Carly Sitrin (She/Her) is POLITICO’s Education Reporter… and she is “woke”

By Rubashov

There are few giveaways as plain as this one.
 
Carly Sitrin, a reliably Establishment reporter with roots in Boston’s PBS network, wrote a work of apology on behalf of New Jersey’s political establishment. It was an attempt to publicly forgive them for the damage they’ve done to the curriculum the state’s school children are learning from. But Sitrin went further. She attempted to blame those who noticed.
 
The word “transgender” didn’t even exist until the 1960s. Before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages 11 to 21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all. Despite what Sitrin and others would have you believe, this isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue – so put away those blue and red pom-poms. But it has been a growing concern among parents and reformers within the medical establishment, who have observed a ceaseless rise in the use of pharmaceutical and surgical interventions to treat children who express “discomfort” with their gender identity. That is a major departure from the past, when clinicians used “talking therapies” to help children adjust. Of course, the medication of children in general has for some time been a cause for alarm to parents and forward-thinkers in the medical community.
 
Then there’s the religion thing. The transgender movement is a faith-based ideology akin to religion. And just as some believe in trans-substantiation (that bread can be made flesh and wine made blood) those who subscribe to transgenderism believe that DNA can be altered, chromosomes undone, simply by the action of the will. They believe that an individual, born male, can will himself into being female – and vice versa.
 
The outward sign of adherence to faith-based transgenderism is the use of pronouns after your last name. If you believe, you use “preferred” pronouns after your last name. Carly Sitrin (She/Her) is a believer. And she advertises her belief on her LinkedIn page and such. She tells who she is and what she believes in. It is her faith and it is natural enough for her to defend her faith – even if that means placing faith before journalism. We should expect nothing different from her.
 
Numerous people on the Left have suffered the wrath of this new, thrusting, proselytizing faith. The author of the Harry Potter novels had to go into hiding because she suggested that women were there own thing. The author Camille Paglia suffered similarly. Feminists like Kara Dansky have been leading a fightback from the Left. Her book, The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls, has been burnt in public.
 
In her Politico story, Carly Sitrin (She/Her), asks parents to forget what they saw when Governor Phil Murphy sent all those kids home from school over the threat from COVID. Distance learning, the children at home, learning side by side with their parents, is what ignited the current debate. Parents saw, they experienced it first-hand. They cannot be made to unsee – no matter the efforts of Carly Sitrin (She/Her) and a hundred like her.
 
Carly Sitrin (She/Her) attempts to argue that if something isn’t spelled out in law, it isn’t mandated. She knows better. She knows that laws are often written very loosely. Heck, we argue over that with the Second Amendment.
 
Laws are written loosely so that the establishment bureaucracy can interpret them as broadly (or as narrowly) as they wish. The law (An Act concerning diversity and inclusion instruction in school districts and supplementing chapter 35 of Title 18A of the New Jersey Statutes), sponsored by Senator Vin Gopal and signed by Governor Murphy in March of last year, at the root of the current curriculum uproar is an example of such loose and subjective language:
 
C.18A:35-4.36a Curriculum to include instruction on diversity and inclusion.
1. a. Beginning in the 2021-2022 school year, each school district shall incorporate instruction on diversity and inclusion in an appropriate place in the curriculum of students in grades kindergarten through 12 as part of the district’s implementation of the New Jersey Student Learning Standards.
b. The instruction shall:
(1) highlight and promote diversity, including economic diversity, equity, inclusion, tolerance, and belonging in connection with gender and sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, disabilities, and religious tolerance;
(2) examine the impact that unconscious bias and economic disparities have at both an individual level and on society as a whole; and
(3) encourage safe, welcoming, and inclusive environments for all students regardless of race or ethnicity, sexual and gender identities, mental and physical disabilities, and religious beliefs.
c. The Commissioner of Education shall provide school districts with sample learning activities and resources designed to promote diversity and inclusion.

To understand how all that aspirational language will take form, we need to look at an earlier piece of legislation, also supported by Vin Gopal. It is called “An Act establishing the Transgender Equality Task Force to assess legal and societal barriers to equality and provide recommendations to Legislature.”
 
2.    a.  There is hereby created a task force to be known as the “Transgender Equality Task Force.” The purpose of the task force shall be to assess the legal and societal barriers to equality for transgender individuals in the State, and provide recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature on how to ensure equality and improve the lives of transgender individuals, with particular attention to the following areas:
     (1)   healthcare, including, but not limited to, access to healthcare providers that are trained in transgender medical issues, including sexual health;
     (2)   long term care for the chronically ill and senior citizens in the transgender population;
     (3)   education;
     (4)   higher education;
     (5)   housing, including, but not limited to, homelessness prevention and reduction for transgender youth and adults;
     (6)   employment; and
     (7)   criminal justice, including raising transgender awareness among law enforcement through training, and facilitating the appropriate placement of transgender individuals in correctional facilities based on an individual’s gender identity.
     b.    The Transgender Equality Task Force shall consist of 17 members as follows… a representative of the Department of Education whose duties or expertise includes protecting the rights of minority students or eliminating discrimination in the delivery of educational programs, policies, or initiatives
…one public member to be appointed by the Governor, who shall be a representative of a social service agency that provides services and supports to transgender individuals; a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union; a representative of Garden State Equality; and a representative of The Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey.
 
Note that the law is specific enough to include the special interest groups making the policy recommendations, but loose in its description of what those policies are. Fair enough, the latter might scare voters (like it has) and, as Ronald Reagan said, “Personnel is policy.” Government doesn’t write the textbooks or lesson guides. It just picks those involved that do. In this way, politicians like Phil Murphy and Vin Gopal can say, “Not my bad.” And writers like Carly Sitrin (She/Her) can try to cover for them.
 
Except that Murphy sent all those kids home and parents saw it with their own eyes. And they can’t unsee it.

Abigail Shrier is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (2020). A graduate of Columbia College, University of Oxford, and Yale Law School, her work regularly appears in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and other publications.

Finally, we must applaud Carly Sitrin (She/Her) for getting Senator Holly Schepisi’s own consultant – the company that administers the Facebook page on which the good Senator has posted so much good information – to essentially attack her:

“New Jersey GOP strategist Chris Russell said those kinds of extreme right-wing buzzwords aren’t effective in the state and don’t resonate with the typical New Jersey Republican voter who leans more socially moderate, but he said Republicans should still find a way to tap into that parental outrage.”

Hey, put away those pom-poms, this isn’t about party politics. This is something much larger. It brings people who think of themselves as “Left” together with people who say they are “Right”. This is about children. It's about the future.

Republican Holly Schepisi sets straight Dems’ misrepresentation of curriculum

By Rubashov

Senator Holly Schepisi (R-39) stepped up, did the research, and delivered a knock-out punch to the excuses and misrepresentations being peddled by Democrats like Senator Vin Gopal and their media enablers. Senator Schepisi posted this earlier today:
 
There has been a lot of back pedaling and claims over the past two weeks that the dropbox link I shared with examples of "model curriculum" for sex-ed in New Jersey would never be implemented, wasn't intended for our schools and that teachers would never be encouraged to direct children to the amaze.org website. Some people have gone so far as stating that I am providing intentional misinformation. As I believe facts matter I have tied everything together. What my research has proven is that the "model curriculum" is in fact what would have ultimately been promoted for New Jersey schools. Parents stay involved, stay aware and continue to have your voices heard.
 
Amaze.org, Advocates for Youth and Answer at Rutgers are partners with Siecus.org which is Sex Ed for Social Change. Siecus partnered with advocates for Youth and Answer to create the Future of Sex Education which focuses on institutionalizing sex education. They jointly created the updated National Sexuality Education Standards in 2020 which standards were fully adopted by the NJ State DOE at their June 3, 2020 meeting. They also jointly created the “model curriculum” including the Amaze.org videos, to go along with the updated National Sexuality Education Standards which everyone is now backing away from. As an aside, Siecus advocates that Sex Ed in the US historically is a function of middle class white supremacy.
 
The State of New Jersey on its website has a link
https://www.nj.gov/education/standards/chp/index.shtml....
 
Under this link is a link to Rutgers' Answer Group. Answer is affiliated with Rutgers and is a partner with Advocates for Youth which creates the Amaze.Org videos.
 
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15546128.2022.2060888?src=
 
In a Star-Ledger op-ed published today, the Democrats trotted out four so-called “experts” to argue for the curriculum mandates that have so infuriated parents and taxpayers. Of course, they are anything but “experts”. Instead, these four are political operatives and lobbyists who earn their living pushing highly partisan policy positions that serve to deeply divide America.
 
They might sound left-of-center, but that is simply the heavy application of lipstick on a pack of porkers. These people represent the intersection of policy-for-profit and the corporate establishment.
 
Take “expert” Dan Rice, the executive director of Answer.  A fashion plate amongst the “playing at being Left” Establishment, he brags on his own LinkedIn page about “partnering with Trojan Brand condoms to develop and launch Sex, Etc. University – an online sexual health resource…” and “serving on the committees to update the National Sex Education Standards and the New Jersey Health and Physical Education standards.”
 
Wow, Trojan Brand condoms! Talk about product placement!
 
Then there’s “expert” Debra Hauser, the executive director of Advocates for Youth. She’s listed as a federal lobbyist.
 
“Expert” Elizabeth Coulter is the director of public health and policy with Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey. Her group lobbies the Legislature and promotes political candidates (with money) at elections.
 
And last, but certainly not least, is “expert” Christian Fuscarino – the executive director of Garden State Equality. His group directly profited from government, even while it lobbied politicians and handed out checks to candidates.
 
Some “experts”! More like partisan hacks who like hanging around corporate Establishment types.    

Goldstein a Democrat first. Supported Eliot Spitzer even after corruption.

By Rubashov

Trenton has a very selective memory. That’s why a blog, run by the “Mastermind” of one of the worst political scandals in memory, can express horror at someone having an opinion not in line with that conjured by Trenton pollsters, and then trot out someone like Steve Goldstein as a corrective.

When New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was mired in scandal, the Trenton blog PolitickerNJ (funded by Jared Kushner) trotted out Steve Goldstein to defend the embattled New York Governor. Goldstein lavished praise on Spitzer, reminding readers: “I was Eliot Spitzer’s press secretary in his successful 1998 campaign for New York State Attorney General.” Indeed.

Well, not even the pollsters could save Spitzer. The infamous “Client 9” resigned from office. And despite his Princeton-Harvard background and “Sheriff of Wall Street” reputation (not to mention all that polling) Spitzer could not win a victory and return to public office. Even his wife left him.

Nothing is ever “settled” in politics.

Steve Goldstein is a Democrat operative and the founder of a political lobbying organization called Garden State Equality. GSE has morphed from a group concerned with issues like same-sex marriage into a government vendor that uses political pressure and vendor money to lobby government for even more taxpayer money.

