Marriage Amendment Wins BIG In North Carolina While Obama ‘Wins’ Really, REALLY Small In NC’s And WV’s Democrat Primaries

To frame what follows into proper perspective, North Carolina is a state that Obama won in 2008.

As Joe Biden told America that he and basically his boss couldn’t tell the difference between a mother and father and their children and a pair of gay guys holding hands, this is what just happened in North Carolina (as of the most recent count, the amendment passed by a 61-39% vote).

I’m posting the MSNBC version because you can almost hear the whining tone:

North Carolina marriage amendment could impact gay and straight couples
By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com

Updated at 10:30 p.m. ET: North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday night banning gay marriage and – going a step further than most other states with an anti-gay marriage amendment – scrapping civil unions for gay and straight couples.

The state becomes the last southern state to approve an anti-gay marriage amendment and joins 30 others with similar measures. Incomplete returns Tuesday night showed the amendment passing by 60 percent of the vote.

The amendment, also known as Amendment 1, would make marriage the only legal domestic union that would be valid in the state. But opponents say the measure is unnecessary because a state statute has banned gay marriage in North Carolina since 1996. They say domestic partners – both straight and gay – and their children could lose health benefits.

Making this a constitutional amendment was important, said Rachel Lee, a spokeswoman for Vote For Marriage NC, because “those statutes are vulnerable to the will of an activist judge or future legislature who could overturn the law with a single court ruling or by a single vote of the legislature.”

Lee watched the election results at a party in Raleigh with grassroots coordinators and coalition members. When it became clear the amendment had passed, they cut a vanilla wedding cake topped with a figurine of a bride and groom.

“If you looked at a map of our country, you saw North Carolina as the only one in the southeast without an amendment preserving marriage between a man and a woman,” Lee said after the results had come in. “North Carolina had a target on her back.”

Half of Americans support gay marriage in new Gallup Poll

To overturn the amendment approved Tuesday night, the legislature would have to overrule the amendment by a three-fifths vote and get voter approval. Before the amendment passed, a judge or legislative majority could have overturned the statute.

“This puts up a bigger barrier,” said John Dinan, a political science professor at Wake Forest University.

Dinan said the amendment was introduced after Republicans won a majority in both houses of the state legislature in 2010.

“It’s been a pretty easy win in every southern state,” Dinan said. “It never got to the ballot in North Carolina because Democratic legislatures never let it get there.”

Dinan said the amendment’s impacts would not be immediate.

“The one place it could make a difference is in eight or nine cities in North Carolina that give out insurance benefits to same-sex couples,” Dinan said. “Lawyers might have to start taking a real close look at those insurance benefits that are given out and they might have to change those.”

Melissa and Libby Hodges of Durham could be among those affected by the amendment. They worry their 5-year-old daughter may lose her health benefits, as she is covered by Libby, who cannot legally adopt her. By Tuesday afternoon, the moms had filled out paperwork for private insurance.

Jeremy Kennedy, campaign manager for Protect All NC Families said he worries that the eight or nine cities that currently offer domestic partnership benefits to public employees may drop those benefits if the amendment passes.

“We know the consequences that we’re listing, but there’s a whole bunch of unintended consequences that we probably haven’t even thought of yet that will come up in the courts after this,” Kennedy said.

Thomas Peters, cultural director of the National Organization for Marriage, which supports the amendment, said children of gay parents in other states where similar amendments have passed have not lost their health insurance. He said he doubts that would happen in North Carolina.

Lee said the amendment would “in no way impact domestic violence protections, child custody or end of life desires.” 

Voting began early Tuesday on the marriage amendment and candidate races in the 2012 primary, but 512,000 people – or 8 percent of registered voters – already have participated through absentee ballot, according to the State Board of Elections. That record turnout surpassed even the 2008 primary, which included Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the ballot, according to Democracy North Carolina.

Several high-profile figures – from former President Bill Clinton to evangelist Billy Graham – and national advocacy groups have weighed in on the amendment.

“We’re having a great debate about marriage in this country, and it’s not at all settled about which way we’re going to go,” said Thomas Peters, cultural director of the National Organization for Marriage, which supports the amendment.

In only one of the 30 states is the constitutional amendment facing a challenge: In California, where a federal judge’s decision to overturn it was set aside pending appellate review. The last state to approve a constitutional amendment was in 2008. Eight states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage.

