Send Cancellation Notice to Reid

Send Cancellation Notice to Reid

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
February 28, 2014

“There's plenty of horror stories being told.  All of them are untrue, but they're being told all over America. But in those tales – turned out to be just that – tales – stories made up from whole cloth, lies, distorted by the Republicans to grab headlines or make political advertisements.” – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Wednesday, February 26, 2014, on the Senate floor

For the 6.2 million Americans who have been unceremoniously dropped from their personal health care insurance coverage because of the government imposition and intrusion of the so-called Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, you have been called liars by the Senate Majority Leader – Nevada Democrat Harry Reid.

For the many more millions of Americans who have struggled with the Obamacare website, but to no avail, you too have been called liars by the Senate Majority Leader – Nevada Democrat Harry Reid.

And just where did Reid make these outlandish pronouncements? The hallowed halls of the Senate chamber.

The intelligence of the average American has been insulted time and time again by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius in their feeble and feckless attempts to ensure the nation that Obamacare is good for them, that it is better than the coverage they already have or have been separated from through no choice of their own. Yet the raw numbers have proven otherwise – that we the people are not falling for the chicanery coming from the Obama administration and his minions.

Now Reid feels compelled to pile on by calling millions of Americans liars – no sugar coating, no euphemisms or spin – rare for anything said in Washington – further subjugating them from their dignity. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and US Representative Gary Peters (D-MI-14) have also taken to calling these same Americans liars.

These true life horror stories have come from rabbis, priests, stay at home moms with sick children, truck drivers, sales clerks, and even doctors and nurses. Folks from all walks of life, dropped from their chosen coverage or unable to procure coverage on the government website have reached a new low – called liars by the people supposedly sent to Washington to represent their best interests, when the only interests they are representing are self-interests, their own job salvation, and their attempts to get reelected.

For any of those people who have been dropped by their insurance company, send a copy of that cancellation notice directly to the office of Harry Reid. Let millions of copies of these letters no one asked to receive flood Reid’s office. Make him rue the day he called hardworking Americans liars when it is he who is the political opportunist.

Visit Reid’s official website: www.reid.senate.gov.

Send the copy of the cancellation notice to Reid’s office: 522 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510

Fax the copy of the cancellation notice to Reid’s office: 202-224-7327

Call his office to politely lodge your disgust with Reid – yes, politely – don’t sink to his level: 202-224-3542

Flood Senator Harry Reid’s office. Bury them in a sea of paper to make them understand that the poor choices made by government have consequences – often dire. Yet to people like Reid, the suffering of average, faceless, nameless Americans is merely collateral damage. Make Reid understand that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Adoption is the Option

Adoption is the Option

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
February 25, 2014

A recent column in The Indianapolis Star written by Sandy Sasso, rabbi emerita of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis, calls to “Fight poverty, promote sex ed to reduce abortions.”

Nowhere in her liberal diatribe calling for less government intrusion in people’s bedrooms, but then hypocritically demanding government funding for abortion and birth control, did the good rabbi ever mention the word ADOPTION. Nowhere – not once in her entire screed.

The one aspect of Sasso’s column with which I agree is her pronouncement that “we all want to reduce the number of abortions.” How we get there is a different story.

Yet, another one of her assertions, that “The most important fact is that no one is ‘pro-abortion,’” is both naïve and disingenuous. Sasso’s statement is not a “fact” as she avers; it’s barely wishful thinking. Planned Parenthood, an abortion mill advocating for abortion, makes its money performing abortions. They would not remain in business were it not for the thousands upon thousands of abortions it commits year in and year out, raking in millions and millions of dollars on the deaths of the unborn for whom there is no one to speak up when the woman or worse yet, girl, in the examination room is told that it is alright to slaughter her own flesh and blood.

Fighting poverty is a great idea suggested by Sasso, but poverty is not the reason young women having abortions are pregnant in the first place. The reason is a poor education starting at home – a home that ideally should have a mother and a father.

