State commision charged with protecting religious freedom opposed religious freedom bill

Gee, I wish I had my own government agency to push my political agenda for me.

The Kentucky Human Rights Commission was on of the groups that sent letters to Gov. Beshear asking him to veto HB 279 the Religious Freedom Act.

Now let's think about this for a minute. This is a government commission whose stated purpose is to enforce the Kentucky Civil Rights Act. Now the Kentucky Civil Rights Act covers pretty much all the things the Federal Civil Rights Act covers. Here's what it says it's for:

To safeguard all individuals within the state from discrimination because of familial status, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age forty (40) and over, or because of the person's status as a qualified individual with a disability as defined in KRS 344.010 and KRS 344.030.

Notice what it includes: religion. Part of the Human Rights Commission's purpose, in other words, is to protect against religious discrimination. But instead of doing this, they used their taxpayer-derived resources to fight a bill that would help protect against religious discrimination!

In the most egregious recent case of religious discrimination in Kentucky, the Human Rights Commission was either asleep at the switch or just simply not interested in getting involved. It involved Martin Gaskell, who sued the University of Kentucky for denying him a job because, as the e-mail of one UK professor put it, he was a "potential evangelical." As a result, Gaskell filed a religious discrimination complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

He never heard back.

Apparently the Commission was just too busy doing what the Kentucky Civil Rights Act gives them absolutely no authority to do: engage in gay rights activism. The Kentucky Civil Rights Act does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. There have been proposed laws to change this, but so far the State Legislature has chosen not to pass them.

Your taxpayer dollars--at play.

Public employee benefit plans need to be the same as everyone else's

The next time you hear the latest news on some government pension plan that is facing a multi-million dollar shortfall and threatening the benefits for those who are scheduled to retire, ask yourself this question: "Do I have a defined benefit plan where I work?"

Public employees and many unions have defined benefit plans, which give beneficiaries a set amount on retirement. It's a pretty cushy deal, really. The rest of have to make due with defined contribution plans, like 401Ks, which have a set contribution, but not a set benefit. This is what the vast majority of private businesses use. By definition they cannot have a shortfall, since the benefit is always based on whatever the value of the account is at retirement.

Other than mostly union plans, private companies began moving away from defined benefit plans many years ago, and no they have been superseded by defined contribution plans.

Employees love defined benefit plans, of course, since their benefits are a guaranteed amount. But the thing about it is that when a recession comes along, the actuarial calculations go out the window, and the amount in the plan is not enough meet the guaranteed benefits. So what happens? There are only two possibilities:

1. Public employees don't get benefits they were guaranteed
2. The government entity that guaranteed the benefits has to spend more public money making up the gap

Since employees have been guaranteed the money, 1. can't happen, which means that the rest of us who are on defined contribution plans have to belly up for it through our taxes. This is an absolutely absurd situation.

States like Kentucky need to pass laws forcing their executive branches to phase out defined benefit plans and institute the same kind of defined contribution plans everybody else is using.

Rand Paul opposed to dead people

Rand Paul may now finally have stepped over the line. He is now opposed to dead people.

According to Al Cross at the Rural Blog, Paul told WHAS's Mandy Connell that he is opposed to dead farmers receiving agriculture subsidies.

Oh, the insensitivity! Oh the callousness!

Where is the outrage, liberals?!

Seeking self-starter with no business experience to run the economy

If you ever wondered why the government seems to be taking over everything under the Obama administration, consider the percentage of members of the cabinet who have private sector experience in the Obama administration compared to previous administrations.

From Nick Shulz at the American Enterprise Institute.

HT: Carpe Diem

Just a question

Why is it that the same people who are always saying they want government "out of the bedroom" want government in everything else?

Your know your town is too big when ...

Okay, your town is officially too big if you have a "tree board."

Not that I am opposed to government fining people for cutting down poor innocent trees, but who is government to be getting down on other people for doing this? Has anyone noticed the worst perpetrators of tree destruction crimes?

How about those government road construction crews who, to the surprise of most people in the general vicinity, show up one day on some scenic Kentucky road and mow down all the vegetation in sight, include what appear to be centuries old trees so they can widen a road that never sees much traffic anyway just because some local politician got government money for so they could pay local workers (most of whom aren't local anyway) exorbitant prevailing wages.

Put me on a "tree board." I'll save some trees alright.

