High-speed rail can boost economy, help environment and ease transportation crisis

Paul Weinstein, chief operating officer of the Progressive Policy Institute http://www.ppionline.org/ and a visiting fellow at The Johns Hopkins University, suggests that it is time for America to make a major investment in developing high-speed rail systems:

If America's air-travel system is any indication, the sky really is falling. Flights have been cancelled by the hundreds due to safety concerns. Five commercial airlines have gone out of business since March 31st, in large part because of rising fuel costs. Six broad fare increases have gone into effect this year alone, along with new charges on everything from pillows to a second piece of luggage.

At Philadelphia International Airport, average passenger delays have grown to more than 20 minutes, while bottlenecks at airports in the New York metropolitan area have become so chronic that the federal government has imposed flight caps and installed a new "airport czar" to make sense of the mess.

While the laws of supply and demand will undoubtedly correct some of the problems the airline industry faces, the future for air travelers is not so bright. Most economists agree that airline mergers (such as the recently announced Delta-Northwest agreement), fewer flights, and more fuel-efficient planes will eventually help put the industry on stronger financial ground. Unfortunately, these very measures will also mean higher prices, less choice, and fewer amenities for passengers.

In the short term, passengers have two choices: fly less, or pay more for an inferior service. But if the United States is serious about fixing the air-travel mess -- not to mention congestion on our roadways -- there is a real, long-term solution: high-speed rail (HSR).

For years, efforts to pass legislation that would make a significant investment in high-speed rail have been halted by a number of factors: the current administration's ideological opposition to government investments in infrastructure; the return of deficits; the lack of a direct source of funding; the hostility of the airline industry; and a wasteful and distracting debate over the future of Amtrak.

With the airline industry cutting routes and raising fares, the cost of a gallon of gas racing past $4, and the unemployment rate rising, the time for a major investment in high-speed rail may finally be here.

In this policy brief, the Progressive Policy Institute provides the economic, environmental, and transportation arguments for HSR. In addition, we propose a plan that will:


Target investment where demand is -- regional and commuter rail;

Build five new regional high-speed rail corridors; and

Establish a Rail Trust Fund and identify deficit-neutral sources of direct funding.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=141&subsecID=299&contentID=254733

The PPI report describes the economic benefits resulting from a substantial investment in high-speed rail. For every $10 billion invested in high-speed rail, 40,000 construction-related and 112,500 permanent jobs will be created. Compared to the $150 billion stimulus package producing a half million jobs at a cost of $300,000 per job, high speed rail corridor projects create a job for every $65,000 spent.

Weinstein points out the growing popularity of commuter rail systems:

"Since the mid 1990s, there has been a strong increase in rail demand and service, primarily along short-to-medium-distance inter-city routes and commuter lines. "

"Nearly one-half of the 21 commuter railroads in North America did not exist 15 years ago. Most of those systems were based in large, densely populated Northeastern cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Today, commuters railroads are located in metropolitan areas across the nation including Miami, Los Angeles, Nashville, St. Louis, Charlotte and Albuquerque while new systems are in the advanced stages of planning and development in Detroit, Orlando and Austin."

Read the full report at
http://www.ppionline.org/documents/High-Speed-Rail-0908.pdf

Employee Free Choice Act Could Be Biggest Reform Since New Deal

A leading economic think tank views legislation to restore collective bargaining rights to millions of Americans as a boon to working families. Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Policy and Research www.cepr.net presents a strong argument for the Employee Free Choice Act:

While it hasn’t gotten much attention, one of the most important issues that our elections this November could decide is the future of organized labor in the United States. This is important not just for the 15.7 million workers who happen to be in unions, but for the vast majority of the entire 154 million-member U.S. labor force. The wages, benefits, and working conditions of most employees are affected by collective bargaining even if they don’t have a union. For example, employers who want to keep unions out will sometimes have to offer their workers such amenities as health insurance.

