Newsday's Lane Filler's Toxic Religious Bigotry

Newsday's Lane Filler's Toxic Religious Bigotry

Lane Filler has been a member of the Newsday editorial board since 2010, during which time he has never been too shy to express his controversial views on what’s wrong with America and his remedies for curing those flaws.

In defending Robin William’s September suicide, Filler wrote recently that, “If we believe mature adults [but not young people] are the best judges of how they ought to live, aren’t they also the experts on whether they ought to live? We could stop judging so harshly the act of suicide. We could listen to the cries of pain and, perhaps, even believe them.” 

Last July, he attacked our country for our mean-spirited policies of restricting the mass invasion by uncounted, unaccompanied children across America’s southern border, asking, “What is the purpose of America? And what is the meaning of life?”
Aside from his apparent ignorance regarding America’s “purpose” and the tangential relevance of life’s meaning, Filler revealed an abject disregard for both our national territorial integrity and our essential national character in those two articles, themes he carried to another extreme in “Why Conservatives Can’t Balk at Same-sex Marriage.”

Written from his jaded point of view as a confirmed liberal-leftist, the latter piece exposed Filler as an anti-Christian zealot who can’t seem to distinguish between long-established conservative dogma and irrationality.

For example, he wrote that, “If you care that consenting adults can get married, regardless of their genders or colors or sexual proclivities, you’re not really a conservative. You use the term to describe yourself because you think some people will favor it, like when people on dating sites call themselves ‘adventurous’ and that ”Real adventurers meet new lovers at zip-lining conventions, or even prayer marathons, not online in chat rooms. And real conservatives don’t care what consenting adults do with their money or lungs or genitals if it does not intrude on the liberty of others.”

Perhaps to arrogantly emphasize his bigotry, Filler felt compelled to add, ”But worse than the ‘conservatives’ who think your freedom ends when you want to do something they find icky are the ones who would truly pervert the Constitution to fight what they see as perversion.”

Now, as a non-adventurist Christian conservative, I can’t take issue with Filler’s inalienable right to spout blatant misrepresentations and distortions though I won’t defend to the death his authority to so spout them. 

However, considering the facts he hails from a Jewish heritage background and is a liberal-leftist to boot, . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=39313.)

Outrages in America's Schools--Part One: Academia

Outrages in America's Schools--Part One: Academia

 

In our seriously disturbed modern world, education and educators remain the last, best hope for saving us from being flushed down civilization’s sewer.  Regrettably, they are also responsible for much of the disturbance.

Few Americans would contest the proposition that our schools are in dire trouble.  Even fewer are aware of the scope of those troubles both in academia and our public school systems.

Knowledgeable parents have at least some awareness of the public school plight but a relative minority understands the significance of what’s going on inside and outside the hallowed halls at the collegiate level or, if they do know, are either oblivious of how bad things really are or accept outrages such as arbitrary suspensions of free speech, blatant religious discrimination, and salacious courses and programs as reflections of institutional, academic freedoms.

The bad news is that they are woefully wrong; the good news is that many collegians are fighting back!

—For example, in Hampton, VA, Thomas Nelson Community College student Christian Parks, 26, attempted to spread the Gospel in the college quad when administrators ordered him to stop because he lacked permission to preach because they feared his expression would prompt complaints and they wanted to pacify those who might be offended.  Parks filed suit, alleging prohibition violated his  “fundamental rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, due process, and equal protection of law.”

—In Tucson, Arizona, 50 year old Pima Community College nursing student Terri Bennett was labeled “a bigot and a bitch” by nursing director David Kutzler for  “discriminating against Mexican-Americans.”  She was punished with an extended suspension and later thrown off campus for daring to ask that her nursing studies class be taught in English so she could learn the required material. Accused of disrupting a class, engaging in harassing and discriminatory conduct, “stalking” and “bullying,” she’s suing Pima for harassment, privacy violations, breach of contract, violations of the  Arizona Constitution, retaliation, defamation, discrimination, and emotional distress.

—In California, Army vet and Modesto Junior College student Robert Van Tuinen attempted to distribute copies of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17th, National Constitution Day.  Minutes after he began, Van Tuinen was informed by a campus cop that students were prohibited from distributing materials without prior permission and subsequently advised he might have to wait days or weeks before he could continue.  He filed suit on the basis of being denied his constitutional right to free speech and not only won a $50,000 settlement but an agreement from the school to revise its discriminatory speech code . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=37438.)