Vol. 25 | No. 2
AFANY Newsleter Fall 2018
New Supreme Court Appointee
Sadly, our two U.S. Senators for NYS,
Chuck Schumer & Kirsten Gillibrand,
have strongly opposed the nomination of
Brett Kavanaugh for the US Supreme
Court. They view Kavanaugh as too likely
to be “pro-life & pro-traditional marriage”.
Janus Case Decision by USSC
On June 27, 2018 the US Supreme Court
made a key decision in favor of giving our
public employees the right to decide
whether or not they “have to” pay union
dues or fees. Unions do many things to help
their members, but sometimes union
leaders decide to take positions on key
moral issues such as abortion or gay
marriage, and then spend union money
raised by dues & fees for politicians who
take positions on issues that some workers
view as immoral. Hence, some public
employees do not want to pay money to
unions funding “immoral” positions.
Now with the new Supreme Court decision,
public employees are free to decide
whether or not to join the union and pay
hundreds of dollars in annual dues & fees.
Is a Boy Sometimes a “Girl”?
Is a person’s gender determined
biologically, as has been the case for
thousands of years, or is one’s gender now
determined by what one “thinks” or
“feels” one is ? And what are the
consequences of the latter choice, i.e., a
person’s gender is “what one feels one is”?
One consequence is that a biological boy
who “feels” he is really a “girl” now
apparently has the right to go into the
“girls” bathroom. Does this make sense?
And recently in June, 2018, Terry Miller, a
transgender “boy” who “feels” he is really
a “girl”, entered a Connecticut girls high
school running race and he won two final
track & field races, setting new records for
“girls”. If he had run in the boys division,
he would not have even qualified to enter.
Is this fair or is this crazy?
Tougher Living on Long Island
For Young People (ages 25-34)
1970* 2016
Median Salary $51,450 $ 40,000
Median Home Price $180,000 $450,000
% Owning Homes 68% 21%
% Living w/Parent 10% 44%
`
* 1970 $$ fig. adjusted for inflation (Newsday, 8/23/18)
Decline in Local Newspapers
The total daily circulation of newspapers in the U.S. was about 62 million in 1998. In the past 20 years this has declined in half to about 31 million. The ad revenue in 2000 was about $48 billion, but has now declined by 2/3 to $16 billion/yr. The NY Daily News recently laid off half of its staff.
Age is clearly a factor, as older readers still rely on newspapers, while many younger readers now rely on the internet.
The Week, 9/7/18
A Look @ Yale University
A 2017 professional survey of students for the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program @ Yale looked at issues of political bias, free speech and intellectual diversity. The survey was conducted by a nationally respected polling firm and received 872 student responses. Here are the findings: (1) 88% of Yale students view their professors as “liberal”, while 1% as “conservative”; (2) 42% of Yale students are “not comfortable” voicing opinions in class/on campus on issues such as politics, race, religion & gender; (3) 70% of students experienced political bias in class, either from students, professors or teaching fellows; (4) 45% felt intimidated sharing ideas, opinions or beliefs in class because they were different from their professors or teaching fellows & 55% felt intimidated because they were different from their classmates or peers; (5) 24% of students felt intimidated to write papers espousing their own ideas, opinions or beliefs because they were different from professors & could result in a “bad grade”; (6) 32% of Yale students had professors use class time to express their social or political beliefs that were completely unrelated to the course subject.