One of the most important problems that our economy has faced for the last 30 years has been stagnating real wages. With inflation now running at 10.6 percent over the last quarter, the problem appears to most people to be rising prices, including food and energy. But for more than two decades prior to the past year, inflation has been tame. Yet the real – inflation-adjusted -- wage of the typical employee barely increased at all over the whole 34 years from 1973-2007.

This is amazing, when we consider that productivity – the amount that workers produce per hour – increased quite substantially over the period. Measured very conservatively, if we take “usable productivity” – the increased production that we can expect to be reflected in rising wages – it rose by 48 percent from 1973-2007. So our economy grows but, unlike in the past, most employees do not share in the gains.

One important reason for this great leap backwards is that the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively have been sharply curtailed over the last three decades.

For example, employees still have the legal right to petition for a federally-run election at their workplace, in which workers can vote on whether or not to join a union. To get such an election, they need the signatures of at least 30 percent of the employees. But after the employees get enough signatures for the election, employers very often intimidate workers through threats and firings before the vote is held. The Center for Economic and Policy Research has estimated that one in five workers who are actively involved in a union organizing drive can expect to be fired. Many others are “persuaded” to vote against the union through a long, captive audience campaign of employer threats and harassment.

As a result of these tactics, only about 12 percent of employees are organized in unions today, as compared with 35 percent in the 1950s. Reform legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act would give employees a fighting chance to regain some of their lost rights. This bill would mandate that an employer recognize the union if it obtains the signatures of a majority of employees. There would be no need for the long and costly – especially to the workers who are fired – election campaign.

A poll by Global Strategies Group this month found that 68 percent of middle-class Americans support the Employee Free Choice Act. Polls also indicate that tens of millions would join a union if they had the choice.

The bill passed the House 241-185 but was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate. It’s a party-line split in the Senate (except for support from Republican Senator Arlen Specter). So the bill would need a Democratic president and something close to 59 Democrats in the Senate in order to pass.

This law would probably change Americans’ lives more than any legislation since the New Deal brought us Social Security. The political influence of millions of new union members would also bring us closer to such basic reforms as universal health care. It’s all long overdue.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/employee-free-choice-act-could-be-biggest-reform-since-new-deal/





















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Tester says Obama is no threat to gun rights

A leading defender of the Second Amendment, Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) says that a Barack Obama Presidency will not threaten the rights of gun owners.

The National Rifle Association has launched a campaign targeting Obama for his support of gun control measures but Tester disagrees with the powerful lobby.

Montana's Flathead Beacon http://www.flatheadbeacon.com reports Tester stating:

"I've got to tell you, I've talked to Barack. I think he understands the issue much better than before," Tester said in a conference call with reporters from Denver. "I am one of those guys who likes my guns, to be honest with you."

"Tester said that Obama was very clear with him."

"He told me flat out, 'I'm not taking your guns away and don't let anybody tell you that I will,'" Tester recalled. "This campaign does not need to be about fear, this guy is not going to take away your guns."

"Tester also said that Obama has an edge over McCain with hunters because the Democrat will do a better job of protecting public lands and open space."
http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/tester_obama_a_regular_guy_not_a_threat_to_guns/5285/

Some influential Democrats are taking the lead on matters of concern to sportsmen. The National Journal Online www.nationaljournal.com
reports:

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., spoke at a National Wildlife Federation briefing Wednesday afternoon, pushing efforts to expand conservation areas for hunting and fishing grounds as well as better protection of the environment for sportsmen.

"Sportsmen have been stereotyped as concerned with one issue: guns. But if you listen to sportsmen as I have over the years ... we hear a different story," said Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation.

The goal is to allow Democrats to play at least a little on the offense on an issue that party leaders will not bring up because of fear of major political repercussions to its members by the powerful National Rifle Association. Top Democrats are still reeling from NRA-led defeats in 1994 of their members who voted for the Brady Bill and legislation to ban some assault weapons. Others say the issue likely cost Gore a win in West Virginia in 2000 that would have put him in the White House.

