In Brief. (1) The Supreme Court announced some bizarre decisions at the end of its term. I sent the following emailed letter to the editor responsive to one columnist's commentary.

John Podhoretz is quite right in ridiculing the Supreme Court's mutually contradictory decisions on the display of the Ten Commandments. Two points bear comment, tho. First, the Ten Commandments are Jewish, not Christian, and it is bizarre for a predominantly Christian society to inflict Jewish morality upon its citizens, not one whit more bizarre than it would be to impose Islamic sharia law upon America. Second, the Supreme Court building in which Moses is depicted wasn't built until 1935, 146 years after the Framers of the Constitution forbade government endorsement of religion. Each year farther along we go, the further we get from the Constitution, and the more imperiled our civilization gets for such wandering.

(2) Eminent Madness. The Court's 5-4 decision on eminent domain is extremely unpopular, as shown by a poll on iWon.com on Monday, June 27th:

Do you agree with the Supreme Court’s decision allowing governments to seize property for economic development?

4% - Yes

89% - No

7% - I'm not sure

When the Supreme Court is so utterly out of step with the popular will, it becomes plain that we urgently need a mechanism by which the people, thru their elected representatives, can overrule it. See this blog's entries of June 24th and May 24th.

(3) Nonsense on Ice. In one of the most bizarre and ridiculous legal cases I have seen — which is quite a distinction — the State of New Jersey is now involved in prosecuting for drunk driving the operator of a Zamboni (ice resurfacing machine) who was supposedly driving too fast, but indoors, in a private ice-skating rink. Absurd. He wasn't on a road. There were no cars, animals, or people; no trees; no houses; no nuttin' to be hit by a Zamboni driver. The drunk-driving laws were not intended to cover such things, and any physical damage a drunk Zamboni driver might do to a rink's walls is a civil matter, not criminal. The State is actually threatening to take the man's driver's license away for operating a Zamboni on an ice-skating rink where not one person was in danger. This is the kind of insane abuse that this country is descending into: a police state that inflicts crushing governmental force upon people without the slightest understanding of what government is for, nor what the people do and do NOT want government to do.
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(4) Perpetuating Stereotypes. I had the misfortune of catching a few minutes of the odious TV Land special "Tickled Pink", an ostensibly friendly look at gay and lesbian characters on classic television. Narrated by a woman, whereas most TV Land specials are narrated by men, this hideous production over and over again asserts that gay men are not men and not homosexual but endlessly and totally fascinated by women.
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At one point, the narratress actually says, "Queers cruising for camp" turned to Dynasty! Would TV Land as readily say, "Niggers cruising for drugs", "Jigaboos cruising for white women", "Spearchuckers cruising for pussy" or any other comparable combination of insulting name-calling and stereotyping? I don't think so.
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Carson Kressley, the contemptible blond fruit from the contemptuously named Bravo show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, actually calls himself "a white chick" from the suburbs! "White chick". He actually tells the world that he identifies as a woman! I hope he, and all the other self-loathing losers who were featured on that horrible program meet up with fagbashers who will put them out of our misery and free us from their willful misrepresentation of what homosexuality is.
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TV Land should be ashamed of itself and should destroy its vicious, slanderous attack upon gay men, "Tickled Pink". If they refuse, I hope that everyone responsible for it is "Beaten Bloody".
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,744.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:57 PM