Like so many good ideas that turn into scams, GSE succumbed to mission creep once they achieved the goal of same-sex marriage. The current controversy they’re embroiled in has to do with teaching children a new, unfunded mandate from Trenton, called the LGBTQ+ curriculum. And everyone in New Jersey who pays property taxes is going to foot the bill.

One of the controversies surrounding the new curriculum is how it presents such sensitive issues as anal sex – and to what age groups. Now a clinical presentation, run by a group like the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) would focus, at least in part, on the spread of specific diseases associated with this manner of sexual activity (not to mention the wear and tear on muscles not particularly designed for the purpose).

Unfortunately, Trenton’s political class handed the job to its allies and campaign underwriters – Garden State Equality. This is the corrupt Trenton Establishment all over, isn’t it? Take a serious issue – turn it into a scam for the boys to make money from.

The central question in this debate is who owns your children. Are they part of a million individual social organisms, called families – or does the government own your kids?

Governor Phil and Tammy Murphy certainly act like government owns your children. They don’t hesitate inserting the government between child and parent on the most sensitive of levels.

New Jersey enjoys a great diversity amongst its millions of families. Whether agnostic or Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or any of the thousands of permutations possible, it has been the role of each individual family to pass along its moral values and manners, generation to generation. This, above anything else, preserves the idea of diversity.

Phil and Tammy, who had the opportunity to pass on their moral values and manners to their children, now wish to take that opportunity away from you. They want conformity. On that most personal issue of sexuality, they wish to cut out the parent, and to bring in a lobby group looking for a payday – Garden State Equality.

Hey GSE, it is not our fault that you won and did not have the dignity to declare victory and fold your tent. You became addicted to the money and the power. You will never return to the private sector because of this. You will never mind your own business and seek to live and let live. For you there can only be crisis and turmoil and the endless froth of campaigning… because that is how you are paid.

If Phil and Tammy want to cut out the parent, at least they should be prepared to pick up some of the expenses of raising a child.

Government certainly doesn’t pay for your children. From the child poverty and food insecurity figures in New Jersey, we know that government doesn’t care enough to feed them. From the foreclosure figures, we know that government doesn’t care enough to house them. And we damned well know that government doesn’t give a hang about ensuring they have adequate health care.

So, we suggest a compromise. If government wants to cut out the parents and impart its moral values and manners to the next generation – then government owes the parents of that next generation a tax cut to cover the raising of that generation. The government’s generation. Generation “G”.

Finally, why has Steve Goldstein gone so prudish? Why is it such a big deal to him to call anal sex, anal sex? Or oral sex, oral sex? The legal term for that – and Goldstein can ask Spitzer about it – is “sodomy”.

The legal definition of sodomy includes any sexual penetration aside from vaginal intercourse, including oral and anal sex. Neo-Victorians like Steve Goldstein appear to want to banish such coarse and realistic definitions from our language and replace them with saccharine formulations that make references to “love”.

Love may become part of it. But more generally it flourishes at the end of the process, not at the beginning. Any honest person will acknowledge this.

Be honest, humans are attracted to these practices because we derive pleasure from them. It isn’t so much a case of “love is love” but rather, “pleasure is pleasure”. An attachment may follow, or it may not, or it may and then be broken. These are deep waters that no lobby group-turned government vendor can adequately plumb. Leave it to the families. Preserve diversity.

Douglas Murray Explains The Internal Politics Of The LGBT Community.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Eric Hoffer

Before sexualizing children. Why not have a debate?

By Rubashov

Is it the ACLU’s fault?  Or is it the people who fund them who have changed? 

We all remember how the ACLU stood up for Freedom of Speech – even when it meant protecting that freedom for people with whom they had absolutely no sympathy.   It was the ACLU who famously set the parameters of First Amendment protections in the 1970’s, when the organization defended the right of the American Nazi Party to march through Skokie, Illinois, a town chosen by the Nazis for its ethnic and religious make-up.  Placing their loathing of the Nazis aside, the ACLU stood with the American Bill of Rights to argue that the Nazis had the right to transgressive speech – the right to knowingly offend. 

Of course, transgressive speech is the very foundation of comedy, and there was some wisdom in the suggestion that we laugh at the Nazis, their silly uniforms, and that flag.  Better to laugh at them, to tolerate them, than to become them, so the wisdom went. 

But times have changed.

The ACLU is under pressure from the people who fund it, from its donor class, as are politicians from all parties and persuasions.  There is a new public religion and it is in the process of driving out its competition from the public square.

And just as transubstantiation demands that its believers accept that bread and wine is changed into flesh and blood, so in this new religion, a person with a penis can be made woman.  It is mystical, faith-based, beyond debate or reason.  It is religion.

Central to this new religion is a persecution myth.  Just as the early Christians had their martyrs and their festivals of remembrance, this new religion has its Stonewall, its AIDS epidemic, its accounts of martyrdom.  The carnality of it – the sex – is all scrubbed from the accounts.  The public face of this new religion is Neo-Victorian in its use of language – “No Sex, please” – this is all about “Love”.

Proselytizing to children is central to all religions, but especially so to groups who make the oppression of the faith central to their ideology.  This was so with Jim Jones, David Koresh, the “Children of God” cult, and many others.  Did they not all operate under the banner that children be sexualized at the earliest possible moment?  Did they not preach endlessly about “Love”?  That “Love is the Answer”, “Love is Love”? 

Sex is as addictive as tobacco and like the sellers of cigarettes (or narcotics) they like to get them while they’re young.  So they come for the children.  Public libraries host “drag queen story hours” for little children, with readings by folks with names like “Lil Miss Hot Mess”.  Isn’t “hot” an explicitly sexual term?  School curriculums now include such varied activities as “condom races” – in which 10 and 11 year-old girls compete to be the first to put a condom on a model of an erect adult male penis.  All watched by their male classmates.  Magazines like Teen Vogue – specifically marketed to children – argue that prostitution is just a job, work like any other, with no moral or psychological concerns whatsoever. 

This is all part of this new public religion.  So a new law, signed by Governor Phil Murphy, mandates the teaching of people from history based on how their alleged sexual practices conform to one of a series of letters (LGBTQ…).  It’s a rather shallow way to teach, for how can the endless ways in which human beings order their lives really be bound and categorized by a half dozen letters – or indeed, a thousand? 

Within the last few days, a School Trustee in Hackensack had the temerity to express an opinion on the new mandate that failed to conform to the new public religion.  In response, Garden State Equality (GSE) – the “LGBTQ” equivalent of Hezbollah – went all jihadist on the trustee, demanding that she be forced into submission or made to resign and shunned thereafter. 

An email from GSE made it clear that they weren’t stopping with her:  “It’s imperative that each and every education official across New Jersey understands that our curriculum law must be faithfully implemented.”  Each and every.  There is no place for religious dissent. 

A GSE supporter reached out and noted that the trustee in question used the term “repugnant” to describe “the LGBTQ lifestyle.”  The term is generally used when describing something that the user finds “distasteful” or that the user is “incompatible” with.  It must be noted that many of our fellow human beings do find such sexual practices as oral or anal sex “distasteful” and that they are “incompatible” with same. 

We are not speaking here for Phil and Tammy Murphy, or Valerie Vainieri Huttle, or Jim Tedesco, or Gordon Johnson, or Loretta Weinberg, or indeed for the other politicians who have condemned the use of the term “repugnant.”  What they find “tasteful”, what they are “compatible” with, what their appetites bend towards is entirely their business.  And we would defend their endorsement of oral or anal sex as much as we defend the right of others not to enjoy such things.  Whatever floats your boat, as they say. 

But expressing one’s sexual preferences, one’s choice, is not welcome by the new “public” religion.  Blank conformity is what is expected.  Every public statement, written or spoken must conform.  The new religion allows no public expression of older religions.  All must conform… or they will be made to conform. 

Having gained significant cadres amongst elites in government, the media, in education, and with One-Percenters who control the corporate world, the new religion is attempting a top-down takeover of the public square – bullying out older religions, forcing compliance and general conformity of expressed opinion.  They seem to forget that Americans are contrarian by nature.  Nonconformity is the way with us and we will continue to practice it, even while being oppressed and punished for doing so. 

Of course, this is another reason why they want our children.  But then they forget that generations of Soviet indoctrination did not extinguish the seed of traditional faith in Russia or in Eastern Europe. 

This is an interesting topic that should be debated openly and honestly.  Instead, jihadists like Garden State Equality are concerned only with bullying and banning public dissent.  They don’t care if people dishonestly mouth those allowed saccharine platitudes, so long as they mouth them.

Instead of punishing questioning minds, why not debate them?  Before we allow government – in service of the new public religion – to continue to sexualize children, why not have an open and honest debate on the subject? 

Maybe a group like the Center for Garden State Families or the New Jersey Family Policy Council will set up a series of open discussions on the Murphy administration’s sexualization of young children.  Then they can invite folks like Senator Loretta Weinberg and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle to explain what they like and don’t like – and how they came to embrace the new religion (HINT: Check their campaign finance reports, and you will know why).

Before the Murphy Democrats force one more unfunded mandate on the property taxpayers of New Jersey… have an open and honest debate about their need to sexualize children.

Garden State Equality tries to muzzle concerns about sexualizing children

By Rubashov

Two recent events offer a contrast in different religious outlooks.  On the one hand, we have the Mayor of Hoboken.  On the other, a School Board Trustee in Hackensack.  Both made comments about the beliefs of others.

In April, the Mayor of Hoboken used the phrase “hateful rhetoric” to describe the display of a bible verse at a peaceful demonstration to protest the efforts by self-described “drag queens” to introduce children as young as three to their belief system.  Not to be outdone, the Hudson County Democratic Organization LGBTQ Caucus attacked the Roman Catholic group that organized the protest, calling their beliefs “a hateful and discriminatory ideology.”

Now you can bet that neither the Mayor or the LGBTQ Caucus would have had the guts to attack the verses from a different religious book – say, the Koran – with quite the same viciousness.  And yet, the respective books of Christians, Jews, and Muslims all lay down the same prohibitions in these matters.  They are all “People of the Book”. 

A few years ago, a very few, there was a general consensus about all those marketing categories represented by all those letters.  Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama… they all opposed things like same-sex marriage.  That was until the day before yesterday, when our masters suddenly switched and embraced all that they once opposed.  We are experiencing something like the confusion Rome found itself in when, towards its end, the Emperor decided to ditch the old Roman gods and ordered his people to embrace Christianity.  The old ways were still practiced in private, but in public, it became more and more necessary to conform to the “new” religion.   

Some call this “progress” but others, with a longer historical perspective, can draw parallels that mark it a new paganism.  Whatever it is, it is certainly faith-based, resistant to science and debate. 

Whether this is our new “public” religion, or simply a pseudo-religious cult, all the elements are there.  Proselytizing to children is a part of all religious groups who make the oppression of the cult central to their ideology.  This was so with Jim Jones, David Koresh, the “Children of God” cult, and many others.  Did they not all operate under the banner that children be sexualized at the earliest possible moment?  Did they not preach endlessly about “Love”?  That “Love is the Answer”, “Love is Love”?   