But the Human Rights Campaign, which works on equal rights for the LGBT community, said that backing for anti-gay marriage measures was falling over time, citing statistics that showed the percentage of defeat at the ballot box dropping from 2004 to 2008.

Back in Durham, Libby and Melissa Hodges are debating whether to move to another state, where gay marriage would be legal.

They moved to North Carolina from Georgia in part because at the time, North Carolina allowed gay partners to adopt their children. That is no longer legal.

“My brother said, ‘If the amendment passes, North Carolina will be more backward than Georgia, will you move back to Georgia then?’” Melissa Hodges said. “I said, ‘You’re so wonderfully sweet, but no.’”

But leaving North Carolina would be hard. Both are city planners close to being vested in the state’s pension plan. Selling their home would be difficult, Melissa Hodges added, and their daughter was accepted into their first-choice kindergarten. Plus, another move would take her away from her brother, with whom she is close.

On Tuesday night, the Hodges watched the results online after putting their daughter to bed.

“She asked us before we put her to bed to make sure to tell her in the morning that we won,” Melissa Hodges said. “She doesn’t get the stuff with health insurance, but we told her that we’ll always take care of her, not to worry about that.”

Msnbc.com’s Isolde Raftery contributed to this report.

It’s rather funny that the people who were dedicated to overturning anything SHORT OF a constitutional amendment are crying about how this measure was unnecessary.

Of course no it’s not; I live in a state – California – which passed a measure defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman TWICE only to be overturned by fascist judges who frankly couldn’t give a rodent’s hindquarters about the will of the people.  In 2000 Californian’s overwhelmingly passed Prop 22 with 61.4% of the voters approving the one sentence definition of a valid marriage.  Fascist judges said screw you; it is our very essence as fascist judges to impose our will on the people.  And then we passed Prop 22 and of course a homosexual judge did the same damn thing and overturned it.  And then he resigned so he could enjoy the rest of his life collecting benefits paid for by the people whose will he just pissed all over.

In Iowa, judges who decided that their feelings mattered far more than what the rest of the state believed just got honored for pissing on voters:

May 7, 2012 11:40 AM 
Iowa judges ousted after legalizing same-sex marriage to receive Profiles in Courage Award

(CBS/AP) BOSTON – President John F. Kennedy’s only surviving child is celebrating what would have been his 95th birthday this month by honoring three Iowa judges who were ousted after the court unanimously decided to legalize same-sex marriages.

Caroline Kennedy will also recognize the U.S. ambassador to Syria who risked his life to support opponents of President Basher Assad’s regime.

Kennedy heads the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, which promotes the late president’s memory and legacy. She is set to present the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on Monday to former Iowa Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and justices David Baker and Michael Streit, all of whom were pushed off the bench in a 2010 retention vote that capped a contentious campaign.

The three judges will receive a sterling silver ship’s lantern symbolizing a beacon of hope. The award, which was designed by Kennedy’s husband, Edwin Schlossberg, and crafted by Tiffany & Co., resembles one belonging to the U.S. Navy’s oldest commissioned warship, the USS Constitution, or “Old Ironsides.”

Ternus, Baker and Streit were among seven justices who unanimously decided in 2009 that an Iowa law restricting marriage to a man and a woman violated the state’s constitution. Conservative groups and other gay marriage foes spent about $1 million on a political campaign to oust the judges, who chose not to raise money or campaign themselves to avoid dragging the judiciary into politics.

“The three judges are interesting and courageous on many levels,” Kennedy told The Associated Press. “… Like many of the people who get this award, they don’t consider that they are doing anything particularly courageous, they just feel they’re doing what’s right, they’re doing their job.”

Kennedy, who is a lawyer, said the three “knew when they were writing this decision that it was gonna be a pioneering decision and a landmark decision and would face a lot of popular opposition. They also were following very carefully the Iowa constitution and the rights that it gives to its citizens.”

Just imagine it being the other way around: the voters of a state overwhelmingly want gay marriage by a nearly 3 to 1 margin – and a conservative judge says to hell with all of you, only MY vote matters, and I vote to say to hell with the will of the people.  Is that judge going to be honored for his “courage,” do ya think???

