Submitted by admin on Fri, 2007-03-23 08:00. ::
One month after the civil union law went into effect, only 122 female and 97 male couples made application to partake of the new law’s invitation to unite in matrimonial-like bliss.In Mercer County, according to N.J. Dept. of Health and Senior Services statistics, all of three female and four male couples applied.Everybody seems to have a theory to account for such dramatically undramatic numbers after so much hoo-ha heralded this supposedly epochal development in human coupling.
Gay-activist Lambda Legal theorized that same-sex couples are spurning the civil-union opportunity because anything short of full marriage is "painfully second-class" treatment. Garden State Equality activists theorized that gays and lesbians are anticipating(more hopefully than realistically, we’d say) that full marriage one day soon willwin a majority vote in the legislature and the signature of the governor.
On the other side of the issue, activists who regard homosexuality with fear and/or loathing suggest that gays and lesbians are rallying their troops for full marriage rights, to "upset our culture and tradition," as one activist put it. TheN.J. Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage is urging its side not to be lulled into apathy by the low number of civil union applications.The coalition is pressing on for a state constitutional amendment declaring marriage exclusively the union of a man and a woman.
We, too, have a theory on why there have been far fewer civil union applications than expected, and it is this:There are far fewer gays and lesbians out there who are eager to get hitched-- and possibly far few gays and lesbians, period-- than gay activists would like folks to believe and than anti-gay activists would like folks to fear.
Al Gore took his Chicken Little Road Show to Capitol Hill the other day, assuring a committee there that the sky is falling and the debate on the matter is closed. America is morally obligated to accept his view of global warming, he said.Never mind that climatologists are still researching many key unanswered questions on the topic.
But suppose we ignore all scientific doubts and accept Gore’s view that the sky is indeed falling due to global-warming CO2 emissions. Thenwhat?The global-warming hysterics never quite get around to addressing this question.
Back during the Clinton-Gore administration, the Dept. of Energy did address it. It concluded that a program to meet so-called Kyoto goals might hike electricity rates by as much as 80 percent and gasoline prices as much as 50 percent.The Clinton-Gore administration decided not to submit the Kyoto global warming treaty to the Senate for a ratification vote.
A recent MIT report concluded that even dramatic gains in renewable energy alternatives-- far from a sure bet-- would only marginally curb CO2 emissions.Meanwhile, coal will continue to be a major global energy source, said the MIT report.China, for example, is building one new coal-fired power station per week.And coal, a very economical fuel,already is the source of 40 percent of human-generated CO2 emissions.
The single most effective way to curb greenhouse gas emissions is to drastically cut electricity use and oil consumption.Andthe single most effective way to achieve this goal is with steep energy taxes. The MIT report recommended exactly this step.Morever, it urged that the tax have an automatic 4 percent annual escalator.
In an effort to reverse global warming, are Al Gore and other alarmists on Capitol Hill willing to embrace such a measure, a measure that’s sure to be wildly unpopular and likely to derail the economy?Would they be willing to do so even though the effort might well prove to be futile in the bargain if it turns out that global warming is largely the result of natural forces?
Global warming fears could be easily banished if only self-righteous, moralizing sanctimony could be harnessed as an alternative energy source.Alas, such sanctimony is of even more limited benefit than solar panels and windmills.
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