Muscle Man Wimps Out

Remember the Terminator?  This guy was unstoppable; a one-man army; a man’s man, a mass of muscle, capable of mighty feats of valor on the wide screen.   Well, guess what?  This guy has turned into a wimp, a toady, a pawn of the homosexual agenda!

Perhaps you were like me; pleased when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California.  Oh, boy, we said, a Republican, maybe even a conservative Republican, to lead our great state!   Guess again!  This governor has just signed into law a couple of socially destructive, anti-family laws that must have gay rights militants bouncing on their mattresses for pure joy. 

SB777, signed by a man who appears to have pumped so much iron it has affected his mental health, does this:  It bans anything in California public schools that could be interpreted as negative toward homosexuality, bisexuality and other alternatve life styles.   There are no such protections for those of traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs.   

Any text or teaching which portrays marriage as only betwen a man and a woman is prohibited.   Homecoming kings can be either male or female.  Students, whether male or female, must be permitted to use the rest room or locker room corresponding to the sex with which they wish to identify.   Sex education materials must offer the option of sex change operations.  The list of evils this legislation perpetrates does on and on.

In addition, the governor has signed AB14 which prohibits state funding for any  state program that does not support a range of alternative sexual practices.   Day cares, hospitals and many other organizations will be drastically affected by these actions. 

  These are the most despicable, anti-family, measures that could possibly be imagined.   Our so-called Republican governor is no more Republican than a mule’s hind hoof.    It is difficult to imagine how he has come to sign bills, passed by California’s far left legislature,  that he vetoed a year ago.   As a member, by marriage, of the Kennedy family, he may have been spending too much time with Chappaquidick Ted, the U.S. Senate’s Windbag-in-Chief. 

 Where on earth, or under the earth, did our nation’s legislative bodies get the right to run our schools, and/or teach children anything beyond basic subjects, such as reading, writing, mathematics, basic science and history?

Our Constitution confers upon us, as citizens, the right “peacefully to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”–First Amendment, U.S. Constitution.

 The time has come and now is…the right of initiative and referendum needs to be exercised.   This socially destructive legislation needs to brought to a vote of the people.    The governor needs to hear from the citzens of California   Have we become so morally bankrupt that we will do nothing to fight the moral delinquency into which we are so rapidly sinking?

                                           –30– 

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The Stink from the Slough Affects You

     I made a mistake last night.  (Probably, a lot of you could say the same thing!)   However, my mistake was in thinking I could relax in front of the TV for half an hour, and get a few laughs before going to bed.

I arrived home from a meeting about 9:30 p.m.  Tired, after a long, busy day, I grabbed the newspaper TV guide to see what was on.    There was only about a half hour left of a two-hour show called “TV’s Funniest Moments.”   This sounded harmless, so I clicked it on.   About 10 minutes later, I clicked it off.

 The so-called funny moments were totally vulgar, gross and indecent.   Whatever has happened to “community standards”?  It seems that nothing is off-limits for frank and crude joking.  And, according to the tumultuous laugh-tracks that accompany such shows,  the American viewing public has been reduced to the mental level of pre-adolescents who think that fart jokes  are the most riotous humor existing.

I had the same experience a few days earlier, and shut off the tube just as fast.   There was a show on with a panel of comedians.  They sat in a row and began cracking jokes.    Hey, guess what, “private parts” are not private anymore! Bathroom humor seems to be the norm, and all of us are supposed to crack up at the slop we are being served.   I could not help but wonder what cesspool these guys had crawled out of. 

It is good and healthy to laugh and enjoy life.  But today’s network TV causes nostalgia.   I long for “I Love Lucy,” or “The Dick Van Dyke Show” or maybe Andy Griffith and good-old Mayberry.  Is there another Red Skelton out there somewhere?    Do you ever wonder about the state of the personal lives of the writers who dream up the sit-com jokes?   I think these creative people need our prayers.

Speaking of prayer, the low state of TV entertainment reminds me of something the prophet Jeremiah wrote about 2,600 years ago.  He was very upset by the sin and corruption in ancient Israel.   He said, “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; nor did they know how to blush” (Jer. 6:15).  He voiced the same words again in chapter 8.

When is the last time you heard someone exclaim: “Oh, I was so embarrassed that I blushed.  My face got so red!”?  Somehow, we seem to need a Clean-Up The Culture movement.  But it will only happen when we tune out and turn off the sewage that the TV screen often spills into our homes.

Well, here I am, griping up a storm and actually disobeying an admonition of Scripture.   Near the end of a passage of  instruction on how to live at peace with God and with our fellow humans,  the Apostle Paul says: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy–think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

Just try that on for size!  And try to obey this instruction fully and completely for a day.   It ain’t easy!   How do we screen out all the daily input that is gross, vile and ugly?   It seems impossible, but we surely need to try.   One way to start is to establish standards about what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable in terms of  speech and conduct  in your home. 

Our society is becoming acclimated to greater and greater gross vulgarity.   Will we sink deeper into the putrid mire, or will we turn our focus to those things that “are lovely and of good report”?