Joe Biden says that the “marriage” of two men or two women is EVERY BIT as “valid” as the holy union under God between a man and a woman, and that married men and women and the families they create are no better or more positive for society than homosexual “matrimonies,” and North Carolina just responded with a great big giant “Up YOURS!”

That may have something to do with what over twenty percent of North Carolina DEMOCRATS said to Obama in the state’s Democrat primary for president:

“No preference” is another way of saying “no confidence” in the ONLY candidate on the ballot.

In West Virginia, it got even worse, with 42% of Democrat voters choosing an INCARCERATED FELON over Obama (who SHOULD be a convicted felon).  Obama has been a holocaust for that state, pure and simple.

And in Wisconsin, the hated conservative Governor Scott Walker easily won a larger percentage of the vote than BOTH of his Democrat challengers COMBINED and nearly as many as EVERY DEMOCRAT VOTE COMBINED.  With Wisconsin Republicans easily maintaining control of the state Senate.  Oh, and it’s also now known that the rabid Democrat recall effort has an unpaid debt of $17 million in back taxes.  Because to be a Democrat is to be a fascist who wants OTHERS to work and pay for what THEY then get to “redistribute” to their unions and their special interests.

Stuff like that helps me understand the dismal opening Obama got to the official opening of a re-election campaign that really never ended from 2008.

I see the potential for a major conservative ass-kicking coming.  And the ONLY thing standing in the way of that ass-kicking is the fact that Barack Obama – the worst and most cynical political whore who EVER walked the earth – has attended more fundraisers than the previous FIVE presidents COMBINED.  It won’t be easy to throw out our Crony Capitalist Fascist Whore in Chief given his enormous money-grubbing advantage.  Particularly since he has repeatedly used the American people’s taxpayer money as his own political slush fund.

Meanwhile, the same Obama who is too much of a weasel to tell us what he’s going to do with the ballistic missile shield he essentially turned traitor over, or the same Obama who is punting the Keystone pipeline until after the election so he can kill it once and for all, is the same weasel who doesn’t have the courage to look at the American people and tell them that he is going to “fundamentally transform” the institution of marriage on them.

He is a small, weak, skinny little runt in every way imaginable.  That is the essence of a weasel.

Congratulations on standing up for the sacred definition of marriage and for standing against the weasel who wants to undermine this nation’s greatest institutions, North Carolina.

Election Fraud: If You Vote Democrat, You Are A Corrupt Dishonest Cheat By Proxy

Everyone could see it right in front of them on live television.  Florida Democrat gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink was caught red-handed cheating in a debate.  Her excuse?  She blamed her Republican opponent (i.e., “blame Bush!).

Corrupt Democrat voter machine ACORN never truly dies.  It just changes its name.

In previous elections, any race that was close would be stolen from Republicans by Democrat cheating.  As Al Franken being elected on the illegally-cast votes of incarcerated convicts serves to demonstrate.

But that is no longer the case.  Now, Democrats are behind by larger margins due to their incredibly failed and incredibly fascist policies.  So they have to cheat bigger than ever before to steal elections.

There are all kinds of other examples to show that the Democrat Party is the party of cheating and corruption.

There are the strange goings-ons inside the voting machines in Nevada, which have a mysterious tendency to prompt voters to select Harry Reid.

Add to that the SEIU pro-Democrat voter-stuffing shenanigans, with clear evidence of massive fraud.

Add to that the 250 absentee ballots the Republican candidate tracked to a vacant lot.

Add to that an Ohio public high school that bussed students during school hours to vote after being given a ballot that ONLY had Democrats on it.  After which they were treated to ice cream.

Add to that the evidence in Bucks County, Pennsylvania that the Democrat candidate is flooding the voter registration office with fraudulent applications for absentee ballots.

Add to that voting machines in North Carolina which are “voting” for Democrats even when that is the exact opposite of what voters intend.  Which is simply the icing on the cake of all kinds of other fraud going on there.

Add to that Chicago, where Republicans are being disenfranchised of their right to vote by corrupt Democrat organizations.

Add to that still more corrupt Democrats in Pennsylvania who created a fictitious “Pennsylvania Voter Assistance Office” to commit voter fraud.

Add to that a public state university in Wisconsin that illegally urged students and faculty to get out and help the Democrat cause.

