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Heritage = oil/gas/coal/capitalist stink tank
Twelve Anti-Family Gifts from Congress
by Katherine Bradley
As Congress wraps up its final business for the year, there are at least a dozen detrimental policies included in the omnibus spending bill recently signed into law by the President. Taken as a whole, these policies devalue human life, weaken civil society, and undermine the family. Unfortunately, these provisions have largely gone unnoticed by the general public.
The Dirty Dozen
The Fiscal Year 2010 Omnibus Appropriations bill passed by Congress includes a slew of offensive items:
1.Elimination of abstinence education. Despite polling showing the vast majority of parents want their children to be taught that abstinence is best,[1] the omnibus defunds the abstinence-based education program. In its place Congress creates another condom-based sex education program.
2.Spreading the wealth. The omnibus bill, as well as the other appropriation measures that have passed this year, represent a fulfillment of President Obama's promise to "spread the wealth." His 2010 budget reflects a 30 percent increase over President Bush's last year in office on means-tested welfare programs such as housing, food stamps, and health care. Unfortunately, these programs do little or nothing to help recipients move off of the welfare rolls and into jobs where they can achieve independence and provide for their families.
3.Needle exchange. Tucked into the health portion of the bill is an allowance of federal taxpayer funds to be used for needle exchange programs whereby drug addicts can get new needles for turning in used needles. Ostensibly to prevent the spread of infection, these programs settle for "harm reduction" rather than overcoming drug addiction. The provision does allow local health agencies and local law enforcement to "opt-out."
4.Planned Parenthood funding. Despite the country's towering deficit, the omnibus bill boosts le X family planning funding by $10 million to $315.5 million. The largest recipient of le X funds is Planned Parenthood.
5.United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Despite its stated mission to "ensure that every pregnancy is wanted," the UNFPA would receive $5 million more from U.S. taxpayers to, among other things, support China's mandatory one-child policy, under which millions of wanted pregnancies have been ended.
6.International family planning. Shortly after his inauguration, President Obama rescinded the "Mexico City policy," which banned funding to organizations that promote and/or perform abortion overseas. The omnibus bills would give these groups an additional $103 million.
7..Limiting free speech The omnibus bill drops a ban on federal funds being used to enforce or implement the "Fairness Doctrine." This policy would have the effect of shutting down conservative talk radio programs.
The section of the bill that funds the District of Columbia includes these disturbing provisions:
8.Ending the D.C. Scholarship Program. For five years, thousands of D.C. families have been able to send their children to safe and effective private schools. But the omnibus bill allows no new entrants into the program--despite a 2009 Department of Education report showing a statistically significant increase in reading scores for scholarship students.[2]
9.Public funding of abortion. The bill lifts a ban on D.C. using local funds to promote and fund abortions for District residents.
10.Taxpayer-financed domestic partner benefits. The bill lifts a longstanding ban on the use of federal taxpayer funds to pay for health care benefits for domestic partners of D.C. employees. Federal funds would also now be used for domestic partnership registration.
11.Legalized medical marijuana. The bill gives D.C. the ability to use local funds to start and implement a medical marijuana program. This comes at a time when, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles is attempting to reel in its program. Medical marijuana dispensaries have become one of the fastest-growing industries in the city, with some 1,000 dispensaries cropping up since 2004.[3]
12.Needle exchange for drug abusers. A decade-long ban is lifted in the bill to allow D.C. to use local funds to run a needle exchange program for drug addicts. Unfortunately, a provision keeping these programs from within 1,000 feet of any school, day care, or youth center was stripped out in the final bill.
Unwelcome Christmas Gifts
The Christmas season is a time when Americans celebrate life, family, and community. Unfortunately, the 12 unwelcome Christmas gifts in the omnibus bill, signed into law by President Obama last week, undermine these pillars of American civil society.
Katherine Bradley is Visiting Fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.
[1]See Robert E. Rector, Melissa G. Pardue, and Shannon Martin, "What Do Parents Want Taught in Sex Education Programs?," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No.1722, January 28, 2004, at http://www.heritage.org/Research
/Abstinence/bg1722.cfm.
[2]See Dan Lips, "D.C. Opportunity Scholarships Boost Reading Scores, Family Satisfaction," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No.2396, April 10, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/wm2391.cfm.
[3]Tamara Audi, "L.A. Agrees to Limit Medical Marijuana Dispensaries," The Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2009, at http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB126033084958883141.html (December 19, 2009).
