*blacks* not blanks. Been working too long today! nm

• Report: 1 in 31 U.S. adults in prison system - Democrat
  • The racial imbalance.... - Wordwizard
    • I think you are right, but only in part...sm - Democrat
      • *blacks* not blanks. Been working too long today! nm - Democrat

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Interesting column from the Times, written by a black. I bring this here just as a matter of interest. I found it to be quite interesting.

Op-Ed Columnist
Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: November 29, 2008

We now know that blacks probably didn’t tip the balance for Proposition 8. Myth busted. However, the fact remains that a strikingly high percentage of blacks said they voted to ban same-sex marriage in California. Why?

There was one very telling (and virtually ignored) statistic in CNN’s exit poll data that may shed some light: There were far more black women than black men, and a higher percentage of them said that they voted for the measure than the men. How wide was the gap? According to the exit poll, 70 percent of all blacks said that they voted for the proposition. But 75 percent of black women did. There weren’t enough black men in the survey to provide a reliable percentage for them. However, one can mathematically deduce that of the raw number of survey respondents, nearly twice as many black women said that they voted for it than black men.

Why? Here are my theories:

(1) Blacks are much more likely than whites to attend church, according to a Gallup report, and black women are much more likely to attend church than black men. Anyone who has ever been to a black church can attest to the disparity in the pews. And black women’s church attendance may be increasing.

According to a report issued this spring by Child Trends, a nonprofit research center, weekly church attendance among black 12th graders rose 26 percent from 1993 to 2006, while weekly church attendance for white 12th graders remained virtually flat. In 2006, those black teenagers were nearly 50 percent more likely to attend church once a week than their white counterparts. And it is probably safe to assume that many of them were going to church with their mothers since Child Trends reported that around the time that they were born, nearly 70 percent of all black children were born to single mothers.

(2) This high rate of church attendance by blacks informs a very conservative moral view. While blacks vote overwhelmingly Democratic, an analysis of three years of national data from Gallup polls reveals that their views on moral issues are virtually indistinguishable from those of Republicans. Let’s just call them Afropublicrats.

(3) Marriage can be a sore subject for black women in general. According to 2007 Census Bureau data, black women are the least likely of all women to be married and the most likely to be divorced. Women who can’t find a man to marry might not be thrilled about the idea of men marrying each other.

Proponents of gay marriage would do well to focus on these women if they want to win black votes. A major reason is that black women vote at a higher rate than black men. In the CNN national exit poll, there were 40 percent more black women than black men, and in California there were 50 percent more. But gay marriage advocates need to hone their strategy to reach them.

First, comparing the struggles of legalizing interracial marriage with those to legalize gay marriage is a bad idea. Many black women do not seem to be big fans of interracial marriage either. They’re the least likely of all groups to intermarry, and many don’t look kindly on the black men who intermarry at nearly three times the rate that they do, according to a 2005 study of black intermarriage rates in the Wisconsin Law Review. Wrong reference. Don’t even go there.

Second, don’t debate the Bible. You can’t win. Religious faith is not defined by logic, it defies it. Instead, decouple the legal right from the religious rite, and emphasize the idea of acceptance without endorsement.

Then, make it part of a broader discussion about the perils of rigidly applying yesterday’s sexual morality to today’s sexual mores. Show black women that it backfires. The stigma doesn’t erase the behavior, it pushes it into the shadows where, devoid of information and acceptance, it become more risky.

For instance, most blacks find premarital sex unacceptable, according to the Gallup data. But, according to data from a study by the Guttmacher Institute, blacks are 26 percent more likely than any other race to have had premarital sex by age 18, and the pregnancy rate for black teens is twice that of white teens. They still have premarital sex, but they do so uninformed and unprotected.

That leads to a bigger problem. According to a 2004 report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women have an abortion rate that is three times that of white women.

More specifically, blacks overwhelmingly say that homosexuality isn’t morally acceptable. So many black men hide their sexual orientations and engage in risky behavior. This has resulted in large part in black women’s becoming the fastest-growing group of people with H.I.V. In a 2003 study of H.I.V.-infected people, 34 percent of infected black men said they had sex with both men and women, while only 6 percent of infected black women thought their partners were bisexual. Tragic. (In contrast, only 13 percent of the white men in the study said they had sex with both men and women, while 14 percent of the white women said that they knew their partners were bisexual.)