Cothran's First Corollary to the Rule of Government Efficiency: Keep counties small

Every two years or so, someone trots out a bill in the Kentucky General Assembly calling for the consolidation of counties in Kentucky under the banner of "Efficiency". How do we know that reducing the number of counties will be more efficient? Because the government says so.

According to Al Cross, Tom Brokaw in the New York Times is touting the finding of a government panel that says that reducing the number of counties will result in greater government efficiency:

His examples range from New York, where a state commission determined that consolidation could save the state more than $1 billion, to North Dakota and his native South Dakota, where Brokaw says that 17 universities for 1.5 million people in two states could better use their money by consolidating administrations into one university system with satellite campuses.

Brokaw's example of Iowa's 99 counties for 3 million residents could be repeated for a number of states. Nebraska has more counties per capita than any state, and Kentucky is second. "Each one houses a full complement of clerks, auditors, sheriff’s deputies, jailers and commissioners," he writes. "Is there any reason beyond local pride to maintain such duplication given the economic and population pressures of our time?" [emphasis added]

The idea that consolidating or simplifying any state function saves money is the organizational equivalent of the "cone of silence" in the old "Get Smart" TV series: it never works. Someone should go back and look at all the promises that were issued by those behind what is undoubtedly one of the worst organizational actions in the history of education: the school consolidation movement. What I'd like to see is the cost per student for education before all the small schools were closed down and the cost now.

The only thing that the consolidation of counties will do is to take the government of localities out of the localities themselves and place it in the hands of bureaucrats outside of the community being governed.

Cothran's Rule of Government Efficiency plainly states, "There is No Such Thing." And one of corollaries of this Rule is: "The Bigger the Government Body, the More Inefficient It Is."

Memo to Congress: You voted to protect executive bonuses

If the federal government weren't nationalizing banks, bonuses wouldn't be a problem for anyone other than shareholders, who are the ones supposed to be minding their own shops. Here is David Harsanyi on the ridiculous spectacle of congressmen who specifically protected these bonuses in the bank bailout legislation lecturing AIG for paying them:

Here's an idea: If you stop nationalizing banks, there will be no need to engage in phony-baloney indignation over bonus payments anymore.

This cockamamie populism in Washington really hit its stride when Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley suggested that AIG execs who earned bonuses should "follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."

C'mon. If suicide were a proper penalty for piddling away taxpayer dollars, the National Mall would look just like Jonestown after refreshments.

These same senators who voted to nationalize banks with nary a pre-condition are also, apparently, stupendously talented actors. After all, most of these senators voted for a bill that contained a provision that specifically protected bonuses that were agreed upon before Feb 11. in the bank bailout legislation.

How is it that all those who cast votes on this provision — because, we imagine, no trustworthy lawmaker would vote for legislation they hadn't vigorously examined — are now threatening a "special" tax to snag AIG bonuses? Not only is it dishonest, it also means they, in a breathtaking abuse of power, believe using punitive taxation to appropriate someone's salary is a legitimate function of government.

Read the rest here. HT: Cafe Hayek.

FEMA strikes again

Well, FEMA has swung into action. Over a week after the ice storm that knocked out power to over 700,000 Kentuckians, and after most of us have gotten our power and water back, news comes that the federal agency set up to deal with emergencies is having blankets and food sent to Fort Knox.

Is a federal agency to deal with these things really even possible?

Richard John Neuhaus, RIP

Richard John Neuhaus died last week. He was most famous as the editor of First Things Magazine, which dealt with the issue religion in the public square. It was one of the truly vibrant intellectual journals of recent times. The joke has always been that everyone read the magazine from the back, since that's where Neuhaus wrote his own running account the wide range of issues that came under the rubric of the magazine.

We should perhaps remind ourselves of something that many have forgotten: that First Things was the successor to two other publications Neuhaus edited: This World and The Religion & Society Report. This World contained longer scholarly articles on religion and culture, while The Religion & Society Report contained Neuhaus's own shorter observations about religion and culture. This latter was the basis for the "back of the magazine" in First Things. I was a charter subscriber to both, but they were short-lived as a result of a falling out between the more neo-conservative Neuhaus and the more paleo-conservative Rockford Institute, which published the two periodicals. Neuhaus quickly founded First Things, and it became one of the most influential voices in what is left of Christendom.