Add to that a woman who is literally under criminal indictment for past voter fraud with liberal A.C.O.R.N. now heading up yet another corrupt liberal voter fraud group.

Add to that Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer both illegally and immorally requesting public high school teachers to send public school kids to volunteer for her campaign.

Add to that a Democrat organization in Virginia “shocked” that their free beer in exchange for votes was actually criminal.

Add to that the woman named Gabby Mercer with the Republican “Jan Brewer for Governor” sign painted on the rear window of her car getting a big rock thrown through that window in a clear act of political intimidation.

Add to that Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee committing voter fraud at a polling place.

Add to that First Lady Michelle Obama, who had committed voter fraud in the same way.

Add to that forged ballots and illegals registering to vote for Democrats via groups such as Mi Familia Vota, Border Action, and Faith.Hope.Vote!  Which all have ties to the SEIU.

Add to that a staffer for a long-time Arizona Democrat who was caught stealing the yard signs featuring his Republican opponent (see also here for the KGUN 9 story, at least until they delete it).

Add to that illegal immigrants who are actively working to undermine the vote in Washington State for Democrats.  Even as liberal Democrat bastions such as San Fransisco are currently seeking to undermine the sanctity of citizens and the vote altogether.

Add to that Democrat states such as New York and Illinois disenfranchising military service members – who vote heavily Republican – of the right to vote in violation of the law.

Add to that campaign ads by Democrat candidates such as Rep. Alan Grayson which so shockingly and deliberately misrepresent the truth that even MSNBC are taking them to the woodshed for their gross lies.

Add to that Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, accepting campaign contributions in clear violation of his own promise from banks that his committee regulates.

Add to that the incredibly vicious and misogynist attack against Republican Christine O’Donnell, as a man was paid to smear her with allegations of a one-night stand (i.e., “feminists” despise successful conservative women).

Add to that the earlier clear election corruption by the Obama administration in offering Democrats Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff jobs not to run against candidates preferred by the regime in clear violation of the law.

Nancy Pelosi falsely promised to “drain the swamp.”  Instead, her party is swimming in it.

But it’s not just in campaigning that Democrats are pathologically dishonest frauds; it is in governing.

There was the Generational Fraud Act otherwise known as the stimulus that was sold as preventing unemployment from rising above 8%.  What is it now?

There was the “sales pitch” that promised all sorts of “shovel-ready jobs.”  The problem is that there NEVER WERE any such jobs.  And now we have the admission that there never WERE any “shovel-ready jobs” coming right out of the lying mouth of the liar-in-chief himself.

There was the “sales pitch” that ObamaCare would bend the cost-curve down; that if you liked your health plan you could keep it; that the mandates weren’t a tax; etcetera.  And every single one of those promises was just an obscene lie.

Lately we see the Obama administration playing all kinds of monkey games with the TARP program finances, according to the TARP inspector general.

That’s just the way the party behind fifty-two million dead babies rolls.  I suppose you just shouldn’t expect baby killers to be decent people.

To be a Democrat today is to support institutional cheating, fraud and lies.  If you are a Democrat, you are a despicable cheating liar by proxy.  Just embrace it.  It is what you vote for.  It is what you support.  It is who and what you are.  And shame on you.

Toward Genuinely Overcoming Racism in America

I begin by pointing out that I am white (well, caucasian, anyway: my skin is actually a fair shade darker than ‘white’). To many, this fact alone disqualifies me from talking about racism. In fact, quite a few would say that my being white is sufficient to condemn me as being responsible for racism. I frankly have little to say to this group, because it is impossible to have rational debate with irrational people. But to those who are susceptible to reason, I would offer that my ancestors on both sides of my family tree fought in the Civil War on the side of ending slavery, and in fact even made the ultimate sacrifice for that cause. Why doesn’t this count? Why doesn’t it count that so many other [white] Americans’ ancestors similarly championed the right side of freedom and equality?

As is now well known, Barack Obama’s pastor – the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. – has been repeatedly quoted as having made despicable statements about “white America,” even going as far as pronouncing America with three Ks in a transparent effort to characterize the United States as the United States of the Klu Klux Klan.