So pitch it as a health issue. The more open blacks are to the idea of homosexuality, the more likely black men would be to discuss their sexual orientations and sexual histories. The more open they are, the less likely black women would be to put themselves at risk unwittingly. And, the more open blacks are to homosexuality over all, the more open they are likely to be to gay marriage. This way, everyone wins.

To begin with I'd like to see the video of Obama saying that he is a Muslim--WITH at least one minute of the interview prior to and after the "quote".  Also, I'd like the person who said that he didn't know how many states were in the United States to back that up with a referrence.  There are SO many others, but those are the two that come to mind. 

My aunt talked to an FBI agent just a few days before Nov. 4th and they are still working on it.  Supposedly O constantly shows he has a passport as proof of his birth certificate because in order to get a passport you have to show proof of a birth certificate.  

Well in order to be president, you have to show proof of birth certificate, not a passport.  Guess what?  O does not show it.  Hospitals have no record of birth certificate.  All O has to do is SHOW THE STUPID THING and get this all resolved.  So why does he not just show it?   Why is he stalling.  Why is O wasting time judges, courts, and lawyers time.  JUST SHOW THE STUPID THING.

I'm not sure I fully understand.  I know that there is no law against who you hire and how you hire. I know of facilities that have on-site MTs and have no plans to outsource at all. 

Private practices if they desire hire on-site MTs because they can usually do coding/billing, answer phones, and make coffee (LOL).  It happens.

I've run into 2 different people that have said when you get tired of working from home, come see us...  We'll hire ya'....  LOL - makes me feel good about this profession. 

I think it depends on how greedy that particular physician/facility is and how much they care about the quality of dictation and how much time they want to spend correcting it. 

Working for a non-profit ministry is vastly different than working for a for-profit company.  I say this, because I work in a ministry.  Many ministries have Codes of Conduct.  However, it's legally required that you be informed verbally and in writing of these codes of conduct, and then you sign a waiver stating that yes, you can follow those, or no you don't.  You have a choice up front.  It's a contract, and you can choose to sign and abide or not to sign and walk away.

I have no idea of the standards for the Salvation Army, but I doubt they are as stringent as what you are saying.  The rumor mill is an ugly thing.  I think we all played pass it down as children, and we know how drastically a statement can be altered when passed down just a minimum of two to three times.

Murtha: 'Surge is working'

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) acknowledged that the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq is “working” after returning from a brief trip to Iraq last week, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The comments, coming from a harsh critic of President Bush’s Iraq war policy, suggest there may be a shift in Democratic rhetoric on Iraq in light of recent reductions in violence in Iraq over the last several months.

Murtha made the comments today at his district office in Johnstown, Pa.

He added that the Iraqi government needed to better “take care of themselves” and achieve greater progress with political reconciliation, according to the Post-Gazette.

The statement is a marked shift from this July, when Murtha told CNN that he “dismissed” an op-ed by Brookings Institution analysts Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon that the surge was beginning to make progress, declaring their comments were “an illusion.”

Well, at least he has the guts to step up and tell the truth after seeing it with his own eyes.  Good for him!

for the last 2 hours?  My compliments - it was worth the wait.

The thing that everyone is forgetting is that not everyone is in Washington right now working - there are some people there trying to work out the details and everyone else will just vote when it is handed to them. 

In fact, they said that things were going better before McCain and Obama got there, that once McCain got there things started going downhill because there are a group of Republicans who do not want to support the package that their Republican President is wanting passed. 

Now, I don't know if I would support it or not if I was there, but I don't think that it is a requirement that every Senator be in that room while they are working on the details. 

I am not a Democrat, I am not a Republican - don't know yet for sure which way I am going - but I do not fault Obama for not automatically running to Washington just because McCain did.  In fact, from all the information I have gather this morning, McCain did not contribute anything to the conversation yesterday anyway. 

but in the end it will pay off. You will live your American Dream and you will thrive. Most today want it all now, gimme gimme, gotta have it now, material things come first. DH and I are debt free but the house; do we want a new BMW or Escalade, you bet, can we afford it, you bet, do we have them, he!! no, our cars are a few years old and paid for and drive just like a new one. Do we have the latest, greatest electronics, no to that too, we don't have anyone we need to impress that much. However, we do have piece of mind that we have money in the bank, can take vacations, can pay whatever price gas is, pay cash for anything new we want and can go the mailbox or answer the phone and know there isn't a debt collector on the other end.

We have been in your shoes, working our tails off and it has paid off greatly for us. Sure, we struggled but now it's worth it. We did it without whining to the gov't for help, expecting some man speaking eloquent words at a podium to come to our rescue.