Our Books

If you enjoy this site, please consider purchasing one of our books (as low as $2.99). Click here to visit our Amazon page.

Our Books

Our Books
Books by Trevor Grant Thomas and Michelle Fitzpatrick Thomas

E-Mail Me:

NOTE: MY EMAIL ADDRESS HAS CHANGED! Trevor's new email address: trevorgrantthomas@gmail.com

Latest News/Commentary

Latest News/Commentary:

News/Commentary Archives:

News/Commentary Archives (for the current year; links to previous years archives at the bottom of each page)---PLUS: Trevor's Columns Archived (page linked at the bottom of the table below):

Monday, April 20, 2009

The TEA (party) was “Sweet”

“The sum of good government,” said Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address, is “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned (emphasis mine).” The hundreds of thousands of Americans who took part in the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties across the U.S. on Wednesday could not agree more.

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one,” said Thomas Paine. Those of us participating in the April 15 TEA parties fast see our government becoming “intolerable.” The current levels of government spending and taxation, and the ever present threat by the Obama administration (along with many state and local governments) for even more spending and taxation, have more and more Americans saying, “Enough!”

As I wrote at the beginning of February (here), arguing against continuing the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, over-spending by our government almost always results in more-and-more government, which then requires even more spending; this requires more tax revenue, which means more and larger taxes. It is truly a maddening and seemingly endless cycle. This financial absurdity is the major reason why there were approximately 1,000 TEA parties across America on tax day.

Sadly, many Americans these last few years have had to learn the hard financial lessons that resulted from excessive levels of personal indebtedness. The spending sprees that have gone on at every level of government these last several years are, for the most part, simply a reflection of our culture in general. I hope that most Americans—individuals, families, businesses, and government— are now waking up to the fact that we cannot spend our way out of debt and into prosperity. The TEA parties were a good indication that many Americans are indeed getting this message.

Jeff Jones, organizer of the Gainesville TEA party, in his speech at the protest, declared, “We have come here today to make our voices heard in defense of our Liberty.

To declare our love for the United States of America and our love for the freedom that our limited government once afforded each of us.... and we have come here today to tell a bloated, heavy-handed, socialist government that we have had ENOUGH.”

He continued, “This government pats us on the head and whispers in our ears, ‘we will be your Big Brother, and protect you from the unfairness in the world. We'll provide your house, your retirement, your car, your healthcare, and your job....in return for your allegiance to our socialist system.’ An American Socialist named Norman Thomas once said: ‘The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of “liberalism” they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.’”

Americans literally cannot afford to sit back and do and say nothing while the financial follies continue in Washington, and in state and local governments all over the country. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called states “the laboratories of democracy.” In other words, if you want a picture of what is going to happen with the federal government, then take a look at the states. Given the make-up of the current administration, with liberals in almost complete control, the best state at which to take a gander would be California.

In June 2002, the liberal magazine American Prospect hailed California as a “laboratory” for Democratic Policies. The author of the story, Harold Meyerson, boasted that “with its Democratic governor, U.S. senators, state legislature and congressional delegation, California is the only one of the nation’s 10 largest states that is uniformly under Democratic control.” In California, Meyerson said, “the next New Deal is in tryouts.”

In the few years since Meyerson’s bold declaration, California has 11.2% unemployment, a $41 billion deficit, and a credit rating that was slashed to the lowest of all 50 U.S. states (approaching junk bond status). It turns out that their “New Deal” was no deal at all. This, and worse, I’m afraid, is the destination of the U.S. government if we don’t stop the fiscal insanity. Hopefully the TEA parties were the beginning of the “change” this country really needs.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Sunday, April 5, 2009

The Dumbest Word in the English Language

In a recent interview with the gay news website 365gay.com, Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, speaking of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), said, “At some point [DOMA] is going to have to go to the Supreme Court.” He continued, “I wouldn't want it to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has got too many votes on this current court.” I submit to you that there is no dumber word in our language than “homophobe” (or “homophobia,” or “homophobic”).

The word was coined by psychologist and gay activist George Weinberg in his 1972 book Society and the Healthy Homosexual. The book was published one year prior to the American Psychiatric Association, with a vote of 5,834 to 3,810, removing homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The word became an important tool for homosexual activists and their allies. Weinberg gave them a “medical” phobia with which to attack their opponents.

Weinberg defined the word as “the dread of being in close quarters with homosexuals,” adding “It was a fear of homosexuals which seemed to be associated with a fear of contagion, a fear of reducing the things one fought for—home and family. It was a religious fear and it had led to great brutality as fear always does.”

Merriam-Webster defines it as “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.” One problem I have with the word is that it makes no sense etymologically. “Homo,” from the Greek, means “the same” and “phobia,” from the Greek, means “fear.” So literally, homophobia means fear of the same.

However, my greatest complaint with the term does not stem from its etymological shortcomings. The English language, like most languages, is in constant flux and is full of silly words. The biggest problem with homophobia and its variations is that they have become “snarl” words—words that, when used, are intended to induce a negative response. Such words commonly appeal to people's emotions rather than their reasoning.

That was exactly Barney Frank’s intention—to paint an extremely negative picture of Justice Scalia to a very friendly audience, arousing their emotions against him and all those who see homosexuality differently than he does. In fact, nearly every time that I have heard “homophobe” uttered, or seen it written, it has been as a snarl word.

Other words, such as “racist,” “sexist,” and so on, can be used in a similar manner. Yet most all of us have seen or heard, whether firsthand or not, real racism and sexism in practice. On the other hand, almost exclusively those labeled as “homophobe” have a biblical conviction against homosexual behavior, and nothing more. They have no “irrational fear” of homosexuals, or a “dread of being in close quarters” with them.

A local language expert and fellow Christian, Dr. Danny Evans, notes that the common use of homophobe is a “completely erroneous use of the word. Most of us know that a phobia is a fear of certain things or situations. It's interesting that those who oppose homosexuality are categorized as ‘homophobic,’ especially since fear has nothing to do with the opposition to homosexuality. From a Christian viewpoint, homosexuality is not feared, but rather opposed based on the biblical explanation of it. We love people, no matter what their sexual preferences may be. It is the sin we despise.”

Recently (April 3), the Iowa Supreme Court struck down the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, declaring it to be in conflict with Iowa’s constitution. Almost certainly (as has already occurred in 30 other states, with an average approval of nearly 70%) there will be a significant effort to add a marriage amendment to Iowa’s constitution—and just as certainly, those who pursue this avenue will viciously be labeled as “homophobes.”

We have to go back only to last November when Californians passed Proposition 8, which amended their state constitution to read, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” to see how quickly homosexuals and their supporters will start screaming “homophobia!” in an attempt to demonize their opponents.

As Jonah Goldberg editorialized in December of last year, “It's often lost on gay-rights groups that they and their allies are the aggressors in the culture war. Indeed, they admit to being the ‘forces of change’ and the ‘agents of progress.’ They proudly want to rewrite tradition and overturn laws. But whenever they're challenged democratically and peaceably, they instantly complain of being victims of entrenched bigots, even as they adopt the very tactics they abhor.”

Unquestionably one of the things homosexuals “abhor” is the name calling. If they want to make their case intelligently and peacefully, it is time for the word “homophobia” to become “anachronistic.” (Look it up.)

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com