Political Views of NY Times & Washington Post
In 1956 the NY Times endorsed Republican Dwight Eisenhower for President. Since then, they’ve only endorsed Democrats for President. The Washington Post began endorsements in the 1970’s— but only endorsed Democrats. (Imprimis, Hillsdale College, 6/17)
US Birth Rate Lowest in 100 Years
The US 2017 birth rate was 60.2 per 1000 women ages 15-44, the lowest ever recorded in over 100 years. The number of births was 3.85 million. The rate has partially declined in recent years due to the 2007-09 recession, with about 4.8 million fewer babies born than would have been born based on pre-recession fertility rates. Our highest birth rate of about 120 per 1000 women, about twice our current birth rate, occurred around 1920 and also 1957. This decline in birth rates could worsen our nation’s problems for aging Americans, as we see a smaller share of young workers paying into Social Security and Medicare, two programs running out of funding needed for future retirees. (WSJ, 5/17/18)
How We View our Public Schools
How do Americans view our public schools compared to those in the rest of the world? Here are the results of a PEW research study. Our schools are: Best in world ———4% Above Average——15% Average—————37% Below Average——41% No View————— 3% (NY Post, 5/20/18)
Kids Living with Parents
1968 2017 Kids living w/unmarried parent 13% 32% Kids living w/2 married parents 85% 65% (pewresearch.org, 5/27/18)
Black Unemployment
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been tracking the unemployment rate of black Americans since 1972. The unemployment rate is now the lowest ever recorded—6.6% (April, 2018) & 6.3% (Aug., 2018). It went below 7% for the first time ever in Dec., 2017. (Watchdog, Media Research Center, June 2018)
Cancer Mortality Rates
In 1900 the annual cancer mortality rate was 60 per 100,000 people. This peaked in 1991 at 215/100,000. But advances in smoking reduction in the 1960’s & 1970’s reduced today’s cancer deaths to 160/100,000. Cancer treatment is also far more effective today, reducing breast cancer deaths by 40%, and colon cancer deaths by 45% since 1980, according to Dr. Otis Brawley of American Cancer Society. (Newsmax, June 2018)
Is Morality in Decline?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been tracking the unemployment rate of black Americans since 1972. The unemployment rate is now the lowest ever recorded—6.6% (April, 2018) & 6.3% (Aug., 2018). It went below 7% for the first time ever in Dec., 2017. (Watchdog, Media Research Center, June 2018)
Where’s our Nation on Current Moral Issues?
On many moral issues, such as helping the poor, non-discrimination, not harming or stealing from others, most of our political leaders are in general agreement. They might disagree on how much aid to provide the low income family, or how low is “low” income, but not on whether or not to “help the poor”. We all agree that murder is wrong, but should we imprison the killer or execute him? But today there are key moral issues about which there is significant disagreement. Three of these “controversial” but critical moral issues are: abortion, same-sex marriage and parental choice in education. Liberals support the right of a woman to choose to kill the fetus growing within her; they support the legal obligation of society to “honor” homosexual relations, e.g., sodomy; they oppose the right of parents to receive funding to select a state accredited private or religious school. Conservatives, on the other hand, oppose abortion rights, believe marriage is only for a man and woman, and support parental choice in education.
Re: Abortion ?
Did we not all spend the first 9 months of our lives in our mother’s womb? Isn’t it perfectly clear that an unborn fetus in its mother’s womb is indisputably a live human being? How on earth can half our political leaders say a woman should have the legal right to “kill” the unborn child alive within her womb? How often has this occurred since Roe v. Wade (1973)? With the “legal” approval of our nation, we have had 60 million abortions! Yes, for centuries we approved slavery—allowing one race to treat another as “property”. Isn’t the current abortion issue as bad? Half or more of Americans vote for lawmakers who take a public position saying, “it is a woman’s right to choose to kill her unborn baby”! Isn’t this comparable to 19th century politicians defending slavery and the “right” of a white person to enslave a black person?
Re: Marriage ?
What about marriage? For centuries marriage has been viewed as the union of a man and a woman. Their sexual activity was viewed as both “love-giving” and “life-giving”. And let’s also agree that homosexuals are children of God. Clearly we must respect them as such. We must also respect drug addicts and alcoholics, as they too are children of God. So is the burglar and murderer. We should not and cannot judge their souls, as only God can do that, since only God knows what’s going on in their minds. But their actions—e.g., murder & robbery — are immoral, and we can and should judge these. Yes, we must stop burglars and murderers from doing things, and place them in prison to stop them. But we shouldn’t judge their souls, as this is solely for God to do. So also with homosexuals. Same-sex attraction is a disorder. It should not be honored by legally calling their sexual relationship “marriage” & giving such persons benefits as if this were truly “marriage.” We should respect the homosexual person, but not the sexual activity engaged in—sodomy.
Re: School Choice ?