Sex is as addictive as tobacco and like the sellers of cigarettes (or narcotics) they like to get them while they’re young.  So they come for the children.  Public libraries host “drag queen story hours” for little children, with readings by folks with names like “Lil Miss Hot Mess”.  Isn’t “hot” an explicitly sexual term?  School curriculums now include such varied activities as “condom races” – in which 10 and 11 year-old girls compete to be the first to put a condom on a model of an erect adult male penis.  All watched by their male classmates.  Magazines like Teen Vogue – specifically marketed to children – argue that prostitution is just a job, work like any other, with no moral or psychological concerns whatsoever. 

This is all part of our “new” public religion.  So a new law, signed by Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, mandates the teaching of people from history based on how their alleged sexual practices conform to one of a series of letters in the marketing code of our “new” public religion.  It’s a rather shallow way to teach, for how can the endless ways in which human beings order their lives really be bound and categorized by a half dozen letters – or indeed, a thousand? 

Within the last few days, a School Trustee in Hackensack had the temerity to express an opinion on the new mandate that failed to conform to the new public religion.  In response, Garden State Equality (GSE) – the “LGBTQ” equivalent of Hezbollah – went all jihadist on the trustee, demanding that she be forced into submission or made to resign and shunned thereafter. 

An email from GSE made it clear that they weren’t stopping with her:  “It’s imperative that each and every education official across New Jersey understands that our curriculum law must be faithfully implemented.”  Each and every.  There is no place for religious dissent. 

This is the new “public” religion and it allows no public expression of older religions.  All must conform.  Such “conformity” rubs those of us, like your humble scribe Rubashov, the wrong way.  They can stick their conformity. 

If you are interested in standing up for the American Bill of Rights, Free Speech, Religious Liberty… or if you just want to tell our new masters to shove their conformity, you can do so TOMORROW.

GSE has called for an all-out jihad.  On Tuesday, June 25th, at 7:30pm, you can show up to the Hackensack City Council Meeting at Hackensack City Hall, 65 Central Avenue, on the 3rd floor.  Perhaps there will be an honest and open discussion on free speech and the new conformity?  Instead of dishonest conformity – the child of oppression – maybe GSE will embrace the diversity that is not confined by a mere handful of letters?  Will they embrace the common humanity that they share even with those who do not “celebrate” their beliefs?

Maybe… but it will be a snapshot of at what stage we are in the hegemony of our new public religion.  It should make for an interesting spectacle. 

If you want to contact the Hackensack City Council, you can do so by following the links on this page…

http://www.hackensack.org/content/6819/7221/7772/default.aspx

Must Reads: Two important columns from Save Jersey…

With the news that the Burlington County GOP has lost yet another Republican office-holder, Dan Cirucci has some useful insights into how New Jersey Republicans can pull themselves out of the rut they are in…

N.J. GOP’ers must discard the moldy, tweedy old cloak of timidity | CIRUCCI 

https://savejersey.com/2019/02/republican-party-new-jersey-gop/

And there’s an important lesson for all those GOP hopefuls who insist on sucking up to Garden State Equality (GSE)… Hey, they don’t like you and never will because they are DEMOCRATS first, LGBTQ activists second…

Op-Ed: Leading N.J. LGBTQ group puts far-left politics ahead of its own community | DE SENO 

https://savejersey.com/2019/02/garden-state-equality-donald-trump-gay-lgbtq-community-democrat/

The week ahead in Trenton (or Brave New World).

This week we start a new feature called “The week ahead in Trenton.”  The name is self-explanatory.  We hope it will give activists and other interested parties a heads up on the nonsense about to happen – some of it shocking, much of it crazy, all of it expensive to taxpayers.

This week we focus on the Assembly Human Services Committee, which will hold a hearing on Saint Valentine’s Day – Thursday, February 14th – at 2pm in Committee Room 16, on the 4th floor of the State House Annex in Trenton.  And remember, all of those in attendance are on the ballot this year in June and November.  Don’t forget them.

Now if ever there was a Christian holiday to excite the “Love is Love” crowd, this should be it.  And for the record, the Democrats do not disappoint in handing out presents to their favorite special interest.  But is it “Love” or Fear???  We’ll let you decide. 

First on Thursday’s Valentine’s Day agenda is AR-146 – a resolution calling on the federal government to recognize what it calls “children of certain LGBTQ parents” as United States citizens.  This is something out of a dystopian novel (we’re thinking Aldous Huxley and his writings, most notably, “Brave New World”) and attempts to create a new path to citizenship. 

From what we can learn, there is a brisk business in the monetization of the wombs of working class and/or economically disadvantaged women.  Rich “gay” men can, for a fee, avail themselves of the wombs of these women in order to do what they cannot do biologically – give birth to a baby.  (And remember, in the coda of today’s woke establishment, it aint a “baby” until it is actually born… and even then not until the mother and her medical provider have had a discussion as to whether or not to kill it). 

The problem occurs when one rich American guy marries a rich guy from another country and they use the sperm of the non-American to impregnate the womb of the woman they have procured for the purpose.  Currently, the State Department can require a DNA test to determine if a child is, in fact, a “blood relationship” to an American citizen.  This messes with the plans of those who travel outside the United States to procure their women for the purposes of their wombs and who opt to use the sperm of a “husband” who is not an American citizen.   

As one can imagine, this dilemma concerns a very, very tiny group of rich men (married to men who are non-citizens) who want to travel outside the United States to obtain a womb at, shall we say, third-world prices.  It will doubtless be examined by the State Department – no bastion of traditional orthodoxy, by the way – and some rule change or accommodation will be forthcoming. 

But that is not good enough for the folks at Garden State Equality (GSE) who apparently wield so much power over the Democrats in Trenton that legislation like A-146 gets pushed to the front of the line and ahead of the more than 90 bills languishing that would address the highest in the nation property taxes… or the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act.  Every week, we hear from the Murphy administration’s own Attorney General about the rise in cases of identified human trafficking in New Jersey… but hey, it’s not about some rich jet-setter looking to buy the womb of some desperate, third-world woman or girl (Itself a case of human trafficking?  We wonder).

Next on Thursday’s agenda is AR-210, a resolution condemning the “Trump Administration’s policies towards transgender individuals.”  Specifically, the Democrat sponsors are pissed because the Department of Defense has sought to ban “transgender people” from serving in the military by proposing a definition of sex that “excludes gender identity”.  Okay, this has been covered a great deal in the national media… but does it really trump the issue of growing child poverty in New Jersey?  Yes, it is on the wish list of a private special interest group that last week bragged about whipping the Legislature into passing 222 pieces of legislation that they desired, but is it really more important and pressing than the opioid crisis?  Apparently so.

Next up is a spending bill that will cost us more in property taxes – but it will be a financial windfall for groups like Garden State Equality, who provide training programs like those mandated in A-4427.  Here is the text of the bill’s description:

“This bill provides that the Commissioner of Human Services or the commissioner’s designee, develop a training program designed to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression in the delivery of certain services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and intersex senior citizens in the State.  The bill requires that the training program be developed no later than nine months following the bill’s enactment.

The training program would be designed to increase awareness among, and provide cultural competency to, service providers about the issues encountered by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and intersex seniors in order to ensure equal access to services for senior citizens, and improve the delivery of those services to senior citizens and caregivers in the State.

The bill requires that a provider of services or supports to senior citizens that contracts with, provides services through programs administered by, or receives funding from, the Department of Human Services, any of its divisions, or any Area Agency on Aging must complete the training program no later than six months following the availability of the program. Thereafter, each new service provider would be required to complete the training within one month of commencing the delivery of services or supports.”

Moe money, moe money, moe money for GSE and its allies... mandated higher property taxes for everyone else.

And finally on Thursday’s agenda we have A-4870, a bill that “requires modernization of all state blanks, forms, documents, and applications to incorporate new standards for collection of information about sex, gender, and sexual orientation.”  This is Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker’s personal genuflection to a special interest that he’s indebted to.  It is shocking to see the brazenness of it, but a role for the lobbyist group is specifically spelled out in the actual bill:

“…any questions relating to sex, gender, or sexual orientation are to be posed in a manner that is sensitive to the individual, and that does not infringe upon or threaten the individual’s mental and physical wellbeing; are to allow for non-binary designations; and are to be consistent with relevant best practices, as recognized by Garden State Equality and other relevant organizations that engage in advocacy on behalf of the State’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) communities”.

Hey, does this make the lobbyists over at Garden State Equality government bureaucrats and subject to the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA)?  We hope so… for the sake of transparency.  How every form in New Jersey is re-worked and re-worded should be open to public scrutiny.

Garden State Equality should fall under OPRA anyway because they already exercise a disproportionate control over the Legislative agenda in Trenton.  We all remember GSE founder Steve Goldstein’s hissy fit over the Democrats’ failure to pass same-sex marriage in 2009.  Goldstein publicly threatened Senate President Steve Sweeney and the Democrats – telling them that he would withhold “gay” money from their campaigns in future, unless they publicly recanted.  And sure enough, they did, at something resembling a religious revival meeting.

Since then, the Democrats (and some Republicans) have knelt before GSE and the “gay” lobby like attendant concubines, awaiting instructions.  Remember that in 2017, the Legislature passed a bill designed to use the power of government – and your tax dollars – to fund Garden State Equality's lobbying and political efforts.  In effect, the Democrats created a program of government -funded lobbying and political campaign activity -- but only for one side. 

Garden State Equality – a group with a history of threatening elected officials when they don't get their way – is actually three separate organizations.  Garden State Equality Educational Fund, Inc., is a New Jersey non-profit corporation organized under the IRS Code as a 501(c)(3).  Garden State Equality Action Fund, Inc., is a non-profit corporation organized under the IRS Code as a 501(c)(4).    Garden State Equality, LLC, is a Domestic Limited Liability Corporation organized to run a political action committee (see below).

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The legislation passed in 2017 (A-4790) specifically funds Garden State Equality, LLC, the political action committee.  Here's what it did:

An Act providing for the issuance of “Equality” license plates and supplementing chapter 3 of Title 39 of the Revised Statutes.

