Interestedcitizen5

The right of a woman to vote was added by constitutional amendment, approved by the legislatures of the states. It was not invented by the Federal government, and was not considered an inherent right by our founders.

If you want the right of a woman to vote to be compared with the right of homosexuals to marry, then you are going to have to ask Congress to propose an amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing the right of homosexuals to marry, and you are going to have to ask 3/4ths of the state legislatures to ratify it.

I know of no state, federal, or local law, that ever said a woman could not leave the kitchen. No Federal law invented that right. I know of no law that, at any time in history, forbade a woman from purchasing anything. Even the Bible records the act of a woman purchasing a very expensive vial of purfume and pouring it on Jesus' head. It was fundamentally understood that an inalienable right was the right of anyone with the means to do so to purchase food, or something as seemingly frivolous and wasteful as a vial of perfume, for daily sustenance.

I know of no state law that forbade a woman from voting. I only know of laws that set forth the requirements for voting, and women weren't eligible. Voting wasn't considered an inherent right, even for males. At one point, voting was restricted to males who owned property. Congress didn't have the power, absent a constitutional amendment, to impose upon the states the duty to allow anyone to vote who wanted to vote. It took the 14th amendment to say that it was illegal to interfere with the voting franchise on the basis of race, but it took yet another amendment to say gender couldn't be considered an elibility factor.

Note the date of Russ Johnson's letter: July 25,2009. Note that all letters were written around that time. Given that they were not recorded in a systematic manner when the event occurred, they do not qualify as business records. Past recollection recorded? Maybe, but would they have even known the details if their memory hadn't been revived with some suggestions? I hardly call those letters credible. A jury would see right through them. Care to guess who asked him to write the letter? Note the people who wrote letters. All Lewis supporters. No one who was not a Lewis supporter wrote a letter acknowledging the disclosure was made. Interestingly, since the matter wasn't posted on the agenda as an executive meeting, the letters all indicated admissions that the Open Meetings Act was violated. What does that do for their credibility? Then, when Sue Mendoza says she attended a meeting that the minutes say she didn't attend, we really have to wonder what her motive is. Do they really expect us to believe they remembered what happened in an executive session two years ago?

This doesn't pass the smell test. I really don't understand why the district didn't call Lewis' attorney's bluff.

Anyway, this points out something. It wasn't about the children. It was about finding a school district with some school board members who could be taken advantage of by a man with an inflated ego. The wishful thinkers of whom I speak are Nannette Vick, Russ Johnson, Sue Mendoza, Rick Glover, Marie Elliot, and Shelia Stanmore. Thank goodness, they are all gone from the board, and may they never return.

It looks to me like they are circling the wagons. Truth doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that they save their so called Messiah. They are blind and they are blinded by a man who used a PhD to establish instant credibility.

This whole thing has convinced me that a PhD isn't worth much any more. Nobody is worth a premium salary merely because he has a PhD. If you want to lead a school district, show me several years of teaching in the classroom in a core subject like English, math, or history, with excellent results. Don't come here with flashy clothes and an extravagant lifestyle and expect me to bow and scrape. Our so-called Messiah (sent from God for the children) was not a model to anyone as a scholar, as a leader, or as a citizen.

That he would threaten the school district with litigation on such flimsy evidence is not a good reflection on his character or his true intent.

It isn't the province of the Federal Government to invent rights that weren't guaranteed when this nation was founded. The "inalienable rights" to which men were entitled, as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, were those endowed by the Creator. The Creator to whom they referred was the Creator revealed in the Bible.

The people of Maine and California simply showed the legislatures of those states that they were out of touch in ignoring a fundamental truth upon which our society is based. In enacting provisions approving gay marriage, the legislatures of those states ignored natural law, Biblical truth, and common sense. The people's only recourse to restore sanity in their states was a constitutional amendment.

The Bible clearly does not guarantee the right of any man to engage in homosexuality, adultery, gluttony, child molestation, witchcraft, larceny, or any number of human sins. If you want to look to the natural law as the source of rights, you cannot find anything in nature that remotely suggests that homosexuality is an inborn trait. It serves no reasonable purpose. The sexual apparatus is obviously designed for reproduction. Nature reveals that. The Bible authenticates what nature reveals, and nature authenticates what the Bible declares.

Loving v. Virginia is about the right of heterosexuals to marry, not the right to engage in adultery or fornication outside of marriage. It is actually not about the fundamental right to engage in a particular form of sexual intercourse at all. It is based on the idea that reproduction is basic to civilization. It continues a line of cases that said that people have an inherent right to reproduce. The right to reproduce is among a penumbra of rights, so the Supreme Court said, that emanates from the right to privacy guaranteed under the 4th amendment. Given that the right to reproduce is inherent, the only way people could legally reproduce was to marry.

Loving v. Virginia does logically follow once we accept that human beings are all one species. When it was thought that some human like beings were either less than human or were not as highly developed genetically, then laws prohibiting intermarriage between the races were really laws prohibiting bestiality, since the less developed being was not capable of true consent. We can thank Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution for the idea that some humans weren't completely evolved, thus undergirding laws against interracial marriage.

Even today, we would not sanction sexual relationships between people who were mentally whole and those who were deemed incapable of consent. That would be considered a form of abuse. It is not an inherent right of any person to consort sexually with a person of inferior mental capacity, even though the person of inferior mental capacity might experience pleasure rather than pain. The state still has a right to enact regulations in the sexual arena to prohibit that type of abuse from occurring, whether with people of diminished mental capacity, or animals that are absolutely incapable of communicating their sexual desires. The issue is not about whether one of the two parties experiences pleasure. The issue is the ability to communicate consent.