Dingell said hunting and fishing areas need better environmental protection, specifically citing that enforcement of the Clean Water Act needs to be beefed up to protect those lands. "These have not been a good eight years," said Dingell, a stalwart NRA member. Lincoln cited the increasing loss of public hunting areas that threaten the opportunities for families to go shooting or fishing, like hers will do in a few weeks at a dove hunt in Maryland.

"Democrats are all about conservation. They are all about preservation. I think that's a huge opportunity," Lincoln said.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/conventions/co_20080828_8741.php

A blogger for the pro-gun rights Amendment II Democrats had this to say about Obama and his stand on the right to keep and bear arms:

Obama spoke of the gun debate in the same vein as he did abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and immigration in terms of trying to establish common ground between both sides of the debate in classic Hegelian fashion. He cannot be faulted for trying. But his choice of words on the gun issue left much to be desired.

Page 48 of the 2008 Democratic platform explicitly calls for "reinstating the assault weapons ban, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals." This implies, of course, that if you wish to own a rifle with a pistol grip, our party platform has just likened you to the enemies of the public good. Obama's running mate is Senator Joe Biden, who has made banning semi-automatics a top legislative priority and shows no sign of backing away from said legislation now that he's on the ticket.

Despite the increasing presence of Democrats such as Brian Schweitzer, Russ Feingold, Jim Webb, and Bill Richardson who are embracing our Second Amendment rights, it seems that gun policy for the Democratic Party is still being dictated by the likes of the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center instead of by Democrats themselves.

Isn't it time our party found its own voice on gun legislation?

Doesn't our party deserve better than to be snared by the pitfalls of the past?

Standing at that podium, Obama could have made one small change to his acceptance speech without compromising his own core values: "Don't tell me we can't guarantee the right of law-abiding Americans to own AK-47s while keeping them out of the hands of criminals." A small change in wording, true, but one that would have added a new dimension of clarity to Obama's gun policy. And brought in votes from old-school Republicans and independents who can't stand John McCain.

Most important of all, that small change would have demonstrated that Democrats are truly tolerant of other people's choices.

Since the semi-auto ban was passed in 1994, Democrats have been wandering in the wilderness. In 2006, we managed to catch a glimpse of where we needed to be all along.

So my exhortation to Brarack Obama and all my fellow Democrats is for us to find our own voice, shake the dust from our feet, shoulder up our guns, and come on home at last.

http://blog.myspace.com/a2dems

My take: Obama's support for ban on semi-automatic weapons is a bad idea and will no doubt hurt him in November as it will alarm gun owners that envision a slippery slope toward a total confiscation of all firearms. Gun rights supporters should continue to defend their rights but need to look at the big picture rather than being single issue voters. After all, the U.S. Supreme Court has just affirmed the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. With a significant number of pro-gun rights Democrats in Congress, it is going to very difficult for Obama to pass the semi-automatic weapons ban if he wins the general election.

Catholic Charities USA Calls New Poverty Rate Unacceptable

ALEXANDRIA,VA—Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, issued the following statement regarding new statistics released today by the U.S. Census Bureau that show 800,000 more people are living in poverty in the United States:

“It is unacceptable that in a nation that is as prosperous as ours that 37.3 million people, including 13.3 million children, continue to live in poverty. At 12.5 percent, the poverty rate indicates that reducing poverty is not a priority for this nation.

"For Catholic Charities USA, and our 1,700 local member agencies who serve nearly 8 million in need a year, the poverty rate is not just another economic statistic. This unacceptable figure represents the millions of families we see each and every day who are struggling just to make ends meet.

"Substantial decreases in these numbers must occur in order to alleviate the struggles that millions are experiencing.

"The downturn in the economy is making matters worse. Across our nation, Catholic Charities agencies are seeing more and more people having to choose between putting food on the table, paying their utility bills, or making their rent or mortgage payments.