   1.    a.  Upon proper application, the Chief Administrator of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission shall issue “Equality” license plates for any motor vehicle owned or leased and registered in this State.  In addition to the registration number and other markings or identification otherwise prescribed by law, the license plate shall display the Garden State Equality, LLC (“Garden State Equality”) emblem, consisting of: an image of a silhouette of the mathematical equivalency sign in the background and the shape of the State of New Jersey in a circle in the foreground.  The chief administrator shall select the design and color scheme, in consultation with Garden State Equality.  The “Equality” license plates shall be subject to the provisions of chapter 3 of Title 39 of the Revised Statutes, except as hereinafter otherwise specifically provided.

     b.    Application for issuance of an “Equality” license plate shall be made to the chief administrator on forms and in a manner prescribed by the chief administrator.  In order to be deemed complete, an application shall be accompanied by a fee of $50, payable to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, which shall be in addition to the fees otherwise prescribed by law for the registration of a motor vehicle.  The chief administrator shall collect annually, subsequent to the year of issuance of the “Equality” license plates, a $10 fee for the license plates in addition to the fees otherwise prescribed by law for the registration of a motor vehicle.  The additional fees required by this subsection shall be deposited in the “Equality License Plate Fund” created pursuant to subsection c. of this section.

     c.     There is created in the Department of the Treasury a special non-lapsing fund to be known as the “Equality License Plate Fund.”  There shall be deposited in the fund the amount collected from all license plate fees collected pursuant to subsection b. of this section, less the amounts necessary to reimburse the commission for administrative costs pursuant to subsection d. of this section. Monies deposited in the fund shall be appropriated annually to Garden State Equality and shall be used to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy and educational programs in the State.  Monies deposited in the fund shall be held in interest-bearing accounts in public depositories as defined pursuant to section 1 of P.L.1970, c.236 (C.17:9-41), and may be invested or reinvested in securities approved by the State Treasurer.  Interest or other income earned on monies deposited into the fund, and any monies which may be appropriated or otherwise become available for the purposes of the fund, shall be credited to and deposited in the fund for use as set forth...

Apparently the sponsors of A-4790, along with the brain trusts at OLS and the Democrat Assembly Caucus, were so determined to secure this government funding for GSE, that they forget to properly vet Garden State Equality LLC.  If they had, they would have learned that the organization had been revoked by the New Jersey Department of Revenue in 2012 and that in 2015, they had been dissolved and terminated.

At the time, Garden State Equality Action Fund Inc. was also under suspension by the New Jersey Department of Revenue and had been for five years.  The group had filed its last annual report in April 2010 and had been pretty much a scofflaw since.  In 2012, Garden State Equality Action Fund's  status was listed as "revoked" and it was placed on "suspension" in July of that year. 

According to the most recent (at the time) IRS 990 tax statement filed by the Garden State Equality Educational Fund, the organization was in the process of repaying a $47,581.00 loan it received from Steve Goldstein.  The loan was negotiated without a written agreement and is a "loan for operating expenses", according to the information provided to the Internal Revenue Service.  So this is how you make government work for you… and you don't even need to follow the basic rules to do it. 

The Democrats who run the New Jersey Legislature are setting its committee agendas as though it were an auction – legislation likely to fetch a high price (in campaign contributions) is being pushed ahead of the peoples’ business.  In a state where so many are, due to financial hardship, moving out of state and away from their families, one would think that cutting property taxes and creating jobs would be higher on the list than the now ubiquitous “transgendered” this or that.  But as Steve Goldstein knew back in 2009, rich guys always get what they want in the end… whether it’s a womb in a third-world country or the agenda of a legislative committee. 

Trenton Democrats: Nothing on property taxes… but 222 new laws favoring LGBT special interests.

This is from the latest begging letter from Garden State Equality (GSE) – the folks who said that all they wanted was to pass same-sex marriage and they would be satisfied.  Hey, if they ever were “satisfied” there would be no reason for groups like Garden State Equality to exist and they’d all be in fear of losing their payday.  They can’t let that happen… and so they stoke the politics of fear…

“We’ve passed 222 civil rights laws in New Jersey protecting the LGBTQ community. And we’re not slowing down, because there’s more work to do.

In 2019, we’re going to ban the gay and trans panic defense, work to end LGBTQ youth homelessness, fight back against Trump’s transgender military ban, and push to pass the Equality Act. And we’ll continue our existing work for the LGBTQ community to build safe schools, expand healthcare, and support older adult populations.

In the last 12 months, we passed six new pro-equality laws that make our state stronger and safer for LGBTQ people.

Just last week alone: Governor Murphy signed the LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum bill into law—the second of its kind in the entire nation—and the historic Babs Siperstein Law went into effect, allowing transgender New Jerseyans to update their birth certificate without restrictions.

We know this fight means just as much to you as it does to us, and that’s why we need your help. We never would have made this much historic progress without you…”

… And then they hit their donors up for money.

Meanwhile, if those donors pay property taxes… they will continue to get screwed.  And if they own businesses… screwed again.  And when it rains… screwed and screwed again.

See, it isn’t about who you sleep with that brings people together.  That’s kind of personal.  What is universal is the screwing we’re all getting from the Trenton Democrats and their master screw-up-in-charge Governor Phil Murphy.

Groups like Garden State Equality (GSE) are masters at the politics of fear – and masters at using it to get paid.  The professional political class in Trenton appreciates their services because so long as people are focused on stuff like “the transgender military ban” they won’t notice the fact that they are getting poorer, taxed more, regulated more, less free. 

222 new laws… Nothing on property taxes.

The illusion of LGBT’s power to help Republicans…

Yes, we know it’s about the parties.  Who wouldn’t want to be invited?  The music is cool, the drinks well poured, the energy is just… better.  But none of this is about politics.

Once again we must, sadly, point out that Republicans do not benefit by currying favor with Garden State Equality and the state’s LGBT political bosses.  To have GSE high priest Chris Fuscarino’s benediction means nothing in a General Election and even less in a Republican primary.

Two incumbent Republican congressman came to an understanding with GSE that meant keeping social conservatives at arm’s length.  In return for dissing their base, their Democrat opponents lost Fuscarino’s blessing – but won (or appear to have won) their elections anyway. 

As with the case of Bob “I am a different kind of Republican” Hugin, wrapping oneself in a rainbow flag meant not a jot on the profit side – but very much depressed the base on the debit side.  Conversely, the one unabashedly social conservative Republican in the congressional delegation – the one specifically targeted for defeat by Garden State Equality – won re-election without much difficulty.  It appears he will now be New Jersey’s only Republican member of Congress. 

We suspect this is why the ever watchful David Wildstein placed GSE’s Chris Fuscarino in the losers column on Friday, over at NewJerseyGlobe.com.  Wildstein noted that the portly Fuscarino “missed the boat” by failing to endorse the Democrat challengers to the two GOP incumbents and instead “making his top target the only Republican congressman who won.”

Sigh… When will Republicans learn that the only sure way to earn the support of people who vote like LGBT is their top priority is by executing a change of registration form and running in the Democrat primary.  It’s all about the shoes, and red is just so out of fashion. 

Anti-Religious Asbury Park City Council Violated Constitution, Unwittingly Supported Hate and Neglected Black People

By Thomas DeSeno

NOTE:  This story originally appeared in MoreMonmouthMusings.net – courtesy of our friend, Art Gallagher.

Asbury Park Democrat Chairman Giuseppe Joe Grillo, Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn, Tommy DeSeno and Mayor John Moor. photo via facebook

The Asbury Park City Council, using government letterhead, made a declaration opposing a religious belief.  Government can no more denounce a religious belief than they can endorse one, without violating the 1st Amendment Establishment Clause.  They then went on an illegal bullying campaign against a Pastor.  So caught up in a mob-induced false narrative of gossip, they ignored that the Pastor was bringing financial relief to the Westside black community, something all City Councils failed to do for 50 years.

Pastor JD Shuttlesworth scheduled a weeklong “Festival of Life” here, as he does in poor communities across America, handing out cash cards, groceries, even a car.  He celebrates Jesus while doing so. He wanted to serve Asbury Park’s poor black community as he did in Camden.  The applicant for the permit to use Bradley Park was local Pastor Lyddale Akins, who was jointly sponsoring the event.

Unfortunately Asbury Park has an “outrage team.”  It is comprised mostly of middle-class white people who commit cultural appropriation, pretending to be marginalized.  They constantly protest whatever is in the news that week, outrageous or not.  They are inorganic. Different protests, same gang “virtue signaling” every time.

One of them started gossip that Shuttlesworth preaches hate against gays.  This triggered the outrage team.  They started false and heinous rumors, portraying this man as the second coming of Jim Jones. The City bought it.

They said Shuttlesworth is a Bible Belt Evangelical (a dog whistle to the virulently anti-Christian).  He’s actually a Pentecostal from Pennsylvania. While his religion believes  gay sex is a sin, stating that dogma isn’t “hate;” just as other pastors stating sodomy committed by straight people is sinful, is also not “hate.”

Be clear: Nothing compels me to agree with or defend Shuttlesworth here.  I’m not. That isn’t the point.  It’s Ok for every person, business, church and political officeholder to protest the Pastor’s religion. Have at it, if that’s your way.  But you know who is not free to protest his religion?  The Government itself.  If Government condemns some dogma you end up with a state religion of dogma not condemned, violating the Establishment Clause. That’s the point.

Pastor JD Shuttleworth preaching in Asbury Park

Let’s tell this story chronologically.  It spans about 96 hours. Its antagonists are the City Council, 3 local Pastors and the outrage team.   Let’s see how the rumors of one person from the outrage team quickly seduced the City Council to become a Star Chamber of religious intolerance and turned 3 local Pastors who joined them into Christian apostates and bullies.

The Wednesday before the Sunday the festival began, a City Councilperson who had been told an outrage team member claimed Shuttlesworth was homophobic, made a phone call to the City Manager. That Council member inquired what could be done about Shuttlesworth, and the manager responded that they should get a Special Events Permit for a protest.   That night the outrage team held a panic meeting to plan that protest, in league with a representative of the City.  The following morning (Thursday) the City Council issued their government position attacking the Pastor’s “rhetoric” on homosexual sex.  Let’s pause the chronology to look at that.

The “rhetoric” is one YouTube video, with Shuttlesworth sermonizing in church, citing his religion’s dogma that gay sex (not simply being gay) is a sin.  I have made dozens of requests of the City, the outrage team and their supporters  to show any other videos, and they can’t (most couldn’t cite that video, stating only they heard gossip the Pastor was bad). So the City Council issued a government position, condemning a church sermon about a religious belief, which is illegal for them to do.

Back to the chronology.  The next morning (Friday), the outrage team issued a statement that their protest would likely be in Atlantic Park, adjacent to Bradley Park.   To rent a park in Asbury, one must apply, get scheduled for a council meeting, be reviewed by the Special Events Committee, have a public comment session and win the council vote.  It takes about 45 days or longer.

Not so when the City itself is secretly planning the event for you.  Friday afternoon the outrage team walked into City Hall with an application and walked out with a one day permit.  The City Council wasn’t there.  The City Manager was at a meeting in Trenton.  But the City Manager gave word to a clerk to hand them a permit (normally he legally he can, but since this was his idea, it probably wasn’t legal due to a conflict of interest). Let’s stop the chronology again to look at that very moment.

The application was in the name of the owner of a concert sound company.  Why?  He has the biggest speakers in town to drown out the Pastor.  But the permit wasn’t issued to him.  It was issued to a non-existent entity called “Rally of Love.”  Since no such thing exists, the taxpayers are on the hook for liabilities.  For insurance, the President of the Chamber of Commerce has a business and tried to use hers, with a declaration page insuring the park and the City.  The problem is, if she didn’t tell her insurance company she was neither the applicant nor the permit holder, they will deny all claims, again leaving the taxpayer footing the bill for lawsuits.