I never met Neuhaus, but, like many, I felt like I knew him because I knew his thoughts on the same issues that I was thinking about, thoughts that he gave eloquent expression. He was apparently celibate, before and after becoming a Catholic, a choice that allowed him to read voraciously and do the rest of us the very important favor of letting us know what was important in what he encountered there.

Like many, I wonder what now will become of First Things. It is surely a work worth furthering, and yet it was so much the work of Neuhaus himself it is hard to think of it without him. For what it's worth, I hope the attempt isn't made to mimic Neuhaus. Whoever takes it over could easily preserve the first part of the magazine intact, but put their own stamp on the back of the magazine.

For those who never became acquanted with Neuhaus, here is his article from the inaugural edition. It is a sort of declaration for what Neuhaus and his magazine stood for--and what many of his readers, like myself, believe about the relationship between Christianity, culture, and politics.

It is a tribute to Neuhaus's selflessness in the cause of truth that so many eulogies like this one focus on his works, rather than his person: that is the way, I am sure, he would have wanted it.

New York Times buries the hatchet with Kentucky lawmaker

When New York Times reporter Ian Urbina came to Kentucky to do a story on State Rep. Tom Riner, the lawmaker responsible for the requirement that the state's Homeland Security office acknowledge that our ultimate safety is in God, he had in mind the standard story about the relationship between church and state.

Then he met Riner.

A baptist minister who looks at his inner city Louisville district as his ministry, Urbina walked in the doors of Riner's church--essentially the run-down house next door to his--and was introduced to the homeless men who that Riner has taken in. Some of them sleep in the basement. The quiet and unprepossessing Riner has picked them up off the street and taken them in.

Although there are vestiges of his original intent in Urbina's story--oversimplified remarks about the separation between church and state and State Rep. Kathy Stein's hard-edged criticism of Riner's legislative activity, Urbina clearly was affected by what he saw.

Take away the first paragraph, which doesn't really fit the rest of the article--and the cheeky final comment, and you have what amounts to a tribute.

Funny how that works.

Scientists discover new element, and it's a big one

And it was right under their nose all this time:

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.z

Read the rest here.

Is Rick Warren wrong about religion and politics?

I'm sure there exist good reasons to criticize Rick Warren, but, as Francis Beckwith has pointed out, Andrew Sullivan doesn't appear to employ any in his recent critique. Here is the comment from Warren that got Sullivan's dander up:

I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion. Faith is simply a worldview. A person who says he puts his faith on the shelf when he's making decisions is either an idiot or a liar. It's entirely appropriate for me to ask what is their frame of reference.

I don't know if Warren's categorization ("idiot or liar") is truly exhaustive, but it can't be far off the mark. Here's Sullivan's response:

The entire basis for Western secular government, which rests on the capacity of people to distance absolute truth from political affairs, is based on idiocy or lies? I wonder if Warren has ever read Locke, or Hobbes, or Machiavelli or would even understand the term secularism if it knocked him square off his pedestal.

Machiavelli? Now there's a great guide for our policymakers. But the question is not, as Sullivan suggest, whether Warren has read Locke or Hobbes or Machiavelli, as Beckwith suggests, but whether Sullivan has read Warren. In fact, in addition to these authors, Sullivan ought also to read Thomas Paine, who makes a parallel point at the beginning of Common Sense:

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.

Warren seems to be assuming much the same distinction as Paine: that the separation of religion and government is not the same thing as a separation between religion and society--or politics, or the public square, or whatever you want to call that province outside the strictly governmental.

A balanced view of the "faith of our fathers"

Richard Brookhiser's review of Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, by Steven Waldman from the New York Times.

The revenge of the smokers: Three workers fired for not smoking

This is just too good to pass up: According to ABC News, a German company has fired three workers for not smoking. Here's part of the report:

The owner of a small German computer company has fired three non-smoking workers because they were threatening to disturb the peace after they requested a smoke-free environment.

This is definitely an employer with an attitude:

"I can't be bothered with trouble-makers," Thomas [the owner] was quoted saying. "We're on the phone all the time and it's just easier to work while smoking. Everyone picks on smokers these days. It's time for revenge. I'm only going to hire smokers from now on."

It is a measure of how totalitarian the anti-smoking movement in America has become that I feel like cheering this guy on. I don't smoke cigarettes, but second-hand smoke neither disturbs me, nor, I believe, seriously threatens my health. I sympathize with those are disturbed by cigarette smoke, but I also think that those who are threatened by second-hand smoke have simply allowed themselves to become prey to the propaganda of those whom P. J. O'Roarke calls "health Nazis."