Some – such as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich – have said that Jeremiah Wright’s statements shouldn’t be characterized as being particularly racist, given that just about any committed member of the left (regardless of skin color) basically agrees with the sentiment that America is a terrible place with a racist and immoral past. That doesn’t excuse Wright, and it certainly shouldn’t make Americans feel any better that an even larger number of Americans than we might think hate and despise their countries’ past. But the central problem with Wright’s view is not racism per se, but rather that if you hate and demonize America’s past, then in what meaningful sense can you say you love America? You’re essentially saying we need to overthrow histoic, traditional America and replace it with something entirely different. But how would that different thing still be America?

Wright has gone all the way back to our founding fathers and our most cherished traditions and applied the label “racist” to the whole lot. Remember, Barack and Michelle Obama’s pastor is the one who said, “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!… [Americans] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.” When Wright gets through cutting away all of what he views as the racist and immoral parts of America, what would be left over? Is it any wonder that a man who so profoundly despised America and everything it has stood for would come to embrace liberation theology, which is Marxist (and fundamentally anti-American) to its very core?

The revelation of Wright’s views certainly helps us trace the origin of Michelle Obama’s views that she is proud of her country for the first time in her adult life, and that “America in 2008 is a mean place.” We now can understand that her attitude was substantially influenced by her pastor. Is it beyond the pale of reason that the same ideology that clearly seems to have influenced her thinking similarly might have influenced her husband’s? Barack Obama gave a beautiful speech yesterday, but he didn’t even attempt to answer why he chose to keep going to such a church, under such a pastor, for year after year after year.

In flat out disagreement with Jeremiah Wright, I would argue that from its very outset, America was founded by good people with great ideals. And also from its very outset, America has been a country that has had its share of not-so-good people who have frequently undermined and perverted many of those ideals. On the balance, the United States of America has been a beautiful face marred with some blemishes. So called “white America” needs to confront the blemishes; but so called “black America” surely needs to look at the face and begin to appreciate its beauty.

And I think – ultimately – that loving one’s country is rather like loving one’s spouse. It is only when you love despite the imperfections and blemishes, love in spite of past hurts and wrongs, that you truly love. It is easier for some to love the United States of America than it is for others; but I think that they who know her flaws and still love her passionately love her more deeply than the those who don’t.

But even as “white America” examines America’s blemishes, and asks itself why the nation founded on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution somehow managed to tolerate slavery for another century, and why the greatest and freest nation in the history of the world has continued to struggle with inequality to this very day, “black America” needs to examine itself as well. If we refuse to look critically into a mirror, it is as impossible to see our own imperfections as it is easy to notice the imperfections of everyone else. Let me now mention some blemishes that “black America” desperately needs to work to resolve.

It is fairly well known that black men are incarcerated at a significantly higher rate than whites, Asians, or Hispanics. It is also fairly well known that black apologists commonly cite “racial profiling” as the reason for such high rates of incarceration; it is not that young black men are either so unable to control themselves, or are so morally depraved that they have become predators, it is rather that the police are always looking for them and therefore finding them. It is an almost impossible argument for society to refute, because it amounts to proving a negative (i.e. Prove to us you didn’t do it).

But the incarceration rate of black men does not stand by itself. There are a lot of other facts to consider, which, when taken into account, actually do refute the “racial profiling” polemic. Recently, the Center for Disease Control released data pertaining to teenage girls having sexually transmitted diseases. This new study (April 2008) reveals that 50% of black teens have STDs, as opposed to only 20% of whites. Was this the result of some kind of “profiling”? Obviously not. Rather, a significant sample of whites, blacks, bispanics, and asians were tested, and the percentages emerged from the test results. Likewise, a 2005 study also finds that nearly 70% of black births are “out of wedlock,” as opposed to the still tragically high numbers of 25% of white births. Now, it is fair to ask: did black single girls and women become pregnant because they were “profiled”? Again, no.

We commonly see the diversity agenda in media and academia emerge in its shameless flogging of racial “disparities” in such areas as education, law enforcement, public health, business ownership and even mortgage interest rates. There’s almost always a clearly-stated assumption of “institutional bias” or racism against blacks. But what we don’t see is the numbers in these categories being balanced with the statistics relating to crime, out of wedlock births, and STDs. But when we look at the entire picture, a very different story emerges than the one we are commonly told.