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/wm2739.cfm
Heritage = oil/gas/coal/capitalist stink tank
I'm good with all those things.
"Abstinence education" is an oxymoron. There is no education in teaching horny teenagers that the only way to prevent disease is to not have sex. That's criminally liable.
Needle exchanges are an incredibly important harm-reduction method of reducing the spread of HIV and Hepa is C. You wanna try and stop every junkie from shooting dope? Love to see you try. But 10 to 1 says you have slept with someone who's slept with someone who's slept with someone who shot dope, and if they don't use a clean needle you could get Hep C or HIV yourself.
I thought you said biased sources can't be trusted?
I would love to see a link of when I posted that. You decide for yourself what is credible or not. I gave the link with all their sourced data.
You know something as full of and worthless as this pathetic list would have to be an Amway product.Katherine Bradley is Visiting Fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.
So the list is false? Which ones?
Forget it spursncowboys - to our resident libs, that list is like their Christmas List and Barack Obama is their Santa Claus - mmm, mmm, mmm.
If you depend on federal policies to keep your family together -- or blame it for your family falling apart -- you deserve whatever you get.
WH: Where do you get that reasoning? What exactly of these govt. funding bills does the real "old repub" agree with? Are they the ones you agree with? Why do you hate the any kind of traditional values, even when it coincides with your ideological value?
None of it, presumably.
What I agree with or disagree with is beside the point. My point is, I don't look to the government to help/protect my own family, or my views about it.
There's nothing conservative at all about the family values emphasis, its more a cultural wedge, based on phony nostalgia for a past that never existed, than a defense of any concrete tradition IMO.
I don't hate the values, I hate the implication that the values themselves stand or fall with the government's support of them.
conservatives and Repugs are pro-life, but are insist that poor babies don't have a right to live, so 1000s die every year due to no/poor peri-natal care and for-profit insurance out-of-reach.
It's very telling that "saving lives" has been totally absent from the either side's arguments. It's all about costs, with the USA being to ing poor to provide health care and save the lives of its own citizens. A disgrace before all other industrial countries.
Universal health care is ANTI-FAMILY? Just another lie from the Repugs and conservatives.
Not stipulated, b_d. The beef in the OP is with the omnibus spending bill.Universal health care is ANTI-FAMILY? Just another lie from the Repugs and conservatives.
amen to that.
So can biased sources be trusted?
Had to really stretch to get the twelve, eh?
8-12 apply to DC only, and 5-6 relate to foreign aid.
No .
LOL Heritage losers
My point is what did your original point have to do with spending tax dollars to push their progressive values? I agree that anyone expecting the state to teach their kids what is right and wrong is in for trouble but I just don't know why you would put it here, when it had nothing to do with all these spending increases on social programs.
Not all teenagers are having sex. Teenagers have the mental capacity to wait. I am not saying they will be forced, because they know everything and will do what they want. However it is ludicrous (in Tyson's voice) to think that teenagers cannot have self control and discipline their mind and body. There are studies done that time and time again show that kids who claim to not be sexually active, do better in school and are more focused. I don't find anything wrong with sexual health education, and think that abstinence should be there too.
If you are serious about not spreading STDs, then abstinence is the only one that is 100%. If you are irresponsible then you have to pay for the consequence. If I slept with someone and didn't wrap it up, I deserve what I get.
You won't teach kids the dangers before sex but are ok with giving them free needles to do something that destroys community?
hold on guys going to go disband my family cause of this
Um, I'm all about teaching kids the dangers of sex. Abstinence-only education is NOT. It provides kids with misinformation and lies, rather that useful information like how to properly use a condom and the wide variety of birth control and contraceptive options that are out there.
Teenagers are certainly capable of NOT having sex, and most importantly of making their minds up about whether they want to. Some teenagers choose not to have sex until later...most of those wait until college/early 20's, not marriage/monogamy. A small minority wait till marriage/monogamy.
It's just not realistic to expect MOST teenagers to wait, because most are not going to. Whether you provide them with accurate, life-saving information or not.
Instantiating determinately broken policies based on ideological gonnds . Brilliant.
The OP focused on the the progressive "attack" on family values; I attacked the defense of the same, as it is commonly understood. Suggesting that the character and stability of American families depends on politicians is patronizing and wrong.
Yes, liberals push their values with our tax dollars. Sadly conservatives, when in power, do much the same, rather than getting government the eff out of our lives.
I thought the problems was the values. That's what the OP was about. You seem to be moving the goal posts.
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