If you don't like smoking in a private establishment, then don't go there.

This guy is simply doing in Germany what more and more government entities are doing on the nonsmoking side here in the United States: imposing views on smoking on other people. At least this guy has the excuse that he is a private business and should be able to do with it what he wants.

Mr. Smith takes a hike

Where was State Rep. Ancel Smith, the tie-breaking vote on SB 152, when the bill failed by an 8-8 vote in House Health & Welfare Committee yesterday? He was sitting on the couch in Suite 432 of the Capitol Annex watching it on the television monitor—apparently taking refuge from a controversial vote.

If you ever wondered why they compare the making of laws to the making of sausage, now you know why.

Charade, starring Tom Burch

In the midst of conducting a charade, Rep. Tom Burch accuses others of conducting a charade, the media dutifully ignores the former and reports the latter, ... and other things that really surprise us.

The Lexington Herald-Leader headline on the story about last night's committee hearing on domestic partner benefits bill reads, "Partner Benefits Bill Called a Charade." This was reference to Health & Welfare Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Burch's remark during his committee hearing last night on SB 152 that the bill has "pulled a charade on the people of Kentucky."

Now let's see if I've got this straight:

• Rep. Burch gives the bill sponsor, State Sen. Vernie McGaha, only one hour's notice that his bill will be heard (House rules say a bill is to be posted three days before it is to be heard), giving him and the bill supporters no time to prepare for testimony
• Burch hears the bill at 6:30 in the evening when the Capitol is largely vacant and most legislators (including some members of the committee who support the bill) have gone home
• And yet, somehow, numerous opponents of the bill show up for the meeting, apparently having been made aware of the meeting before even the sponsor was made aware of it.

And yet it is bill supporters that Rep. Burch is accusing of conducting a charade.

Got it.

Today's reading for Rep. Kathy Stein

While the media snores, here are the facts about contributions to state lawmakers from the developers of the HPV vaccine.

I don't remember who it was who told me a few years back about a reporter who came to a major Kentucky newspaper from New York, and who was appalled at the laziness of his newly acquired colleagues. The concept of investigative reporting, he observed, was almost unknown to members of the media in this state, whom, he thought, spent entirely too much time in their office cubicles, and not nearly enough time snooping out the facts behind the obvious.

The story was related to me in the context of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA), the propaganda for which was swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the major Kentucky media, until a few of us pointed out the very obvious problems with it, at which point a small handful of them were energetic enough to actually look at KERA for what it was. But the debate over mandatory HPV vaccinations has revealed once again the lack of interest of the state media in doing any journalistic heavy lifting.

A case in point is the controversy over donations by the developer of Gardasil, the HPV vaccination, to state legislators who have been considering a mandate for the drug, an issue which finally hit the media yesterday in a Lexington Herald-Leader story about State Rep. Kathy Stein's demand that Senate Majority Floor leader Dan Kelly issue an apology to her and other lawmakers for erroneously accusing them of taking money from the drug company.

Come again?

First of all, Kelly, who made the comments on "Front Page with Sue Wiley," was talking about the issue in other states (whose reporters apparently dig a little deeper than those here) where this has been the case.

Secondly, is Stein denying that Kentucky lawmakers have received money from Merck? If she is, she--not Dan Kelly--has some apologizing to do.

Here is what The Institute on Money in State Politics says about Merck contributions in Kentucky in its report, "Names in the News: Merck & Company." This report was laboriously obtained by first sitting down at the chair in front of my laptop (a complicated procedure), then pressing the "on" button, an effort which necessitated the expenditure of who knows how many of the calories I had gained from the Snickers bar I had just consumed, and then entering "www.followthemoney.org," which required--count 'em--22 whole keystrokes:

• Total Merck contributions to state lawmakers across the country, 2000-2006: $2,450,352.
• Total Merck contributions to Kentucky state lawmakers, 2000-2006: $40,225.

Who did they go to? A wide variety of lawmakers, some for the HPV mandate, and some against. Is this a surprise? No. Drug companies--and every other business interest--give money to candidates all the time. So what is the problem?

