Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Not Just Soaking Up Rhetoric - Sponge Bob Revisited

A colleague of Joe’s and mine is a Southern Baptist.  Today, he called the Sponge Bob controversy ridiculous.  “He makes us look stupid,” he said.  “Who?” I asked. 

“Dobson,” said our friend, ”makes Christians look stupid.”

Amen, brother.

Hope against smoke

AJC:

Georgia moved one step closer to a statewide smoking ban Tuesday when the House approved a bill to prohibit smoking in most enclosed public places that allow minors.

After more than three hours of passionate debate, lawmakers voted 118-52 to approve a weaker version of Senate Bill 90. The Senate now must review the amended version, which allows smoking in bars and restaurants that do not serve customers younger than 18 or employ anyone younger than 18.

“I can’t believe this bill passed,” said June Deen, head of the Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention, a coalition of 300 groups that have fought for the measure for several years.

If it does finally pass, it will be broadly popular.

Conservative consternation?

Maybe:

“This is a clash between the social conservatives and the process conservatives, and I would count myself a process conservative,” said David Davenport of the Hoover Institute, a conservative research organization. “When a case like this has been heard by 19 judges in six courts and it’s been appealed to the Supreme Court three times, the process has worked - even if it hasn’t given the result that the social conservatives want. For Congress to step in really is a violation of federalism.”

Stephen Moore, a conservative advocate who is president of the Free Enterprise Fund, said: “I don’t normally like to see the federal government intervening in a situation like this, which I think should be resolved ultimately by the family: I think states’ rights should take precedence over federal intervention. A lot of conservatives are really struggling with this case.”

Even so “overwhelming majorities supported the Schiavo bill.”