“Needing help with food, rent, clothing, and prescriptions are all symptoms of much larger problems facing the poor and vulnerable in America, such as low wages and the lack of affordable housing and health care. These are problems that must be addressed if we are ever going to cut poverty in our country and create better economic opportunities for all.

“Reducing poverty in the United States must be a national priority. That’s why Catholic Charities USA launched its Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America, which aims cut the poverty rate in half by 2020. By helping to lift individuals and families out of poverty, we can ensure that they are in a better position to weather these economic downturns.

"Let these troubling poverty statistics be a call to action for each of us. As a nation, we must demand that our current and future leaders give a much higher priority to the needs of the poor in their policymaking decisions.

“In this election year, candidates for public office—especially our presidential candidates—must move from rhetoric to action and propose comprehensive plans to address the needs of more than 37 million people living in poverty in the United States over the next decade. We call on all Americans to ask their candidates, ‘If elected, what will you do to address poverty?’

“We must no longer ignore the injustice of poverty and the extreme inequality in America.”

http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=897

Ethics Daily: Organzed Labor Still Alive and Well

Writing at Ethics Daily www.ethicsdaily.com, Chris Sanders argues that organized labor is still alive and well:

Labor Day is coming up. In the United States, as with most legally mandated Monday holidays, in the minds of most it has lost any inspirational significance and has become just another three-day weekend.

In fact, its forgotten significance is buried deeper than the other Monday holidays. Many people who can tell you what Memorial Day and Veterans Day mean will be enjoying their Sept. 1 cookout without a clue what Labor Day means. (If this is you, a hint--it has something to do with unions.)

Labor will get its annual ink this Labor Day weekend, in a theme echoed over the 20 years I've been in the labor movement. The articles read like obituaries. They'll begin like this: "The American labor movement, like the old gray mare, ain't what she used to be. Down from a high of 35 percent of the workforce to less than 8 percent, labor is on its last legs."

Sorry to digress, but if unions are all but interred, if organized labor is so 20th century, so backward as to be irrelevant in the global economy, why all the flap over the Employee Free Choice Act?

This proposed legislation may not yet be on your mind. But if your state is a political battleground this year, you're seeing and hearing radio and TV ads in heavy rotation attacking unions and union friendly politicians. The over-the-top media spots feature Sopranos-style thugs and talking ballot boxes.

What's it all about? In short, big corporate interests are worried that the next government will amend labor law in 2009 to help workers who want to choose a union and rebuild America. For more, go to www.ufcw.org or www.americanrightsatwork.org.

It's why Walmart is schooling its management to preach voting against Democrats in the November election. With a new government and a new labor law, Walmart is scared its workers might get a shot at a voice on the job. So, no matter what the pundits say on Labor Day, the reports of labor's death are greatly exaggerated.

We aren't dead, not by a long shot. I'm with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, with over a million members in the U.S. and Canada. At our convention in Montreal last week, I spoke about my Christian calling and the work the union has to do.

Here's what I said:

"I'm a Christian, I know something about calling. A calling is a voice you hear with your heart, that you feel deep inside, when you're so inspired that you know it comes from above. Consider these heartfelt words from the Bible. 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and the Spirit has anointed me to preach good news among the poor, to let the oppressed go free, to make the world better this year.'

"That's Jesus, speaking about his calling, a calling to a mission. It's a mission that belongs to all who believe--Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and beyond. You know what a mission is. It's more than your job description. It's bigger than your To-Do list. It's as big as the Montreal sky. It's to protect human rights and human dignity, to fight poverty, to speak out when no one else will--or can. It's to form that thin line against greed and injustice, to do, as the Apostle says, the work of love.

"Yes, we have some work to do. For the work of love is the work of change. We've been called to bring change. As Gandhi said, we must be the change we want to see in the world. Change isn't easy. Change isn't simple or obvious. It's just essential, right here, right now."