Here's the problem:

First, if you have taken money from the developer of the drug, and you do vote for the mandate--particularly if you have some influential role in its passage--you create the appearance of impropriety. Does it mean you voted for the mandate because you received money? No. But everyone seems pretty much agreed these days that when it comes to being a public official, the standard is not just actual impropriety, but even the appearance of it. That's why we have things like legislative ethics commissions. They deal in almost nothing but the appearance, rather than the actual incidence of influence peddling.

Second, when people like Kathy Stein publicly challenge someone who states that Merck has been giving money to public officials and questions this, the issue then becomes who is telling the truth.

Here's the truth (as revealed by the toilsome process of a few more keystrokes, and--pant, pant--a site search):

• A number of Kentucky state lawmakers took money from Merck & Co. from 2000-2006.
• The money from Merck was given to lawmakers from both parties.
• The people who took money from Merck fall out on both sides of the issue.
• People who are criticizing Merck contributions to supporters of the HPV mandate and who are not supporters of the mandate took money from Merck.
• Some of of the people who sat in key positions contributing to the passage of the HPV mandate are among the people who received contributions from Merck.
  

None of these is a problem, except for the last one, because of that little matter of the appearance of impropriety.

Who are we talking about? Tom Burch, he the chairman of the House Health & Welfare Committee that approved HB 345, the HPV mandate, in the House.

According to followthemoney.org, State Rep. Tom Burch received $500 on 2002, $800 in 2004, and $500 in 2006. There were other lawmakers on the committee who voted for the bill who received money from Merck, and a few others who voted for the bill on the House floor. This doesn't mean it is the reason they voted for the bill, but at minimum--the rock bottom expectation on these kinds of issues--is that they should have disclosed that fact when they voted.

Should they go to jail? No. Not even close. Should they have made a point to mention the contributions in the process of passage of the bill? Yes.

Oh, and one final question: Should I be the one having to point this out because the media is either too lazy or refuses to do it?

Mandating circumcision for middle school boys

New data on circumcision's role in reducing HIV transmission cries out for a mandate. Well, not a mandate, but something exactly like it. Sort of.

According to the new issue of Time Magazine, a new National Institutes of Health study shows that circumcision reduces the risk of contracting HIV by 60 percent. A report of the study appears in the most recent issue of The Lancet, a widely regarded British medical journal.

Now obviously this means that the more boys who are circumcised, the better off we will be. The more circumcisions, the less HIV. And the less HIV, the fewer deaths that will result from it. And how best to ensure that more boys are circumcised? Surely the answer to that question is obvious:

Mandate the circumcision of middle school boys.

Just look at the HIV statistics. How many people die of HIV every year? Imagine the lives that might be saved if we ensured that every young boy was circumcised before entering middle school.

And that's why we need to mandate circumcision in Kentucky: because it will save lives.

Now undoubtedly there will be those detractors who will oppose this idea. But these are the same people who opposed mandating the HPV vaccine: religious people. And we know about them, don't we?

These people say that the decision to circumcise their children should be left up to parents. And that would be a fine idea—if all parents were good parents. But we all know that is not the case. All parents are not good parents. There are some parents who will not do what is best for their own children (according to us), and so we must make these decisions for them.

According to most statistics, only 76 percent of boys are circumcised. But among some groups of people—and these are the people who we are really concerned about, even though we don’t like to admit it because we want them to continue to vote for us—the rate is as low as 45 percent.

The government has the responsibility to step into the relationship between families and their physicians for their own good. Of course, this principle does not extend to the abortion issue, where we take the complete opposite position. There, the government has no business in the health care decisions of individuals, as we have said repeatedly until we are blue in the face, and then decide to say something completely different.

But that is another issue altogether that we really don't want to talk about right now.

Back to these religious people who think that parents have rights. Even though these people will argue that mandating circumcision violates parental rights, they really have an ulterior motive. What really bothers them about mandating the circumcision of middle school boys is that it has to do with sex. In fact, as State Rep. Tom Burch points out, they wouldn't even be involved in debates like this if it weren't for sex.

Come to think of it, nobody would be involved in any debate if it weren't for sex. In fact, nobody would be here at all. But regardless, we need a mandate.

Mandate?

What mandate? Who said mandate? When did we ever say we should mandate circumcision? We're not talking about a mandate, and anyone who says that we ever proposed a mandate is misrepresenting us.

Now of course one of the reasons we need to mandate circumcision is that if we don't mandate it, insurance plans won't have to cover it. But, of course, like we just said, this isn't really a mandate. It's only a mandate in this paragraph so that we can make this argument. In the next paragraph, it isn't a mandate anymore.