The $1,500 fee to rent the park has not been paid.  Also, the outrage team used the park not 1 day like their “permit” said; the City let them use it 5 days.  They owe the taxpayers $7,500.00, and they aren’t paying it. I suggest the Homeowners Association take them and the City Council to court for it.

Back to the chronology.  By Saturday, Pastor Lyddale Akin was brow-beaten by the outrage team into pulling out as co-sponsor of Shuttlesworth’s Festival of Life. Who could blame him.  The outrage team are bullies.  Privately, businesses are expressing a fear of saying no to the outrage team’s constant demands for money or donations. With social media, they can start an online propaganda campaign, create posters and protest you near instantaneously.  Scarier, the City Council joins every protest, thus legitimizing them, while media reports on them dutifully.   The outrage team can conduct a digital Kristallnacht against your business or church at any time using this neo-fascist method. #Love though –  it says so on all their signs.

On Sunday, who was on the stage with giant speakers drowning out a Pastor preaching Gospel and handing out gifts to primarily poor blacks?  A City Council majority. It was their gig, from the idea of it, to planning, to greasing the permit, to the protest. It’s wrong, and I supported Mayor Moor and Deputy Mayor Quinn in their every election. I still admire and support them, noting that in this instance, they didn’t guard themselves from the impetuousness and groupthink of the outrage team.

The outrage team also claimed the City encouraged people to make noise complaints and bring Shuttlesworth to court, calling it “a new form of protest,” thus using our Municipal Judge as a weapon against a religion.  Government gone wild. Good grief.

Gays rightfully spent years fighting the government power to value some people less than others.  Now that some gays are in Asbury Park’s government,  they used government power to devalue Shuttlesworth.  I’ve always supported gays being themselves.  Some gays in Asbury don’t want Shuttlesworth to be himself. They want him to be exactly like them. #Diversity, I guess. Don’t accuse me of being too broad.  I know we’ve had gays on Asbury Park’s City Council in the past who didn’t act like this.

We have to talk about 3 Pastors: Pastor Friedel of Shore Christian Church, the Rev. Dr. Vanzant of Second Baptist Church and Reverend Harris of the AME Zion Church.  They stood onstage to protest Shuttlesworth for espousing that gay sex is a sin.  Hypocrisy alert:  All three of their churches have Christian dogma that holds gay sex is a sin.  They protested what they believe to be the Word of the Lord. Look Pastors –  I get your fear of the outrage team.  I also know that Peter denied Christ three times before the cock crowed, but at least he cried bitterly when he did.  And the Romans had swords.

Other Protestant churches in Asbury Park also say gay sex is a sin, as well as two Catholic Churches and the Mosque on Ridge Avenue.  I don’t see the City Council, the outrage team or these 3 Pastors protesting Mt. Carmel or Holy Spirit Church.  Of course they’d never picket the Mosque –  that would counter too many Democrat talking points in an election year.

Let me tell you something else Pastors Friedel, Vanzant and Harris – you’re bullies. Imagine justifying to your Youth Ministries what your consorts did to Shuttlesworth and the bullying you supported by standing with them:  They spread lies that Shuttlesworth is a pedophile, a drug addict, shows infidelity to his wife,  has sex with strangers in bathrooms and is gay (something wrong with being gay?).  They  claim to be mailing annoyances to his Church. They had children as young as 6 tearing down Shuttlesworth’s posters so poor people couldn’t find out free groceries were available. They harassed businesses who had the posters.  They went online and made fun of Shuttlesworth’s children and his family’s clothes. #Love? You teach this?  You let yourselves become this. Where’s your decency?

Pastors, you helped drown out a sermon in the public square instead of promoting listening and dialogue. Giant speakers were used against him. The outrage team tried to have bagpipes,  bands,  noisemakers  and drum circles to stop his sermon from his west. From his east, The Beach Bar’s DJ turned up his volume to drown out the sermon. They also surrounded him, driving cars around Bradley Park with radios on full. You pastors drowned out a sermon.  #Christian?

You didn’t just surround Shuttlesworth, you came at him from above. The outrage team reported that the Asbury Hotel, whose owners iStar are partners in contracts with the City, threw colored confetti onto Shuttlesworth’s crowd from their roof. The bullies laughed online when the primarily poor black crowd first began to cower from not knowing what it was. I know what it was – litter-trespass-assault-impoliteness-annoyance. It’s all iStar. It’s all the City. And it’s you 3 intemperate Pastors, too. #Welcoming?

Here is what Christianity expects from you, Pastors.  You should issue an apology to Shuttlesworth for what you and your co-adventurers did to him and his family while visiting Asbury Park.  You can keep your distance from his ministry; you owe an apology to his humanity.  But I expect less from you. Christianity expects you to never partner with the outrage team again.  But I expect less from you.

Christian Fuscarino of Garden State Equality. file photo

Another bad actor here was Garden State Equality, the LGBT activist group whose head, Christian Fuscarino, is on the outrage team.    Last year Fuscarino was on stage with some of these same Pastors, and nearly summoned the courage to bring up their Churches’ stance on gays.  He should have, but he chickened.  Last week he teamed with them again, knowing they believe the same as Shuttlesworth.  But the mob targeted only Shuttlesworth, therefore so did he.  Garden State Equality has an anti-bullying campaign.  Maybe you should attend one of the meetings, Fuscarino.

Fuscarino had an ugly display of Christo-phobia while Shuttlesworth was here, but also showed a callous disregard for the black community.  It was selfish.  Mr. Fuscarino, let me tell you and the 3 Pastors what is meant by “Black Lives Matters:”  You have 10 fingers.  If one is cut and bleeding, at that moment, that finger matters. Not that the rest don’t, but that finger needs particular redress. Shuttlesworth saw that poor blacks in Asbury’s Westside both matter and need redress.  But Garden State Equality couldn’t stand the sight of some marginalized group getting attention on a day they were not. Selfishly, it must always be about them. So they tore at a Pastor bearing gifts – poor blacks receiving those gifts be damned. The City Council helped. I know none of you intended racism, but reckless actions have unintended consequences, like de facto racism.  #InstitutionalRacism?

Fuscarino is useless to gays anyway.  After Omar Mateen pledged his support to the Islamic State and killed 49 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Garden State Equality immediately issued a statement of solidarity –  with Islam. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) recently reported there are 8 countries in the world that put gays to death and 5 more who legally can, and all 13 use Islamic law to do it. They reported zero non-Islamic country killing gays.

ILGA doesn’t bring that up because they are  Islamophobic.  ILGA doesn’t bring it up to say all Muslims are bad.  Simply put Mr. Fuscarino, no LGBT advocate should show “solidarity” with Islam with that being the state of their world, while also viciously attacking a Christian who says gay sex is a sin. Your loyalty lies not with gays, but with the Democrat talking point that believes votes can be gained by calling everyone else Islamophobic. So you pledged solidarity to Omar Mateen’s inspiration and threw gays not under the bus, but off the roof (the preferred method for killing gays in 13 countries).

Probably the hardest part to understand was criticism of a Pastor giving away money, when criticism is usually reserved for Pastors asking for money.  When the owner of Johnnie Mac’s bar walked around Asbury last Christmas handing out tens of thousands of dollars in gift cards, all these same people praised him.  Shuttlesworth was simply doing the same in June. Is this hatred because he is a preacher? Asbury Park was named after a circuit preacher, much like Shuttlesworth is one.  What has happened to this City?

I telephoned Pastor Shuttlesworth.  I found a man who was magnanimous toward his haters.  Even the government.  He spoke only of his thrill to be able to preach to the people in Asbury Park and lift them.  I tried to bait him into complaints about his detractors and he would only express his love for them.  He praised our police.  He rarely brings up homosexual sex in his sermons. It is unfortunate that became the hyperbolic scream of his Asbury Park protestors. He told me he is used to it.  In today’s world, wherever he preaches, an anti-Christian bias appears in protest.  He still loves them.

That conversation made me reflect upon the state of Asbury Park.  Since when do we believe that people are only one thing?  It is wrong to label people “all good” and “all bad.”  It is wrong to find one thing we disagree with about someone, then label them “all bad.”  Certainly someone who holds one trait we dislike can have a thousand others we do.  Certainly a person with whom we disagree with in one area is also capable of many good deeds.  Isn’t that the point of diversity, even multiculturalism?  What happens to love if one disagreement triggers hate?

To the 3 Pastors, I ask you to recall the story of Cyrus from the Bible – which reveals to us that  God will even call upon a heathen to do good works. You could have supported Shuttlesworth in his quest to help the poor while disagreeing with him in other areas.

So what can be done?  Someone could file a complaint with the State Department of Community Affairs against the City Council.  This isn’t the first time this has happened in Asbury.  Last September the outrage team held a rally that protested a political party, where only officials from the Democrat Party were allowed to speak.  It turned into a rally against white people, America and the President. Yet two of the sponsors were the Asbury Park School District and The Asbury Park Housing Authority, and they had officials on stage.  Government entities can’t do that! Government entities can’t join political rallies!  Asbury’s constant mixing of Government and activism is out of control.

Maybe if the Publisher of the only daily newspaper around here wasn’t so busy accepting community service awards from the very same people that he should be investigating/reporting about, he might file a complaint with the DCA.

But forget that complaint.  I hate seeing people jammed up. I say to the City Council there is a better way.  Start by issuing a withdrawal of your government statement.  Apologize to Shuttlesworth for how he was treated as a visitor.  You can stay away from his ministry, but like the Pastors, you owe an apology to his humanity.  Unlike the Pastors, I have higher expectations of you and believe that you will.   The other thing that you MUST do is avoid letting activists use the Government as a tool.  It’s illegal.  Stop it.  Tell the outrage team the City Council is going to take a break from the constant protests in town. Leave activism to the activists.

All that’s left is for me to ask Pastor Shuttlesworth to pray for me, because I know what  happens when someone holds a minority view in this City these days.  Instead of inspiring dialogue and healing, I’ll receive hate, public humiliation and excoriation. The gentleness and love Blue Bishops once held for each other is gone, replaced by gentrifying newcomers whose spirit is based not upon compassion, but ill-will and glory-seeking.

I hope instead the outrage team will reflect upon my motto:  Politics is a tiny part of who we are – never let it stop you from enjoying the rest of a person.

Tommy De Seno is an attorney, a journalist and a contributor to the website Ricochet.com

A warning to those GOPers who attended the GSE ball.

Democrat operative Jay Lassiter wrote a column for InsiderNJ in which he gloated over the number of Republicans who appeared at the “Equality Ball” – a fundraiser for Garden State Equality, a political action committee and lobbying organization.  Yes, we agree, it was remarkable.

Republicans don’t need a special event to interact with those fellow humans who have been marketed, sliced and diced, and packaged into what is now dubbed “the LGBT community.”  There are some of us who live in communities – actual towns, real places – in which there is an “equality ball” going on every day – 365 days a year. 