My paraphrase of Jesus' "Nazareth Manifesto," Luke 4:18-19, touched a deep place in the convention delegates' hearts. They resonated with the nexus between their high calling and the calling to something higher. The time is right for labor people who believe and believers who care about the struggles of people who labor to organize together, united as one in one cause.

As a Monday holiday, Labor Day is a paid day off. It's time, to echo Martin Luther King's words, for Labor Day to be a day on, not a day off.

Labor Day was born during the Industrial Revolution in the struggle for an eight-hour day. Eight hours, not 10 or 12 or more, became the norm for work, allowing people time to rest, take care of families and worship.

Eight hours became the norm, not through normal evolution or owner enlightenment, but when workers and their unions literally shed blood to secure their children's future. We today are their literal and spiritual children, and Labor Day is their legacy and our responsibility. It's a day on, not a day off, as we continue to stand up on the job.

No, organized labor in America isn't dead. American unions are uniting with labor globally to engage global corporate power. Unions like the UFCW are organizing and growing everywhere, because working people come together in tough economic times.

Unions are finding their spiritual center and bringing that light out from under the bushel for the world to see. Let's do it together.

Chris Sanders is executive assistant to the president and general counsel for Local 227 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, representing working people across Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Active at Highland Baptist Church, he plays rock guitar and leads worship at the Friday church service.

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=10934

As Chris Sanders mentioned, there has been a strong connection between labor unions and religious groups as both work together to build strong families and communities. Listed below are statements of various faith communities on worker's rights.

Baptist Churches

We reaffirm our position that workers have the right to organize by a
free and democratic vote of the workers involved. This right of
organization carries the responsibility of union leadership to
protect the rights of workers, to guarantee each member an equal
voice in the operation of its organization, and to produce just
output labors for income received." — American Baptist Churches
Resolution, 1981

We recognize the right of labor to organize and to engage in
collective bargaining to the end that labor may have a fair and
living wage, such as will provide and culture. -Southern Baptist
Convention

Catholic Church

In the first place, employers and workmen may themselves effect much
in the matter which we treat-(saving the workers from being ground
down with excessive labor). The most important of all are workmen's
associations...but it is greatly desired that they should multiply
and become more effective. -Leo XIII

What is to be thought of the action of those Catholic industrialists
who even to this day have shown themselves hostile to a labor
movement that we ourselves recommended. -Pius XI

"Among the basic rights of the human person must be counted the right
of freely founding labor unions. These unions should be truly able to
represent the workers and to contribute to the proper arrangement of
economic life. Another such right is that of taking part freely in
the activity of these unions without fear of reprisal." — Pastoral
Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Second Vatican
Council, 1965

Church of the Brethren

Laborers are always to be regarded as persons and never as a
commodity. Industry was made for man, and not man for industry.
Employees as well as employers have the right to organize themselves
into a union for wage negotiations and collective bargaining. -
Brethren Service Commission, Church of the Brethren

Congregational Christian Churches

We stand for the replacement of the autocratic organization of
industry by one of collective effort of organized workers and
organized employers.

The Disciples of Christ

Be It Resolved by the International Convention of the Disciples of
Christ:

That It is our conviction that workers should have the right to self-
organization, to form, join, or assist in forming labor
organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of
their own choosing and to engage in such activities as are within the
limits of Constitutional rights for the purpose of bargaining with
employers and other mutual aid protection.

Episcopal Church

"We reaffirm the right and desirability of workers in the United
States to organize and form unions. ...We decry the growing wage of
anti-unionism mounting in the nation today which asks people to
forget the struggles that led to this form of negotiation as a just
way to settle differences." — Urban Bishops Coalition of the
Episcopal Church, 1982

Evangelical and Reformed Church

In order that the Christian principles of respect for personality,
establishment of brotherhood, and obedience in the revealed will of
God may find more adequate expression in the economic order, we
commit our selves to work for ...the recognition of the right of
employers and workers to organize for collective bargaining, as a
step toward the democratic control of industry for the good of
society.