You've got to follow along closely here and pay attention.

Never mind that most insurance plans already cover circumcision (just like they cover Gardasil, the HPV vaccine). Theoretically, under different circumstances, maybe in a different dimension (possibly in the one inhabited by the Lexington Herald-Leader), they could conceivably not cover circumcision. And what would happen then? Why, we would have uncovered circumcisions, that's what. And we know how embarrassing that would be.

That's why we need a mandate—even though that's not what this is.

One of the reasons this isn't a mandate is because we are going to allow the families of these boys to opt out. Now there are some people (those religious people) who ask why, if it is not a mandate, we need an opt out in the first place. They point out that there is no reason for an opt out unless it is a mandate. If it's not a mandate, there would be nothing to opt out from. They say we are talking out of both sides of our mouth. But remember, these are just crazy religious people.

And we say that out of both sides of our mouth.

Besides, if these people don't stop misrepresenting us, we're going to mandate this for them too—whether they need it or not. No anesthesia, no opt outs, no nothin'.

Remember, this non-mandate mandate could save thousands of lives nationally and worldwide. Now you may be wondering how a Kentucky law could save all of these lives across the nation and around the world. Well, we wonder about that also, but this same argument worked for the bill to mandate the HPV vaccination (SB 345, the mandate that wasn't a mandate), so we figure it will work on this issue too.

And let's deal right here with the nasty rumor going around that our support for mandatory circumcision of middle school boys has anything to do with campaign contributions to key Kentucky legislators by the National Association of Rabbinical and Non-Rabbinical Mohels (NARNRM). We can't deny this, of course, any more than we can deny that there were campaign contributions in 2004 and 2006 from Merck & Co., the developer of Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, to legislators in whose committees HB 345 was considered. But so what?

Have you seen anything in the news media about these contributions? No. Just like there was nothing ever said about Merck's contributions. Now wouldn't you think that if there had been something amiss, the intrepid investigative reporters at newspapers like the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal would have said something about it?

Huh?

But all this is just a distraction from the main point that anyone who opposes the idea of mandating circumcision is opposed to saving lives. If they were really concerned about lives, they would ignore the inherent contradictions and illogical arguments offered for this mandate that really isn't a mandate even though we keep saying so and then denying it.

But what do they do instead? They just keep confusing the issue with logic and facts that have nothing to do with whether it's a mandate—or isn't. Maybe.

In fact, speaking of the HPV vaccination for girls: in comparison to that idea, circumcision for boys is simple. Girls have to endure the ordeal of going in for three different shots. But circumcision for boys? It's quick and easy. Whack! and it's over.

Come to think of it, if we could get the doctor to slice just a few more inches closer to the body, we could probably prevent a lot of other societal havoc. But that's a discussion for another day. Or maybe next week, when we decide to mandate something else we think is good for everybody and then pretend that it's not a mandate, except on Tuesdays.

But for right now we need to think about HIV, and all the other diseases that have nothing to do with HIV but that kill people too because they all make us sad. And sadness is a bad thing—except when it gets people so emotional they forget that these other diseases have absolutely nothing to do with HIV and whether a mandate will actually reduce it, and whether this is really a mandate or not.

And that is why we need this new policy. Because it isn't a mandate.

Except when it is.

The above cartoon comes by way of On the Right, Steve Manning's blog.

Domestic partner benefits and the myth of the "Creative Class"

If you cruise down to the Frankfort Road district of Louisville, you will see stickers in shop windows and on the bumpers of cars that say, "Keep Louisville Weird". This area of town is becoming a haven for neighborhood art galleries and coffee houses, and a bohemian hangout that includes gays and conservative seminary students (Al Moeller's Southern Seminary is right down the road).

As it turns out, you can find the same slogan prominently displayed throughout Austin, Texas: "Keep Austin Weird". There are probably other cities that account themselves "weird" if you looked hard enough.

What does it mean? What is it for a city to be "weird", and why does it matter?

If you consulted a recent book by Richard Florida, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon, it would all start to make sense. Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, propounds the thesis that communities which practice what he calls the "Three T's"—Technology, Talent, and Tolerance—are communities that prosper. Communities that don't do this, on the other hand, languish economically.