There is no question that states retain the right to outlaw adultery and fornication. They could base them on an attempt to reduce out of wedlock childbirth, to reduce the spread of venereal disease, or to control violent crime stemming from jealousy and betrayal. They have simply stopped doing it. They didn't stop enforcing laws against adultery and fornication becuase those acts were inherent. They simply took them off the books because adultery and fornication had become so widespread that any attempt to enforce the law would be selective at best. That doesn't mean that there is an inherent right to engage in adultery and fornication.

You failed to mention Bowers v. Hardwick, decided in the mid 1980s. The Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, made th opposite decision and struck down Bowers v. Hardwick. In Bowers v. Hardwick, the court said there was no inherent right to engage in homsexual sodomy.

If you will read Lawrence v. Texas carefully, you will find that the real problem the U.S. Supreme Court had with the case, is that Texas did not outlaw sodomy between heterosexuals, while it did outlaw it between homosexuals. Texas could outlaw sodomy between heterosexuals and could enforce it.

Lawrence v. Texas was about the act of sodomy, not the right to marry.

Sandra Day O'Connor was the swing voter in the unfortunate decision of Lawrence v. Texas. The court illogically reversed Bowers v. Hardwick. Still, Lawrence v. Texas does not guarantee anyone the right to engage in sodomy. It is a poorly written decision that did nothing more than strike down a rarely enforced Texas law. It is not a watershed case, and it does not in any way guarantee the right of homosexuals to marry.

The Texas Supreme Court had a much better opinion.

I don't understand why Arrow doesn't do the background check first. Here's how the process should work. First, the community decides what characteristics it wants in a leader. That needs to be an objective study. There needs to be a scientifically accurate way to measure consensus. Mass mailings and public meetings that don't draw a cross section of the community that matches the community's demographics do not pass the test of scientific accuracy.

The second step should be screening the candidates in light of community demands. This should involve background checks.

The third step should be selection of the lone finalist among candidates that most closely meet the community's wishes.

Whether it reflected the community's wishes or not, here is what I heard in a public meeting.

We want the best candidate, regardless of race or gender.

We want someone with classroom experience.

We want someone with proven administrative experience

We want someone who can do math

We want someone with an intact family and without a history of family problems.

We don't want a womanizer.

We want someone who is humble and studious.

We want someone who is ready to lead the district

We want someone who will be part of the special family in LISD

Some of these values are contradictory, as they reflect the diverse elements that make up the community. Obviously, the recently departed Supt. treated certain insiders as special members of the family by granting interest free advance loans. If that is what is meant be being a member of a special family, that's not good from the taxpayers' standpoint.

Taxpayers are more intersted in someone who runs a tight ship, understands the relationship between the board and the Supt., and does not arrogantly try to shove the board around.

There is always going to be some tension among the interests of the taxpayers, the interests of the parents, the interests of the students, and the interests of the teachers. Everyone has to be considered.

I think it is rather odd that a pastor of a church would defend people who were violating TABC rules and groping police officers who were trying to arrest them. It just shows that Michael Piazza is one of the blind leading the blind, labeling abhorrent behavior as virtuous, elevating the unfruitful deeds of darkness as enlightened behavior.

Just tell me, what is elevating to the human body and spirit to be intoxicated to the point that one loses discretion? What is elevating about putting oneself in danger of liver failure or liver cancer? Finally, what is elevating about groping a police officer? No person detained by a police officer has any right to touch that officer or resist arrest. When the officer says, "get down," the only thing to do is to "get down." That means lie flat on the ground with your hands around your back. That means allowing the officer to handcuff you and to escort you to the squad car. It means to go quietly, without protest. It means contacting a lawyer and dealing with whether the arrest was proper in front of a judge, not the arresting officer, who has a duty to protect the public and make accusations. Arguing with a police officer accomplishes nothing.

Groping a law officer is low and despicable behavior. It shows utter lack of respect for the police officer. It deserves no defense, especially from a pastor.

If it is against the law for bartenders to serve alcohol to people who are already drunk, it is certainly appropriate for TABC inspectors and police officers to arrest those who served the excess alcohol and those who consumed excess alcohol. A bar is a public place, unlike one's own home. Drunk people in bars are a dangerous threat to society, because they get in their cars and they kill people on the way home. The public is protected when they are arrested before they get on the road.

You miss the point. The point is not that trees shouldn't be planted at all, or even outlawed. The point is that they should not be planted closer than 15 feet of the right of way. I suggest 15 feet because that is half way between the right of way and the building line of a house with a 30 foot setback. This gives the tree room to develop a 30 foot canopy before interfering with traffic and it provides recovery room for runoff vehicles. This is not a trivial issue. We read of far too many preventable deaths resulting from collisions with fixed objects after runoff accidents.

Nancy Davenport admitted in another local news publication that her organization was responsible for planting the tree that caused these unnecessary deaths. She admitted that the city did not require that they be planted, but that the city permitted her organization to plant the trees She blamed the deaths entirely on drinking and driving fast. Drinking and driving fast do not necessarily cause injury and death. They are among the factors leading to injury and death. However, fixed objects like trees in medians and parkways will almost certainly cause injury or death due to runoffs accidents, even at normal speeds. That's why we have breakaway poles in medians and parkways. I'm not against trees. They should just be placed at least 15 feet out of the traveled way.

It is so encouraging to have a billboard announcing an open forum that runs 24/7 and provides opportunities for healthy public debate and timely exchange of information. For a long time Lancaster has been in need of an outlet that gets all the facts and points of view into the open so that citizens can become better informed to vote responsibly. Apathy is one result of stifled and filtered information. Perhaps this is the beginning of real open government for our city and school. Perhaps it will inspire many more citizens to become involved in government that affects their lives and their children's education. Thank you, Pegasus.