And, finally, choice in education is a key right of parents—to select the kind of education they prefer for their kids (e.g., prayer, dress codes, getting contraceptives or not, sexual behavior). as long as the academic subjects of math, English, history, science, art & music are taught as required by state education departments. If parents want their children to say prayers and be taught certain moral values, that is up to the parent. As long as the academic requirements set by the state are met, parents should be free to choose the school they want, and, very important, the amount they get in state funding must be below the amount spent per pupil in the public school (PS). So if a parent gets 60% as much as a PS student ($20,000 in NYS), there is a savings of $8,000/year! This savings can then be split between the PS and the taxpayers so that our PS students get more $$/student and NY taxpayers will save many billions of $$/year (per study by Ron Lauder for NY Senate, NY Times, 11/24/91). Everyone wins with school choice—parents, students and taxpayers. This could lower property taxes in NYS. And yet, our liberal politicians oppose school choice because they fear our PS teacher unions which understandably want to keep their current high cost educational monopoly.
How Does God View Us ?
The right to life of an unborn child, the right of parents to select their child’s school, and understanding marriage as the union of a man and a woman, are 3 key moral issues about which the current laws of our nation and our state are set in a seriously immoral direction. Very sad.
Child Sexual Abuse Problem
The issue of child sexual abuse is a very serious problem with long term consequences for those abused. A 2004 study done by the John Jay College of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church found there were 11,000 victims over a 50 year period, or 220 victims/year. A key problem was the failure of Bishops and others to remove abusive priests from their clerical positions and reporting them to the police. The problem has been more properly dealt with in the past 15 years, but is now under examination in many states, including NY. Most of the victims of church abuse were post-pubescent males, not pre-pubescent children (i.e., pedophilia). There were 4000 abusive priests over this 50 year period, and the large majority were homosexual priests abusing post-pubescent males. While the largest number of child abusers overall have been parents, relatives and neighbors, the problem in the Church is especially shocking and disturbing because it involves priests, who were ordained to do Christ’s work here on earth. It should be noted that this number of abusing priests is < 5% of all priests. But clearly, this is still very serious and has long lasting consequences and must be stopped. In addition, another problem is that our liberal news media, partly out of ignorance and partly out of anti-religious bias, has completely failed to report a child abuse problem in another area that occurs more than 100 times as often as in the Church. That problem is the child abuse in our public schools. A major study of this PS child abuse done for our US Dept. of Education in 2004 by Hofstra Professor Dr. Charol Shakeshaft concluded there were about 290,000 child abuse victims in our public schools over a 10 year period, or 29,000 victims/year. This is 130 times as large a problem as in the Catholic Church, and yet we rarely, if ever, hear a word about this PS child abuse problem in our national media. Most abusers in our public schools were teachers (57%), while the others were custodians, coaches, and other school employees. But here also, most of these abusers were not reported to the police and were generally allowed to retire or move to another school district, sometimes in another state, without ever reporting the abuse problem to the new school district. Legislation is needed to extend the age at which abuse victims can report the problem to legal authorities and sue for civil damages. The current age in NY of 23 is too young. Time limits should be extended to perhaps age 30 for criminal reporting, and 40 for civil damages. But there should not be any unlimited period for allowing civil suits going back 50 or more years, when the abuser is often deceased and the public school, church or other party could be unfairly sued, often at taxpayers’ expense.
Changes in Home Buying
Home prices have risen almost 75% since 2012, with home sales slowing as a result. In 2004, homeownership was at a high of 69.4%. Today it’s 64.4%. During 2006-08, the typical home seller lived in his home 6 years. In 2016-17, it’s 10 years. From 2006 to 2010, the percent of home buyers who were first time buyers grew to 50%; today it’s 35%. The median age of homebuyers is now 45, the highest in 30 years. (WSJ, 9/8/18)
China: Lacking Babies & Women
In 1979 China set up its “one child” policy, forcing women to “abort” (i.e., kill) any second child in their womb. Today China is facing an older population, lacking young workers. In 2016, they changed their policy to allow 2 children per woman, but the birth rate hardly changed. Now they announced they will abolish the child limit policy in 2020. Another result of their one child policy was mothers more often chose to abort their female fetuses. This has resulted in a shortage of 30 million fewer Chinese women than men. (The Week, 9/7/18)
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Submit a Prayer Request
All praise and glory are yours, Lord our God. For you have called us to serve you and one another in love. Bless our sick today so that they may bear their illness in union with Jesus’ sufferings and restore them quickly to health. Bless those who have grown old in your service and give them courage and strength in their faith. Lead us all to eternal glory. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
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