Black children are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than are white
children–but not because they are “born black in America,” according to a new
study from The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis (CDA). Examining
data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Longitudinal Survey of Youth,
Heritage analysts determined that child poverty rates are driven primarily by
single-parent households and dependency on welfare benefits. When these and
other, less significant, factors are taken into account, the disparity between
black and white child poverty rates disappears. “Race alone does not directly
increase or decrease the probability that a child will be poor,” says Robert
Rector, Heritage’s senior research fellow in welfare and family issues and a
co-author of the report. The study notes that 68.8 percent of black American
children were born out of wedlock in 1999, compared to 26.7 percent of white
children. And black children were five times more likely to be dependent on Aid
for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the government’s largest welfare
program. Black children also live in poverty longer than whites-46.9 percent of
their time since birth vs. 26.7 percent for whites. Yet when black children and
white children are grouped by levels of single parenthood and welfare dependence
the poverty rates for both groups are nearly identical, Rector found. The
analysis also found that nearly half (44.5 percent) of all children born to
never-married mothers depend on AFDC, compared to a fifth (20.4 percent) of
those born out of wedlock, whose mothers later married. Only a tenth (10.7
percent) of the children born to married couples who subsequently divorce end up
relying on AFDC, as do a mere 2.5 percent of those whose parents’ marriages
remain intact. The press release can be read below, and the entire paper,
“Understanding Differences in Black and White Child Poverty Rates,” is available
online at http://www.heritage.org/library/cda/cda01-04.html.
Cited in a posting from Smart Marriages Listserv on May 29, 2001. (source: http://www.divorcereform.org/pov.htm).

So what we see is a crystal-clear connection between family status and poverty. The institution of marriage, and the presence of a father in the house, is the ultimate determiner of poverty, not race. And I find it more than passing interesting that “Black children are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than are white children,” given that more than twice as many out of wedlock births occur in the black community than in the white community, and that more than twice as many black teenage girls have STDs than white teenage girls. Do you see how the former would be expected to result from the latter?

Every time an individual or a societal or government institution makes mention of facts such as these, they are immediately set upon as racist. I vividly remember Bill Cosby making some of these observations and being labeled an “Uncle Tom.” And I similarly remember hearing Rev. Jeremiah Wright shout out the names of “Clarence, Colin, and Condoleezza!” to defame Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman and Secretary of State Colin Powell, and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as white collaborators. I believe that no one has served “black America” more terribly than the perversion of the civil rights movement and the current leadership of that community. The day when a man would be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character has been replaced with a shrill demand for race quotas. And there has been a refusal to examine the real issues that have had the most severe impact on the black community, and one vicious attack after another on anyone – regardless of skin color – who has attempted to address the issue squarely and legitimately. There can be no improvement when one refuses to look at the actual problem.

The ugliest blemish on the beautiful face of America was the institution of slavery. One of the most terrible outcomes that occurred as a result of slavery – at least according to some sociologists and cultural anthropologists – was the conception of something called the “vicious cycle.” As a matter of simple history, the American institution of slavery routinely resulted in the breaking up of black families. Fathers and mothers were separated from their children by being sold to new owners individually rather than as families. And black men and women were bred like animals to produce more slaves. The vicious cycle theory holds – accurately, I believe – that several generations of this practice created a dynamic that has been incredibly difficult to overcome. And had this dynamic been perpetuated against ANY racial group, the vicious cycle would be born out in that group for generations to follow.

what I’m trying to say here is that one does not need to “blame the victim” to recognize the obvious increasing breakdown of the black family in America. Rather, Americans black and white can come together and acknowledge that a despicable institution – slavery – created a long-term disaster that has yet to heal. And Americans – black and white – need to be allowed to come together and focus on the healing of the black family. If whites continue to be labeled as “racist” every time they try to come to the table and express their views, there will be no coming together.

The problem is – as I see it – that the moment we begin to focus on “family values,” liberals tend to become extremely fidgety. They do not want the focus to be on practices such as guilt-free sexual expression, the diminishing of the role of the father, rampant divorce on demand, teenage pregnancy, and out-of-wedlock births, because they have championed all of these things for the past 40 years. Rather, they want to focus on discrimination, race quotas, glass ceilings, and the like. But the figures I’ve provided clearly demonstrate that the former dwarfs the latter as the real cause of racial inequality. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted blacks to be judged by the content of their character, but nothing shapes and strengthens the content of one’s character more than a solid family structure!