It is the Ur-text behind the arguments in support of domestic partner benefits plans currently being considered by the University of Kentucky—the source of the argument that UK and other state universities need to provide employee benefits to the live-in sexual partners of its staff to “remain competitive”.

Florida argues that we are entering upon a "Creative Age," and that those cities that sign on to his program for attracting the creative talent that drives it will come out ahead, and those cities that do not will fall behind. His book has become the hottest thing among..., well, among the people it says such good things about. In fact, whole cities, such as Florida's own Pittsburgh, have devoted substantial resources to implementing his policies.

A good summary of Florida's arguments can be found in the 2001 Washington Monthly article, "The Rise of the Creative Class."

The popularity of "weirdness", however, is not limited to a few exotic enclaves. If you were listening to last week's debate over a bill that would force state universities to abide by the State Constitution and refrain from lavishing taxpayer money on the live-in sexual partners of its staff (SB 152), you heard Florida's book brought up repeatedly. State Sen. Ernesto Scorsone, an openly gay senator from Lexington, appealed to it in the floor debate over the bill, and University of Louisville President James Ramsey brought it up in his testimony against the bill before the Senate State Government Committee.

Our universities, we were told, are trying to practice "Tolerance," Florida's Third "T", in order to attract Talent, his Second "T". We cannot attract Talent unless we practice Tolerance. Doing things like refusing to subsidize alternative lifestyles with taxpayer money and following the restrictions of the State Constitution, we are led to believe, will drive away the creative talent our state and its universities need to attract in order to remain competitive.

Keep repeating all This, and it will become True.

Are gays more creative than straights?
It is this emphasis on "tolerance" that has attracted the most attention in Florida's book. Florida goes so far as to create a "Tolerance Index". Florida attempts to quantify tolerance with four measures: "the Gay Index, the Bohemian Index, the Melting Pot Index (the concentration of foreign born people), and a measure of racial integration." (The Rise of the Creative Class, p. 11)

According to Richard Malanga, a critic of his book, Florida has gone so far as to point to gay marriage as an economic catalyst. "[T]he legalization of gay marriage," he reportedly told a Canadian newspaper, "is one of the great talent attraction packages of the last hundred years."

This aspect of Florida's argument has made it into the popular media in the form of various oversimplifications. One of these is that gays are more creative than straight people. This view found its way into print in a recent Lexington Herald-Leader article. In addition, Sen. Scorsone, in his floor speech against SB 152, seemed to come close to espousing this view.

But Florida does not actually say this, and what he does say has little more to commend it.

Florida's Fashionable Falsehoods
What Florida's thesis amounts to is this: kowtowing to left-wing special interest groups and succumbing to trendy cultural fads is good economics. Forget the things that we have always thought really contributed to economic health, like low taxes and non-intrusive government. What really drives economic growth is more bike paths, more Starbucks—and more policies that encourage and affirm gays.

But Malanga, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, pointed out in a 2004 article in the Wall Street Journal that there was one small problem with Florida's thesis: it doesn't appear to actually fit reality:

A generation of leftish policy makers and urban planners are rushing to implement Mr. Florida's vision, while an admiring host of uncritical journalists tout it. But there is just one problem: The basic economics behind his ideas don't work. Far from being economic powerhouses, several of the cities the professor identifies as creative-age winners have chronically underperformed the American economy. And, although Mr. Florida is fond of saying that today "place matters" in attracting workers and business, some of his top creative cities don't even do a particularly good job at attracting—or keeping—residents. ("The Curse of the Creative Class," The Wall Street Journal, January 19, 2004)

There are a number of charts in Florida's book, among them, a chart giving a "Creativity Rank" to a number of cities. As it turns out, Malanga points out, the cities Florida lists as being the most "Creative" largely turn out to be no better than the ones he lists as least "Creative" on standard measures of economic health. In terms of jobs and business growth, as well as population retention, the cities Florida lists as the most Creative turn out to be pretty much the same as those he lists as least Creative—if not worse.

In fact, some of the cities he lists as top cities, like Austin, Houston, and San Diego, are economic underperformers, while those he has commissioned to the lower reaches of his economic Hell, such as Oklahoma City and Memphis, are "economic powerhouses".