The seed of bigotry is the segregation of human beings into “identities” and then being made to orientate yourself to addressing those different identities instead of the common humanity.  Of course, this is the model that global capitalism and the cultural “New Left” (NOT!) uses.  The marketers of Madison Avenue like placing people into silos – or identity groups – as much as do the tax-avoidance rip-off artists of the entertainment industry.

But it wasn’t enough for marketers of products to segregate us into identity groups – now identity organizations emerge to speak for those groups.  They presume to tell those segregated into the identity how to think and what to do in order to remain “loyal” and part of the group.  Think independently and you risk being labeled a “traitor” to the group.  Of course, the first and foremost duty of group identity is always the same… to give the self-appointed folks who speak for your group some of your money.

The purpose of Garden State Equality is the organization itself.  It can never be satisfied.  One “goal” must always be replaced by another, lest the urgency flag, the money dry up, and Christian Fuscarino not be paid.  Of course, this requires hate objects… and this is where YOU come in, dear Republicans.

GSE is no great thinking shop.  There are no subtleties – only black and white – and Republicans, “that’s them over there, wearing the black hats.”  The easiest way to make money is to cry “Trump”!  To insist that “R” is for “Reptile.”

So why would you treat a GSE fundraiser any differently than you would a Phil Murphy for Governor fundraiser?

The record of Garden State Equality is clear:  It is a Democrat Party PAC and a bulwark of Democrat hegemony in New Jersey.  And it’s a bullying kind of PAC – quite willing to threaten if it doesn’t get its way when it wants it.  Remember GSE’s meltdown in 2010, after they lost a vote on same-sex marriage:

“Smarting over the state Senate's refusal to pass marriage equality and disillusioned at the moment with the Democratic Party majority, Garden State Equality’s 85-member Board of Directors unanimously decided against giving financial contributions to political parties and their affiliated committees.  

Under the new policy, Garden State Equality will make financial contributions only to individual candidates and to non-party organizations that further equality for the LGBT community, according to a release issued this morning by the organization…

Garden State Equality estimates that since 2005 they have given $500,000 to Democratic Party candidates, while giving only minimally to Republicans.”

(PolitickerNJ.com, February 8, 2010)

No Republican genuflected before Garden State Equality more than former Senator Jennifer Beck.  It was to no avail.  When she really needed them to return the favor, they stabbed her in the back and supported Democrat Vin Gopal.  She succeeded in suppressing her Republican base but got nothing in return for doing so.  GSE considered Beck’s defeat one of their singular achievements of 2017.

At last year’s “Equality Ball” (2017 GSE Gala) in May, Senator Beck was in attendance with Republican gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno, sucking up to people who would shortly celebrate their defeats.  To what purpose?  And when Beck and Guadagno lost, GSE wasn’t even delicate about it, releasing blood-thirsty statements cheering their loss. 

According to Jay Lassiter, GSE bagged a quarter-million dollars at their fundraiser, enough to cause plenty of havoc for Republicans politically – but there is a larger concern too.  So-called LGBT issues, some of them mere artifice, not only dominate but have pushed out other legislative business.  On the Legislature’s last session day, as they faced a government shut-down, the legislation being debated and voted on included no less than five transgender bills – but not a single piece of legislation addressing property tax reduction, or job creation, or New Jersey’s growing poverty.  Everything is thrown aside for GSE’s fundraising agenda.

The New Jersey Legislature even caved into pressure to use government to fund Garden State Equality's lobbying and political efforts, through a GSE license plate scheme.  In effect, the Democrats created a program of taxpayer-funded lobbying and political campaign activity -- but only for one side.  And that “side” is increasing rigid and authoritarian in their outlook towards those who hold different opinions, whether for philosophical or religious reasons.

Read the statement below.  It could have been written in the 1930's by a guy named Ernst Rohm. 

"The wrong side of history"???

That was said of Churchill and of all those who counseled resistance to that modern and "inexorable" movement of the last century. 

Did GSE's Fuscarino lift that directly from Mrs. Charles Lindbergh's book, The Wave of the Future, A Confession of Faith?

GSE's Fuscarino suggests that there can be no discussion, no disagreement, that the Golden Ass has replaced the old God and we are now dominated by a cultural paradigm that is both Post-Christian and Post-Western.  Aside from being profoundly juvenile to expect a world in which everyone holds the same opinion, it is starkly authoritarian.  Not content with that, GSE's Fuscarino plays the LGBT storm trooper and goes a step further by threatening those who even consider voting their conscience.

And some New Jersey Republicans are funding this???

Why not take a cue from those liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices who joined their conservative colleagues in siding yesterday with a Colorado baker who refused to be bullied into “celebrating” something that was not in his heart to celebrate?  The justices did not like the disrespect shown by Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission towards dissenting points of view – specifically dissenting points of view based on religious beliefs.  Freedom won.

Funny.  Freedom used to be a cherished Republican ideal.  So why are Republicans helping to fund an authoritarian, anti-freedom, anti-Republican political action committee scam that will never be satisfied so long as it has “activists” to make money off it?

Garden State Equality says state's only blind congressional candidate "should go"

Identity politics is a funny thing. 

From the statement issued by Christian Fuscarino, the young and very healthy executive director of Garden State Equality (GSE), if you enjoy sex with members of your own gender (if, indeed, we even recognize such things as gender anymore) you are superior and can apparently pass judgment on every other "identity" on earth.  And you can make such judgments, free from any human consideration  or courtesy -- what in less certain times we called "the benefit of the doubt."

Imagine the hee-haw that would be going on if the state's only gay candidate for Congress was being bullied from an election because someone had accused him of having said someone was "blind as a bat" a dozen years before?

And yet, based on an unproven allegation, by an individual who (as the basis of a law suit brought against the man he accused) has been totally discredited by an actual court of law, young and healthy Christian Fuscarino wants to throw a road block in the way of the state's only blind candidate for congressional office.  We have to ask Christian -- shouldn't we be promoting such candidacies?  Isn't this a victory for everyone concerned about diversity?

Think of the unique perspective that a blind candidate will bring to Congress, if he is fortunate enough to be elected.  Instead of discussing disability in the abstract, there will be someone in the room who actually lived it.  That's a positive thing, isn't it?

Now Christian and his fellows at GSE make much of -- to use a curiously Christian term -- the "crosses" they had to bear while coming of age.  Many say that it is ongoing.  We must be charitable and take their word for it, even though there is a certain subjectivity involved.  But blindness is not subjective, and we wonder how many would trade "crosses" with the human being who they are trying to deny the exercise of his civil rights?

We live in a very vicious time that will be followed by a more vicious time and one more vicious after that.  That is the trajectory.  It is made so because we no longer look into each others' eyes but instead contemplate a screen.  In a way, our society suffers from its own form of blindness, in that we fail to see the human. 

Unlike the blindness suffered by GSE's target, it is correctable, but does Christian Fuscarino wish to correct it?  He is young.  Time will tell.  Time will tell.

In the meantime... try to not be offended so much by everything.  And when you are offended, extend to the fellow human being offending you some charitable consideration.  Presume the best.  Instead of throwing a meaningless name at him, extend to him the benefit of the doubt.  Let the fires of your own hatred and of pride burn low... and perhaps... out.

Please enjoy this video... (lighten up)

Is GSE's Chris Fuscarino the face of modern Fascism?

Read the statement below.  It could have been written in the 1930's by a guy named Ernst Rohm. 

Friend, moments ago the Birth Certificate Bill, a bill vetoed multiple times by Governor Chris Christie, passed the Senate!

This is great news for LGBT equality in New Jersey!

One thing is bothering me, though. 7 Senators voted against the bill. Senators Bucco, Conners, Doherty, Holzapfel, Oroho, Pennacchio, and Thompson all decided to stand on the wrong side of history and spat in the face of every LGBT resident in our state.

Together, we are going to take their negativity and turn it into something positive that helps our community.

The bill now needs to pass in the Assembly and then it heads to Governor Murphy's desk for signing!

[Donate] to send a message to any Assembly person that plans to vote against Equality, we get stronger when you stand against us!

Thank you for your support,

Christian Fuscarino
Executive Director
Garden State Equality

"The wrong side of history"???

It was said of Churchill and of all those who counseled resistance to that modern and "inexorable" movement of the last century. 

Did GSE's Fuscarino lift that directly from Mrs. Charles Lindbergh's book, The Wave of the Future, A Confession of Faith?

GSE's Fuscarino suggests that there can be no discussion, no disagreement, that the Golden Ass has replaced the old God and we are now dominated by a cultural paradigm that is both Post-Christian and Post-Western.  Aside from being profoundly juvenile to expect a world in which everyone holds the same opinion, it is starkly authoritarian.  Not content with that, GSE's Fuscarino plays the LGBT storm trooper and goes a step further by threatening those who even consider voting their conscience.

In the July 1941 Issue of Foreign Affairs, The Wave of the Future, was panned for its meek surrender to the bullies of Fascism:

"This is one of the most controversial books to appear in recent years, and one of the most difficult to appraise. In substance, Mrs. Lindbergh's thesis is that the great fact of history, the law of life, is eternal and inexorable change, that we are now in one of the great periods of rapid and profound change, and that it is therefore the better part of wisdom -- for Americans as well as for all other peoples -- to accept this process, whatever it may be, and not to fight against it.

The 'wave of the future,' as it presents itself to Mrs. Lindbergh, is totalitarian, and in her eyes there is no use in our trying, Canute-like, to stem it. The net effect of Mrs. Lindbergh's book, perhaps unintentional, is even more destructive than the mechanistic approach to life expounded by her husband because it furnishes a sort of vade mecum for the defeatists. One of the most disturbing things about this sincere, and in some respects courageous, little volume is its evasion of some of the real issues, particularly the moral ones. It carries the subtitle 'A Confession of Faith,' but it is precisely faith that the author seems to lack."

Of course, Western culture withstood that "Wave of the Future" and prevailed as it would later prevail over Communism -- itself presented as part of the unstoppable march of history. 

The truth is, all these things that appear "new" are in fact "old".  It is just that people like GSE's Chris Fuscarino are so ignorant of history that they don't know it.  Their progress consists of rummaging through the attic of mankind's past, to find clothes that appear exotic, but are in fact relics from the past.  The ignorant do this endlessly in their chase for fashion.

As the writer and philosopher (and liberal Democrat, Hillary Clinton supporter, and openly lesbian) Camille Paglia explains, we have been here before and are simply going through another one of mankind's "Great Re-Learnings."

Fashion.  The honorable members of the New Jersey Legislature should think before succumbing to fashion, no matter how much money they are promised for doing so.  Because rest assured, fashion will change.

NJ Assembly backs license plate deal for revoked group

Last week, the New Jersey Assembly passed legislation designed to use the power of government itself -- and your tax dollars -- to fund Garden State Equality's lobbying and political efforts.  In effect, the Democrats want to create a program of government -funded lobbying and political campaign activity -- but only for one side. 

