we get complacent. We expect that our agenda will certainly be enacted simply because we have elected the right people.  On the other hand, if our favorites lose… we get discouraged. We pull back into the pews… and into family life. This is not just presidential elections …but elections to all levels of government service.

 

“Why is it,” Marlin would ask his audience, “that even the believers who get really involved in campaigns, don’t stay the course?  Why don’t they take the next logical step and hold those in elected office accountable to what they were elected to do?” 

 

Marlin is gone now.  The Lord took him home after a lifetime of hard work in the culture wars. But his message is timeless: The Christian influence is necessary for good government.   Not just to elect good and moral people….but to hold them to their promises and keep them from drinking the Potomac Kool-aid. And.. not just to oppose those who stand for policies that are evil.  But also to stay informed and to support…and encourage elected officials who are in the trenches fighting bad legislation.

 

Never has this been more important than after this election.  The pre-election financial bailout brought premature pronouncements of the death of economic conservatism.          The philosophy lives...but the country is at a tipping point.  When the non-taxpaying sector of the economy approaches 50%, it becomes nearly impossible to re-implement the conservative principles we have prospered under. Benjamin Franklin wrote, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”  Are we there?  Let’s pray not.

 

And, on the sanctity of life….and marriage…our policies go to the core of who we are as a nation.  If Christians are not the watchmen and the diligent workers….who will be?

  

Cultural commentator Michael Craven asks the question:  “Have we become unfit for democracy.”  Only if Christians give up. Believers should involve themselves in the political process because our system was designed to operate best in the hands of religious people.     Our constitution was written based upon the truth that man is inherently sinful… and government must act as a restraint on human nature.  …The less religious and moral the citizenry…the bigger and more powerful the government must be to control economic and moral chaos. 

 

God is sovereign.  He orders the events of history.  Proverbs 8 says…”By me kings reign….and princes rule”  The Lord raises leaders. He brings them down. The election results are no surprise to Him.  He has a plan and we should look to Him for our next steps. 

 

For Moody Radio…

I’m Penna Dexter

 

 

 

 

 

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