[S]ince 1993, cities that score the best on Mr. Florida's analysis have actually grown no faster than the overall U.S. jobs economy, increasing their employment base by only slightly more than 17%. Mr. Florida's indexes, in fact, are such poor predictors of economic performance that his top cities haven't even outperformed his bottom ones. Led by big percentage gains in Las Vegas (the fastest-growing local economy in the nation) as well as in Oklahoma City and Memphis, Mr. Florida's 10 least creative cities turn out to be jobs powerhouses, adding more than 19% to their job totals since 1993--faster growth even than the national economy.

When it comes to jobs, it seems, Florida's numbers don't come close to adding up.

Jobs data going back 20 years, to 1983, show that Mr. Florida's top 10 cities as a group actually do worse, lagging behind the national economy by several percentage points, while his so-called least creative cities continue to look like jobs powerhouses, expanding 60% faster than his most creative cities during that same period.

In other words, not only is Florida wrong, his conclusions come close to being the opposite of the truth.

The "Geek Theory" of Economic Progress
In fact, I have a thesis that is much more likely to be true. Maybe some day, like Florida, I'll dress it up with impressive looking charts and statistics and publish it as a book. My theory is called the "Geek Theory". The Geek Theory is that the people who drive economic and technological advancement are not the trendy yuppies Florida exalts who go clubbing on weekends and work at their laptops at coffee houses with free wireless, but rather nerds with horn-rimmed glasses who who wear food-stained ties and can't find a girl.

These people are not wasting their energies on a treadmill at the gym. Instead, they have devoted themselves body and soul to the kind of economic and technological progress that benefits the rest of us. Where are the policies to attract them? Where is the concern for geek culture? Will it really benefit cities (or universities) to install more bike paths, roller-blading trails, and to institute domestic partner benefits? Or would they be better off with more Radio Shacks and bowling alleys?

People like UK President Lee Todd and U of L's James Ramsey who now distribute Florida's creative class snake oil would have you think the technology revolution is being driven by well educated preppies in search of more rock clubs and neighborhood art galleries. Forget about it. This is a mistaken image foisted on a gullible public. In fact, the type of person actually doing most of the work is some guy at a computer terminal in his small office cubicle with six mechanical pencils sticking out of the pocket of his short sleeve dress shirt.

And people forget: Bill Gates is a geek. So is Stephen Jobs. (I offer the photos, left and right, as Exhibits A and B.) In fact, they're not even particularly well educated. Both are college drop-outs.

Sen. Scorsone is fond of talking about the people who are “just a little bit different” who drive our economy, and he is fond of giving tiresome lectures on how we should accommodate them. But where does he get the idea that these people are gay?

The geeks, I maintain, are the real economic heroes. God bless 'em.

Recently, someone conducted a blind taste test pitting McDonald's coffee against Starbuck's, a cultural icon of the creative class. A majority of test participants chose McDonald's over the trendy alternative brew. This is symbolic of the whole problem with Florida's theory: the "weird" is seldom superior to the normal.

Part of the reason Florida's thesis is so appealing is because the people in the positions by which such social theories are popularized are the very people Florida lauds. His theory feeds the egos of those who populate the chattering classes. These are the people at magazines and journals who review books like Florida's. They are also the people who run our cultural institutions—including our universities.

Is Louisville the worst large city in America?
Ironically, one of the cities Florida puts near the bottom of his list is Louisville. According to Florida, Louisville ranks 44th of the 49 large city regions in tolerance, and 49th—dead last—in creativity. This should have the "Louisville is weird" crowd crying in their lattes.

Louisville, it turns out, is not weird at all, but quite normal—by Florida's standards, hopelessly normal.

Both University of Kentucky president Lee Todd and U of L's Ramsey have bought into Florida's creative class theory big time, and they're trying to convince the public that instituting Florida's flawed ideas, such as that domestic partner policies will attract more and better talent, is the way to economically advance their universities and the state. But what kind of confidence can we have in these men and their policies when the very basis for them flies in the face of the economic data?

What lawmakers should have asked U of L's President Ramsey, as he sat in front of them recently spouting Florida's New Age economic nostrums in defense of his university's attempts to subsidize non-marital relationships, is whether he really believes what Florida says. Does Ramsey actually think that Louisville is the worst large city in the country? Does he really think Louisville is, in words Florida quotes from George Gilder, "leftover baggage from the industrial era"? (p. 285).

If so, maybe the University of Louisville is not the right place for him. Maybe he could find something in a place like San Francisco (one of Florida's favored cities) that would be more to his liking.

San Francisco, after all, really is weird.