Garden State Equality -- a group with a history of threatening elected officials when they don't get their way -- is actually three separate organizations.  Garden State Equality Educational Fund, Inc., is a New Jersey non-profit corporation organized under the IRS Code as a 501(c)(3).  Garden State Equality Action Fund, Inc., is a non-profit corporation organized under the IRS Code as a 501(c)(4).    Garden State Equality, LLC, is a Domestic Limited Liability Corporation organized to run a political action committee (see below).

The legislation passed by the Assembly last week, A-4790, specifically funds Garden State Equality, LLC, the political action committee.  Here's what it does:

An Act providing for the issuance of “Equality” license plates and supplementing chapter 3 of Title 39 of the Revised Statutes

Now here is the really wild thing.  Apparently, Assemblyman John Wisniewski, the sponsor of A-4790, along with the brain trusts at OLS and the Democrat Assembly Caucus, were so excited about securing this funding rip-off in service of the latest fashion statement of the "Feeling Class", that they forget to do their homework and vet the group that was to benefit.  If they had properly vetted Garden State Equality, LLC, they would have learned that the organization had been revoked by the New Jersey Department of Revenue in 2012 and that in 2015, it had been dissolved and terminated.

That's not all, Garden State Equality Action Fund, Inc., is currently under suspension by the New Jersey Department of Revenue and has been so for five years.  The group filed its last annual report in April 2010 and has been pretty much a scofflaw since.  In 2012, Garden State Equality Action Fund’s status was listed as "revoked" and it was placed on "suspension" in July of that year. 

Curiously, the entity responsible for filing the most recently available IRS 990 tax statements for Garden State Equality Action Fund is none other than John M. Traier & Associates, of Wayne, New Jersey.  Mr. Traier is the chairman of the Passaic County Republican Committee.  Traier was a fierce critic of conservative Republican Congressman Scott Garrett during last year's re-election campaign.

And finally, according to the most recent IRS 990 tax statement filed by the Garden State Equality Educational Fund, the organization is in the process of repaying a $47,581.00 loan it received from Steve Goldstein.  The loan was negotiated without a written agreement and is a "loan for operating expenses", according to the information provided to the Internal Revenue Service.  Rather interesting, is it not?

So this is how you make government work for you -- and you don't even need to follow the basic rules to do it. 

Along with the herd of frightened Democrats, several Republicans voted to join the Left and give a government bank account and source of government funding to an organization that is involved in lobbying, political campaigns, and funding the Democrat Party.  Among those Republicans were Assemblywoman Maria Rodriguez-Gregg (R-08), who is embroiled in legal troubles; Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi (R-39), mentioned as a potential candidate for Congress; Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon (R-13), who is running for the State Senate; and Assemblyman Chris Brown (R-02), also a candidate for State Senate.

We are surprised that any Republicans would have voted for A-4790, as it was rushed to a floor vote without the benefit of any committee hearings at all.  This was a short-circuiting of the normal legislative process and deeply un-democratic.  As a result, whether by accident or design, the press and the public were not afforded the opportunity to vet the intended beneficiaries of this taxpayer-funded accommodation.  The people were not given the opportunity to question the wisdom of doing such a deal with a lobbying and political action group. 

At the very least, Republicans should have been unified in standing up for the democratic process.  They should have demanded a hearing and done so loudly.  Instead, they failed, and in some cases participated in the corruption.  Sad, really, sad.

Democrats want taxpayers to fund LGBT lobbyists

Yesterday we wrote about how Democrat legislators use public committee hearings to raise money from Garden State Equality (GSE), a notoriously political gay-rights lobbying and campaign organization.  We covered Monday's Assembly Budget Committee hearing, at which Democrat Assemblymen John "Porno" Burzichelli, "Hammerless Troy" Singleton, and Gary "The Hand" Schaer behaved like puppies trying to edge each other out in the effort lick the butt of their paymasters from Garden State Equality.

Today we follow that up with a piece of legislation designed to use the power of government itself -- and your tax dollars -- to fund Garden State Equality's lobbying and political efforts.  In effect, the Democrats want to create a program of government -funded lobbying and political campaign activity -- but only for one side. 

And this is being done expressly for Garden State Equality, a group with a history of threatening Democrats when they don't get their way.  Here is what happened when a few Democrats voted their conscience and opposed same-sex marriage in 2010:

Garden State Equality fires new broadside at Dems

By Max Pizarro | February 8th, 2010 - 10:41am

Smarting over the state Senate's refusal to pass marriage equality and disillusioned at the moment with the Democratic Party majority, Garden State Equality’s 85-member Board of Directors unanimously decided against giving financial contributions to political parties and their affiliated committees.  

Under the new policy, Garden State Equality will make financial contributions only to individual candidates and to non-party organizations that further equality for the LGBT community, according to a release issued this morning by the organization.

“No political party has a record good enough on LGBT civil rights that it can rightfully claim to be entitled to our money on a party-wide basis,” said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality.  “No longer will we let any political party take our money and volunteers with one hand, and slap us in the face with the other when we seek full equality.

"Our Board of Directors felt so strongly about adopting this new policy," he added, "that it unanimously decided to include it in the organization's bylaws."

Garden State Equality estimates that since 2005 they have given $500,000 to Democratic Party candidates while giving only minimally to Republicans.

"Is this a broadside at the Democratic Party?" asked Goldstein. "Of course, it is."

"With the exception of Speaker (Shelia) Oliver, who has had a long record of being a champion of equality, nobody in the Democratic Party's leadership reached out to us," said Goldstein. "Come on, if you're Steve Sweeney, pick up the phone. If you're John Wisniewski, pick up the phone. We have been the most unstintingly loyal organization to the party. Other than organized labor which is in its own league, no other constituency has been as loyal to the party."

Well it appears that Assemblyman Wisniewski got the message, because he's been subserviently sucking GSE ass ever since.  He sponsored A-4790, the GSE rip-off bill.  Here's what it does:

An Act providing for the issuance of “Equality” license plates and supplementing chapter 3 of Title 39 of the Revised Statutes.

How's that for making government work for you!

So an organization that is involved in lobbying, political campaigns, and funding the Democrat Party is going to get its own government bank account and source of government funding.  WTF!

Oh it has been proposed.  Former Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose, whose husband served three tours overseas in the war against terrorism, proposed it again and again... but the Democrats stopped it every time.

The Democrats remain so focused on the groin, on genitals, on the sexuality of little children -- that they cannot be bothered with honoring the men and women who preserve their institutions, their freedom, their very being.  Screw veterans, say the Democrats... Ass Uber Alles!

Hopefully the Republican generalissimos responsible for defending and capturing legislative seats are paying attention, because if you can't design direct mail, cable, radio, and Internet advertising using this clear contrast -- then something is very wrong.  This is easy, clear-blue-water stuff that will drive up GOP turnout as it shames blue collar Democrats into taking a pass. 

Assemblyman Wisniewski, a normally thoughtful man, is allowing himself to be corrupted.  A-4790 is a very public shakedown by a lobby group/political action organization because it has the power to name and shame.  GSE is corrupt in the way that the mob is corrupt:  Do what we say or we will withhold money or use it against you or try to destroy your reputation. 

Anyone who cares about democracy and honest government will oppose A-4790.

Legislator "Porno" Burzichelli gets rude while pandering

Assemblyman John "Porno" Burzichelli is one of the shadiest figures in Trenton and a longtime double-dipper who held two elected offices at once.  He's had his fingers in a lot of local deals too.  More on that later.

We normally wouldn't comment on what Mr. Burzichelli gets up to, but through his rudeness, he has attracted our attention.  Whether or not he maintains our attention is up to him. 

Mr. Burzichelli is the Vice Chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee.  That's where the Democrat leadership sent legislation that promotes the Left's latest fashion statement:  Transgenderism.   Yep, to the Budget Committee.  Looks like they expect to spend some of your hard earned tax dollars to promote this bullshit.

The legislation, A-4652, is similar to S-3067, which uses the power of the State to require that the Commissioner of Education stick his nose into the business of local school districts and "develop guidelines regarding transgender students."  Things like the use of "the name and pronoun that corresponds to a student’s gender identity... issuance of school documentation such as student ID’s in the name that corresponds to a student’s gender identity... permitting transgender students to dress in accordance with their gender identity... equal opportunities for participation in physical education... participation in gender-segregated school activities in accordance with a student’s gender identity... the use of restrooms and locker rooms... permitting and supporting the formation of student clubs or programs regarding issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth."  In addition, the guidelines will include "information on organizations or other resources available to students and parents that provide support to transgender individuals." Yes, this is about proselytizing and recruitment.

Now we have no doubt that Mr. Burzichelli has some sort of back ally knowledge concerning how to get ahead in patronage politics, but he really isn't what you would call a learned man.  True, he managed to graduate from high school, but it kind of ended there.  You see this pattern over and over again with the Democrats.  They have these back ally operators who rise up the political patronage ladder and along the way shed any humility they once possessed, to replace it with a brittle arrogance that resists new ideas and intellectual curiosity.

At yesterday's hearing on A-4652, we witnessed the spectacle of Mr. Burzichelli calling people names, like "intolerant", when it was clearly he who failed to extend simple human courtesy and politeness in tolerating the point of view of others.   It was a real dirt bag act, worthy of the back ally.

Was the Assemblyman being rude simply for the benefit of the potential donors present?  We all know how Garden State Equality gets when it doesn't have its ass expressly licked.  We all remember the tantrum that GSE's former executive director had a few years ago, when he threatened to withhold money from Democrat candidates because they had acted independently, following their conscience, instead of doing as his lobby group demanded. 

This crass lack of civility didn't stop with Mr. Burzichelli.  Assemblyman Troy Singleton got in on the act too.  Mr. Singleton, who is the only "carpenter" we know of who doesn't use a hammer, got shitty too, pausing in his shit long enough to look around to see if the GSE crowd was writing any checks.  Then there was the committee chairman, Assemblyman Gary Schaer, a normally civil man who behaved like a handjob throughout the hearing -- allowing the check writing side to pontificate, while cutting off anyone with an alternative opinion.  Real asshole behavior.

These moes can't seem to play it straight.  They are too interested in listening for the rustle of the checkbook, and playing to potential donors, to take the time to open their minds long enough to learn something... anything. 

Maybe we need to have people's hearings on some of these subjects.  Invite in really, really smart thinkers and allow them to talk. We could even critique the official hearings on the subjects, with all their pandering and lack of civility. 

Maybe we could get Camille Paglia?  Now that would be a cut above what Messrs. Burzichelli, Singleton, and Schaer gave us yesterday. 

Spadea promotes Guadagno at LGBT PAC fundraiser

So Bill Spadea brought super-far-left Democrat Jay Lassiter onto his show to promote Kim Guadagno attending a fundraising event for New Jersey's top PAC involved in pushing a far-left social agenda. 

Corporations such as banking giant PNC and Prudential insurance paid as much as $20,000 to host the event -- so don't ever try to claim "otherness" for the LGBT cause -- it is the latest fashion statement by the Establishment, pure and simple.  Corporate backers aside, the ticket price for ordinary people is $250.00.