The generations of teen and out of wedlock pregnancies are more often the result of a lack of education, but this is a generational, systemic crisis that sex education in the schools has not cured. Nor has the inculcation of condoms in the schools diminished the pregnancy/abortion crisis.

Sex education must start with the simple fact that condoms, the pill, a diaphragm, or any other forms of birth control are not 100 percent effective. The only foolproof manner of avoiding pregnancy is the abstinence of the behavior that would result in pregnancy – sexual intercourse. Offering condoms in schools send the absolute wrong message – that such an offer is a tacit approval of the behavior requiring the condom in the first place.

Then there is the issue of who is paying for those condoms in the schools. If condoms are in public schools, they are being financed by the people – the taxpayers, as tax dollars are used to fund that enterprise.

This is yet another area where Sasso is wrong. She writes “The opponents of reproductive rights have found a new argument to promote their cause: fiscal conservatism.” Sasso is wrong on two counts. Conservatives do not oppose reproductive rights. Conservatives oppose reproductive wrongs. It is wrong to slaughter an innocent baby in the womb – as Jewish and Catholic beliefs support life beginning at conception. It is wrong for that conceived baby not to have a voice while a Planned Parenthood agent is encouraging such a slaughter. It is wrong for abortion to be used as a form of birth control.

Here is where adoption comes into play. Adoption – once again, a word and concept never presented by Sasso in her editorial. There are thousands of American married couples desiring children, who, for one reason or another have not been blessed by G-d with conception. These couples can and will provide the unwanted child with a home and most importantly, a life – a safe harbor from the abortionists butcher knife. American babies being adopted by American couples – that should be the goal.

Sasso is also wrong to say fiscal conservatism is a new argument against abortion. This has been a long-standing battle between conservatives and liberals. Sasso plunges way into the deep end when she wrote conservatives “want to ensure that the federal government pays neither for abortions nor contraception, regardless of the fact that these are constitutionally protected rights.” Sasso does not seem to understand the definition of the word fact. She has twice used it to suggest something she believes is true when in FACT it is not.

Yes, it is a fact that conservatives, and many independents and moderates, for that matter, object to any taxpayer dollars funding abortions and contraceptives. It is not a fact, however, that a federally funded abortion or contraceptive is a constitutional right. The landmark 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade granted rights of privacy, but did not mention either abortion or contraceptives. And the growing sentiment coming from the vox populi is to call for the overturning of Roe in a march to the Supreme Court each January.

Using Sasso’s faulty logic though, according to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, we the people have the right to bear arms. Should the federal government then provide the general public with those guns?

Sasso then suggests that no one is calling for the secession of federal funding for Viagara. Think again, rabbi. The federal government should no more be funding Viagara than it should abortions or birth control. It shouldn’t be in the baby business at all – including adoption – that should be the work of synagogues, churches, and various other legitimate religious organizations.

Abortion can be reduced with honest sex education extolling the virtues of abstinence as a surefire way to avoid pregnancy. Abortion can be reduced with honest sex education offered with guest speakers telling of the true life horrors of what happens to the fetus during the abortion procedure. Abortion can be reduced with honest sex education offered by women who underwent the deleterious procedure and how they regretted it. Abortion can be reduced by encouraging adoption and reminding those considering abortion that there are loving couples who desire nothing more than to raise, nurture, and love a child, yet are unable to produce one on their own.

That Rabbi Sasso never once mentioned adoption in her editorial raises more questions than it answers. Does she support abortion more than adoption? It creates a cacophony between her profession and the issue at hand. Sasso never mentioned that abortion has killed more blacks than the Ku Klux Klan. Sasso, a rabbi, never decried abortion in the Jewish community as a second Holocaust either.

Abortion is not our portion. Adoption is the option.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living is Westfield, IN. He is an active member of Congregation Shaarey Tefilla in Carmel, IN.