Jewish

The same rights of organization which rest with employers rest also
with those whom they employ. Modern life has permitted wealth to
consolidate itself through organization into corporations. Workers
have the same inalienable right to organize according to their own
plan for their common good and to bargain collectively with their
employers through such honorable manes as they may choose. -Central
Conference of American Rabbis

Lutheran Church

We are convinced that the organization of labor is essential to the
well being of the working people. It is based upon a sense of the
inestimable value of the individual man. United Lutheran Church In
America

It is the right of every man to organize with his fellow workers for
collective bargaining through representatives of his own free choice.
It is the duty of both management and labor to accept and support
conciliations and arbitration in industrial disputes. -Board of
Social Mission and the Executive Board of the United Lutheran Church
in America.

Methodist Church

We stand for the right of employees and employers alike to organize
for collective bargaining and social action; protection of both in
the exercise of their right; the obligation of both to work for the
public good. -The General Conference of the Methodist Church

Collective bargaining, in its mature phase, is democracy applied to
industrial relations. It is representative government and reasoned
compromise taking the place of authoritarian rule by force in the
economic sphere. In its highest form it is the Christian ideal of
brotherhood translated into the machinery of daily life. -General
Board of Christian Education of the Methodist Church

Presbyterian Church

Labor unions have been instrumental in achieving a higher standard of
living and in improving working conditions. They have helped to
obtain safety and health measures against occupational risk; to
achieve a larger degree of protection against child labor; to relieve
the disabled, the sick, the unemployed; and to gain a more equitable
share in the value of what they produce. -Board of Christian
Education, Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

The right of labor to organize and to bargain collectively with
employers is clearly an inalienable right in a democracy, and has so
been recognized by our government. -Synod of Tennessee, Presbyterian
Church of U.S.A.

Taxpayers subsidize excessive CEO compensation by $20 billion per year

A new report finds that U.S. taxpayers subsidize excessive executive compensation by more than $20 billion per year.

The report is available via the web at:
http://faireconomy.org/files/executive_excess_2008.pdf

The 15th annual 'Executive Excess' report from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy calculates the annual cost to taxpayers of the following tax and accounting loopholes that encourage excessive executive pay:

1. Preferential capital gains treatment of carried interest ($2.6 billion)

2. Unlimited deferred pay ($80.6 million)

3. Offshore deferred compensation ($2.1 billion)

4. Unlimited deductibility of executive compensation ($5.2 billion)

5. Stock option accounting double standard ($10.0 billion)

"These loopholes allow top executives to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. As a result, ordinary taxpayers wind up picking up the bill," explains report co-author and IPS Associate Fellow Sam Pizzigati.

Members of Congress have attempted to plug each of these five loopholes, but their efforts have stalled in the face of strong opposition from corporate lobby groups.
The Presidential race is shining a brighter spotlight on the issue, as both candidates have attacked excessive executive compensation on the campaign trail. And yet the report points out that neither Obama nor McCain has yet endorsed all the major reforms needed to eliminate subsidies for executive pay.

"It's outrageous that our tax dollars are inflating executive paychecks," says Institute for Policy Studies fellow Sarah Anderson, a lead author of the annual Executive Excess reports for the past 15 years. "Surely in these troubled economic times we can find better ways to spend our nation's wealth."

ADDITIONAL KEY FINDINGS:

CEO-WORKER PAY GAP: CEOs of large U.S. companies last year averaged $10.5 million each in total compensation, 344 times the pay of the average U.S. worker. The top 50 private equity and hedge fund managers pocketed an average of $588 million each, or 19,000 times as much as average workers.

IF CURRENT TRENDS CONTINUE: The gap between CEO and average worker pay will grow wider since industries that are adding the most jobs have far wider pay gaps than those that are losing the most jobs. Labor law reforms are needed to help more workers exercise their right to bargain collectively for fair compensation.