Does it seem completely unreasonable to claim that if a baby is born to a poor, uneducated single mother on welfare, that that child will grow up twice as likely to be poor? Does it seem completely unreasonable to claim that such a child is far more likely to turn to drugs, gangs, and crime than a child born into a married family with a father? Why can’t we try to resolve these problems?

In 19th century England there were slums that shocked the senses. Filthiness, criminality, prostitution, drunkenness, sloth, and every other imaginable vice had come to completely characterize entire sections of cities. William Booth – the man who founded the Salvation Army – came into these places and preached not only salvation, but individual responsibility. He told the inhabitants of these slums that no one would help them because no one even viewed them as human in their current condition, but that if they began to clean up their streets and start to take control of their own lives, that others would see their efforts and begin to provide the economic assistance that they needed. And history proves that William Booth was exactly right. It wasn’t that the wealthier class didn’t want to help people in the slums; rather it was that they had never seen these people begin to act responsibly and demonstrate that assistance would change anything. But when residents of the slums began to clean up their streets, willing help came from all directions. This ought to stand as a template for any social movement.

Similarly, it isn’t that whites don’t want to put racism behind them, help blacks, or recognize that it is in their legitimate interest to do everything they can to reach out to fellow Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr. was successful because he led his people to stand up for themselves in a positive manner and begin to take individual responsibility. He literally shamed whites who had held blacks as being somehow inferior into changing their attitudes. Over in India Ghandi accomplished a similar success. Clearly, it can be done. It is only a matter of choosing the right approach and framing the discussion in a way that does not begin by attempting to frame any subsequent discussion in terms of bitterness and blame. But that is exactly what has been done, over and over again.

What is racism? I would define it simply as holding negative views about a person or group of people on account of race. And it can’t be a despicable thing when whites hold racist views against blacks, but permissible when blacks hold racist views against whites. And any justification for such a double standard – such as the frankly self-serving notion that black racism isn’t racism because blacks aren’t the group in power – will do nothing but create bitterness and anger and continue the division. It’s not that whites don’t want white people who make despicable comments to be held accountable; it’s that they expect blacks to hold themselves to the same standard that they demand whites adhere to. If “black America” really wants “white America” to overcome its incipient racism, then they must work toward doing the same. It’s as simple as that.

Does anyone seriously doubt for a moment that, were it discovered that Senator John McCain had attended a racist white church for twenty years, that Democrats en masse would be screaming for his resignation, much less the end to his presidential campaign? And Senator Barack Obama in the past couple years called for Senator Trent Lott’s resignation for his comments honoring 100 year old retiring Senator Strom Thurmond, just as he called for Don Imus’ firing over his line against the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Bad as their words were, can anyone say that they descended to a lower level than blaming white America for a genocidal campaign to murder blacks with the AIDS virus? Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have made numerous racially charged comments against whites and Jews in their pasts, but they to be allowed to serve as the judge and jury of selective black outrage. Frankly, anyone who believes that continuing the politics of the dual-standard will lead to racial healing is a fool.

“White America” and “black America” need to arrive at a consensus on how to – in the words of our founders – “form a more perfect union.” And I would recommend we begin by focusing on issues in which both sides can come to common agreement. If “black America” demands that conservative whites either support a socialist-liberal redistributionist program or be labeled as racist, then nothing will happen except the continuation of the historic division and bitterness. Conservatives don’t believe in welfare as a general principle; they don’t want white people to live on welfare either. But if “black America” decides to truly begin to come to grips with the problem of the broken family structure in America, then “white America” – and particularly religious whites – will rally to their cause in huge numbers. Religious whites yearn to see a healthy black family structure; for that matter, they yearn to see a return to a healthy white family structure.

All sides in the racial divide need to understand that we are all in this nation – and the dilemmas we face as a nation – together. That “Why don’t you just go back to Africa!” line is pointless and hurtful; no one is going anywhere. We are all Americans. And Americans of every skin pigmentation need to come together in common cause and work – and do I mean WORK – to resolve and overcome differences and begin to make progress toward a better and stronger United States of America by focusing on common causes and common agreement.

Any naysaying aside, I do have a right to express my voice in the discussion toward racial harmony in America. My ancestors secured that right for me with their sacrifice and their blood.