"Sam I Am" (With Apologies to Dr. Seuss)

“Sam I Am” (With Apologies to Dr. Seuss)

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
February 12, 2014

“I’m Michael Sam. I’m an American. I’m a college graduate. I’m gay.”

That’s what Sam, a University of Missouri defensive end said on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” program.

Whoopty-freaken-do. Know what impresses me most? Michael Sam is a college graduate. Mazal tov for accomplishing what far too many so-called student athletes do not – earning a degree to make them a marketable citizen in the world outside the arena of sports. So whether Sam plays in the National Football League, Canadian Football League, overseas or never again, he should have no trouble finding gainful employment.

Or will he?

“You’re an inspiration to all of us,” Tweeted Michelle Obama. An inspiration? Not so fast, Mrs. Obama. If anything, Sam will be a detriment to both himself and the NFL.

Bring on the media circus. Playing in a team sport, Sam will garner infinitely more attention than he ought because of his off field announcement than anyone will earn for their on field accomplishments. Players – both teammates and opponents will be fielding all sorts of potentially uncomfortable questions, and regardless of what occurs behind the closed doors of the locker room, players with an ounce of common sense will say little to nothing for fear of being labeled homophobic. Most will simply smile and spout the party line about the importance of putting the best team out of the field every Sunday.

And I agree with that. Sam did himself a disservice. He should be drafted if his skills warrant. He should attend pre-season practice and workouts trying his damndest to make the team just as all other invitees do. If he makes the final roster, good for him. If not, will there be questions as to bias against the first openly gay player?

Will the NFL scrutinize every hit Sam endures while on the field of play as a potential hate crime? Football is a tough game and it requires its players to be tough – both on the inside and on the outside as the situation with the Miami Dolphins players Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin demonstrated last season.

Make no mistake, I am not suggesting any player be bullied because he is sensitive, as may have been the case in the Dolphins locker room, or because he is a religious minority, or because he is gay. But, there is a culture in locker rooms that transcends sports. Sam may make straight players uncomfortable – which is their problem, not Sam’s; but Sam also needs to prepare himself for a cold shoulder from teammates as well – acceptance of a chosen lifestyle is not a mandate or a law – at least not yet, if the politically correct bullies have their way.

In fact, it is the politically correct crowd – the so-called mainstream media, the anti-First Amendment-unless-you-agree-with-them-word-for-word crowd, and other guilt-ridden liberal-progressives who are attempting to co-opt American society with a homosexual movement seemingly larger than it is. Gays consist of roughly 10 percent of the population, yet they have corporate America on its heels for fear of offending someone and the potential boycott that may follow.

It’s time to say “enough.” Enough kow-towing to a minority who, while entitled to their choice in sexual orientation, still behave in a way that the majority find, to say the least, off-putting. Being gay is a choice and one not entitled to any special treatment or protection by law in the United States. If gays wish to boycott a business, I know there will be plenty of people wishing to support that business for defending family values and moral decency.

I no more care if there is a gay player on my favorite team any more than I support the evils of affirmative action. I want the best 11 players on the football field; the nine best on the baseball field; the five best on the basketball court; the ablest attorney, doctor, accountant, plumber, and electrician period. I want the best – regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation. Those three characteristics are irrelevant and they should be kept to oneself.

Even Sam’s own father, Michael Sam, Sr. expressed his discomfort with his son’s lifestyle choice. “I don’t want my grandkids raised in that kind of environment. [I’m] old school; a man and a woman kind of guy,” said Sam, Sr. adding he uncomfortable with a gay player in the NFL, but that he loves his son and hopes he makes it to the league. (http://msn.foxsports.com/college-football/story/michael-sam-s-dad-learned-last-week-his-son-was-gay-021014)

That Michael Sam, Jr. chose to announce his sexual predilections is on him. He must now live with the consequences – positive or negative. I don’t care if Sam is gay; I just don’t need to see the parade pass by my window.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.