INDIRECT TAXPAYER SUPPORT FOR RUNAWAY PAY: Additional billions of taxpayer dollars indirectly encourage excessive executive pay through government contracts and bailouts that allow unlimited CEO compensation. The report documents that 85 percent of top federal contractors paid their CEOs over 100 times the pay of average U.S. workers in 2007.

Authored by Sarah Anderson, John Cavanagh, Chuck Collins, Sam Pizzigati, and Mike Lapham, Executive Excess 2008 is the 15th annual CEO pay study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy.

The Institute for Policy Studies is an independent center for progressive research and education in Washington, DC ( www.ips-dc.org). Boston-based United for a Fair Economy is a non-partisan organization that spotlights growing economic inequality ( www.faireconomy.org).





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Florida Marriage Protection Amendment 2 has strong Democratic support

ORLANDO,FL - Florida Red and Blue, a political committee opposing Amendment 2, has released a TV ad which is both factually wrong and attempts to mislead and scare senior citizens. The ad will be aired on Florida stations during the Democratic National Convention through out this week.

The campaign commercial has a prominent theme which is repeated three times asserting that the marriage amendment is an attempt by the government to interfere “into our private lives”. Other parts of the ad state that defeating Amendment 2 would “keep government out of our private lives” and that “personal marriage issues should be decided by you, your family and clergy, not by the government.” *

“This ad is just factually wrong and Red and Blue needs to be held accountable for false and misleading advertisements” said John Stemberger, State Chairman of Yes2Marriage.org the official sponsor of the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment. “To the contrary, the citizen initiated and citizen led Amendment 2 has nothing at all to do with government action. It has everything to do with citizen action stopping the government from redefining marriage against their will. Amendment 2 allows the people and not activist judges to decide how marriage will be defined in Florida. This is only the first of a series of ads in an avalanche of fraud and deception that is going to flood the airways in the October.”

The campaign commercial also states* that “Democrats are United against Amendment 2 in Florida.” This is not accurate or factually correct. Over three quarters of a million Florida voters signed a citizen’s initiative petition to get the marriage amendment on the ballot. Well over 33% of those Floridians who signed the petition are registered Democrats. The recent June 3, 2008, Quinnipiac Florida poll demonstrates that a significant 45% of Democratic voters in Florida support Amendment 2.

Senator Barack Obama in the recent Saddleback forum with Rick Warren clearly stated, “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.” “This hardly seems like unity among Democrats on the issue of the definition of marriage” said Eladio Armesto, the Chairman of the Florida Democratic League who is a major supporter of Amendment 2 in South Florida.

Stemberger said, “Marriage is not a Democratic or a Republican issue. It’s not even a liberal - conservative issue. It is a human issue and a moral issue—and one which Floridians will vote yes on in overwhelming numbers on November 4, 2008.”

Finally, the unanimous Florida Supreme Court made up of Democratic and Republican appointees has ruled that Amendment 2 is about the “singular subject” of marriage and that the effect of the amendment does nothing new as it merely takes the existing law on marriage and places it into the state constitution as 27 other states have done. (1) “Telling senior citizens that they will lose Social Security and or domestic partner benefits by voting yes on 2 is outright fraud and preys upon Florida’s most vulnerable and precious citizens” stated Stemberger.

Amendment 2 has received strong support from the Florida Catholic Conference:

The Catholic Church teaches that “the marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1660)

Unity, indissolubility and openness to fertility are indispensable to marriage. It is only through the union of one man and one woman that the authentic marriage bond can be realized.

The Florida Marriage Protection Amendment will define marriage in our state’s constitution as the legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife. As evidenced in our 2005 statement, Marriage is Between One Man and One Woman, the bishops of Florida have taken a position in support of Amendment 2.

http://www.flacathconf.org/Marriage.htm