Our biggest gripe with Garden State Equality is that they oppose democracy.  Instead of leaving important issues to the voters, they lobby to have the unelected judiciary decide for us and then to push major social changes down our throats.  If the TTF and Bail Reform were such big issues that they needed to be placed on the ballot as Public Questions -- why not Same-Sex Marriage? 

We also object to the never-satisfied, unending outrage that flows from the mouths and pens of Garden State Equality.  Needing a cause to sustain the flow of money that keeps their professional activists in pocket money, no sooner one undemocratic victory is wrapped up, they are on to the next "outrage" that must be corrected.  And so within months after same-sex marriage we have the endlessly boring "outrage" over adult males who "identify" as females not being allowed to swing their schwantz in the little girls' toilet.  Really?  Can't we as people work this out... community by community... with a wink and a nod to some (who we know, love, and tolerate), but without the totality that allows a predator in with the teenage girls?

We have been warned about this kind of "totality" before, in another context, by that good liberal, Mrs. Lillian Smith.  A Southern writer, she was a pioneer in the battle to end segregation.  We recommend her book, The Winner Names the Age.  In it, you will find this passage she wrote when she accepted the Charles S. Johnson Award for her work:

“It is his millions of relationships that will give man his humanity… It is not our ideological rights that are important but the quality of our relationships with each other, with all men, with knowledge and art and God that count.

The civil rights movement has done a magnificent job but it is now faced with the ancient choice between good and evil, between love for all men and lust for a group’s power.”

“Every group on earth that has put ideology before human relations has failed; always disaster and bitterness and bloodshed have come.  This movement, too, may fail.  If it does, it will be because it aroused in men more hate than love, more concern for their own group than for all people, more lust for power than compassion for human need.”

“We must avoid the trap of totalism which lures a man into thinking there is only one way, one answer, one option, and that others must be forced into this One Way, and forced into it Now.”

Erick Erickson and Bill Blankschaen recently published a book called "You Will Be Made to Care" about the threat posed by groups like Garden State Equality to the right of every human being to think as he or she chooses and the freedom to express those thoughts.  Along those same lines, although much more powerfully written, is "Submission" by Michel Houellebecq.  It is a reminder of how easy it is to conform, and by conforming, to lose the freedom of one's own conscience.

If you think that you can be a modern Amish today, that you can opt out and be left alone, that doesn't appear likely.  To date, there has been a certain lack of generosity by the winners of these cultural battles.  In every state where same-sex marriage was legalized, people of conscience who objected to participating in someone else's "celebration" were targeted and made to pay for their dissent.  After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in every state, what did the winning side do?  It started talking about stripping religious organizations of their tax exempt status.

Groups like Garden State Equality do not look for compromise or for tolerance.  They want hegemony.  The totalism warned against by Lillian Smith... "one way, one answer, one option, and that others must be forced into this One Way, and forced into it Now."

For this reason, they must be opposed by all free-thinkers.  For this reason, we note our disappointment in those so-called Republican leaders who promote and support Garden State Equality.

Gas-tax repealers pass Black-Lives Matter bill

Last week, the New Jersey Senate passed legislation that will throw EVERY police officer who has to make the decision to use deadly force in front of a state-appointed special prosecutor.  Under this legislation, a police officer who arrives at a school shooting incident in the nick of time and uses his firearm to stop a would-be mass murderer of children will be presumed to have done something wrong and then tossed in front of a persecutory special prosecutor. 

This legislation -- S2469 -- could not become law without the support of two Republicans, Jennifer Beck and Gerald Cardinale.  Without their votes, the bill would not have passed the Senate.

The premise behind this legislation is that county prosecutors -- just by existing within the borders of a particular county -- have too close a relationship with the police officers of that county and therefore cannot objectively investigate an incident when a police officer makes a mistake or oversteps his or her authority. 

While this might be argued for states that elect their prosecutors, such as Pennsylvania, where police unions are active in that political process; in New Jersey all prosecutors are appointed by the same person -- the Governor.  So whether you are a county prosecutor, appointed by the Governor, or the Attorney General, also appointed by the Governor, you do not run for election and there is no potential for that kind of conflict.

If a county prosecutor is too conflicted to investigate a matter within his jurisdiction simply because he or she lives and works there, then the whole idea of county prosecutors needs to be scrapped and replaced with something like the United Kingdom's Crown Prosecution Service, where attorneys are appointed to prosecute on a case-by-case basis.  But the idea of dragging a police officer in front of a special prosecutor, simply because that officer did precisely what he or she was supposed to do in a deadly situation, is preposterous. 

All this legislation will do is to create a species of state prosecutor whose worth will be determined by the number of police officers' scalps collected and careers destroyed.  It will deteriorate the quality of police organizations  and with that, the safety of every community in New Jersey.

The Assembly might consider a "sensitivity training" amendment for special prosecutor designees.  It would include eight weeks of putting on a police officer's uniform, strapping on a sidearm, and engaging in day-to-day police work like traffic stops and domestic calls.  Call it prosecutors' boot camp.   

Just why two Republican Senators -- Beck and Cardinale -- would cross party lines to vote for this misguided legislation is open to question.  We suggest that it is because they find the contemplation of labor unions and working people disagreeable.  Senator Beck is a career  politician and lobbyist, while Senator Cardinale is a politician with a profession, as well as the owner of a luxury property in the Caribbean. 

According to a press release put out by the ACLU, Beck and Cardinale casts their votes on behalf of that organization as well as Black Lives Matter Morristown, Black Lives Matter Paterson, Black Lives Matter New Jersey, the Drug Policy Alliance, Garden State Equality, New Jersey Citizen Action, and the New Jersey Policy Perspective.  Beck and Cardinale stood with the far-left to screw working police officers and their families.

Is Bob Jordan a Journalist or a Marketing Rep?

Writing about Governor Chris Christie's recent veto of two bills -- S816 (mandating distributors to sell so-called smart guns), and A3689 (codifying regulations on the justifiable need to carry) -- Asbury Park Press reporter Bob Jordan blamed the National Rifle Association (NRA).  Jordan wrote:

"The NRA pressured Christie to kill two bills including one that would have mandated distributors to sell so-called smart guns, which proponents say stem accidental shootings and 'child proof' weapons."

Sure, the NRA lobbied the Governor, but does mere lobbying make you responsible for the actions of an adult elected official?  When the LGBTQ movement lobbied President Obama and Hillary Clinton to change their position on same-sex marriage, were they "pressured" into adopting their new beliefs?

As Bob Jordan must know, "pressured" is a very charged word.  When Garden State Equality's Steve Goldstein issued a press release threatening to withhold "gay" money from the New Jersey Democratic State Committee unless Senate President Steve Sweeney and other Democratic Party leaders changed their position on same-sex marriage, were they being "pressured" into executing their eventual flip-flop?

"Pressured" conjures images of extortion and the NRA hasn't been particularly good at "pressuring" Governor Christie, who managed just a "C" rating with the NRA as Governor.  If a journalist is going to use words like "pressured," he or she should cite more than lobbying as evidence of that "pressure."

Reporter Jordan lamely tries with a quote from Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, a Democrat from Bergen County.  Assemblyman Johnson blames Christie's veto on, wait for it... the Governor's  "bid for the Republican presidential nomination and now his support of Donald Trump."  Wow, what a dickhead!  Maybe he hasn't heard that Christie's presidential campaign crashed and burned months ago.  As for Donald Trump, when did his campaign put out a position paper on S816 and A3689?

The Assemblyman goes on:  "The governor’s veto statement is alarmingly replete with right-wing political talking points and grandstanding."  Yes, and the Assemblyman's statement may be said to be "alarmingly replete with left-wing political talking points and grandstanding."  So what?  What do these cookie-cutter insults even mean that you and your brethren in the other party endlessly use? 

Assemblyman Johnson went on to say (and how he kept a straight face, we can't tell you):  “This bill was a start toward making our streets safer, particularly in our urban areas, but sadly, Gov. Christie has once again put his political ambitions above the public safety of New Jersey residents.  That’s shameful.” 

Listen, Assemblyman Dickful, why don't you try to enforce the laws against everything that is currently unlawful -- make those streets "safer" -- "particularly in our urban areas" by making illegal drugs unavailable, for a start.  Do that one thing, accomplish that, before making new laws to create new crimes that will be obeyed only by those who care to obey them, new laws that will force the police (government's men-with-guns) into greater confrontation with individuals in the community.

Assemblyman, unless you are prepared to post a police officer on every street in New Jersey, our citizens (urban, suburban, and rural) are pretty much their own first line of protection.  Leave them alone.  If you want to do something to make them safer, get the heroin that floods every community in this state off the streets.  There have been laws against that for nearly a century and you haven't got it done yet, have you?

As for Bob Jordan, decide whether you are reporting or selling. 

Why bully Clifton when you can celebrate with us?

In political fundraising, conflict generates cash.  And if you really want to raise money, find yourself a hate object and create something for which you can be offended.  Even so, we find the "offense" behind Garden State Equality's latest hate object -- the town of Clifton -- a bit of a stretch.  According to the whiney release from Chris Fuscarino, GSE's new executive director, Clifton hasn't flown the rainbow flag and so the sky is falling.  Wow, they haven't flown the German flag either, but that hasn't sent the town's German-American population into the streets screaming.

Screw Clifton if they don't want to party.  Last week, we invited you to come party with us this weekend at Lambertville-New Hope Pride and yes, they will have all the rainbow flags you could ever ask for.  They even have a super-duper rainbow flag that will be a big feature at Saturday's parade.  What more could you ask for?

So here's that invitation again (and we're sending it special to Tim and Reed):

May 11, 2016

Mr. Christian Fuscarino,

Executive Director

Garden State Equality

40 South Fullerton Ave.

Montclair, NJ 07042

Dear Christian,

In ten days, Saturday May 21st, Lambertville and New Hope will be holding their annual Pride Parade.  The event begins at 11:30am in Lambertville and crosses the Delaware River Peace Bridge into New Hope.  About 15,000 are expected to attend.

We would like you to join us in the festivities.  As the event is being held in Assemblyman Reed Gusciora's district, we suggest you invite him and Assemblyman Tim Eustace as well.  It would be a great opportunity to talk person-to-person, without the artifice of politics to obscure things.

Both Assemblymen -- Reed and Tim -- have suggested that they would be supportive of legislation to protect religious freedom, so long as a way can be found to prevent overt discrimination.  And we believe that together we can find a way to provide women and girls with a choice, so that they are not forced to use the same intimate facilities as anatomical males.

But don't worry.  We won't let this get heavy.  This is more about enjoying each other's company, having a few beers, and taking in the festivities.  So hopefully you can spend the time and enjoy the parade with us.

Yours for the First Amendment,

Jersey Conservative

info@jerseyconservative.org

Hey guys, we could have a sing-along!  Just picture it.  A concordat of souls putting aside their policy and political differences to enjoy each other's company, on the level, as human beings.  Maybe we could get our bartender to put on some classic sub-pop and we could do a little Jesse Bernstein.  Now here's a classic...