Gun Rights Group Fights for Right to Bring Guns to Church, California Does Not Think Immigrant Children Are Demons, Equal Rights for Gay Couples Gaining in Formerly Oppressed Nations, George Will Forces Us to Look Up Definition of “Condign” . . .

And Other Strange Things in the News

Georgia (the state, not the country) has a law which bans guns in churches.  A group of gun rights advocates are challenging that law in Federal Court as a violation of their Freedom of Religion.

The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, heard arguments last week on a lawsuit brought by a central Georgia church and the gun rights
groupGeorgiaCarry.org claiming that a state law banning firearms in places of worship violates their constitutionally protected religious freedoms.

But not to worry

“We’re not trying to force churches to allow guns in their sanctuary,” said Kelly Kennett, a gun owner and president of GeorgiaCarry.org.

Besides, it is well known and accepted that the tenets of all of the world’s major religions advocate the bringing of guns to religious services so congregants can shoot and kill people they disagree with while at the same time praying to the Deity of their choice.

California is bucking the trend of demonizing children who were brought to this country illegally by giving them the ability to attend state colleges and university on roughly the same terms as any other graduate of California high schools.

Under current law, illegal immigrant students who have graduated from a California high school and can prove they are on the path to legalize their immigration status can pay resident tuition rates. The bill would allow these students to also apply for state aid.

The contentious second half of the package requires that immigrant students meet the same requirements as all other students applying for financial aid at state universities but specifies that they qualify for financial aid only after all the other legal residents have applied.

Of course this humane and decent policy has met with opposition,

Critics say it undermines immigration laws and encourages illegal immigration.

And it is true that a number of four year olds in other countries have said they plan to sneak into America all by themselves, enroll in California public schools just so that in 14 years they can go to UCLA at state rather than out of state tuition rates. 

Frank Bruni of the New York Times Op/Ed Pages notes that gay marriage has quietly come to Portugal.  Why is this news?  Mr. Bruni cites the fact that Portugal is heavily Roman Catholic, and so would not be expected to be all that tolerant of gay marriage.

Mr. Bruni goes on to list four countries.

South Africa, Spain, Portugal and Argentina.

that surprisingly allow same sex marriage, and to give his explanation of why this has happened in those countries

Why those four countries? People who have studied the issue note that that they have something interesting and relevant in common: each spent a significant period of the late 20th century governed by a dictatorship or brutally discriminatory government, and each emerged from that determined to exhibit a modernity and concern for human rights that put the past to rest.

It is an interesting point.

So far no Conservatives have argued that same sex marriage is the cause of the fiscal and economic problems of Spain and Portugal, but expectations are that those kinds of attacks will soon take place.

One thing about Conservatives is that they are pro-business creation.  At least, that’s what they say.  Here is Britain’s Conservative Chancellor on business creation in Britain in March.

In his Budget in March, Chancellor George Osborne declared he wanted Britain to become "the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business".

And here is the reality

David Cameron's claim to be the champion of new business was undermined yesterday as new figures showed the number of firms in Britain fell by 20,000 during his first year as Prime Minister.

Just about as expected.

Michele Bachmann has been hit with a dose of realism about her candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.  Commenting on her poll numbers Ms. Bachmann said

"Candidates go up, candidates go down," Bachmann said on CNN's State of the Union program. "It's not about any one of us ... it's about turning around the economy."

Actually Ms. Bachmann, in this case it is about you.  Those are your poll numbers in single digits, not someone elses.  Even so, Ms. Bachmann is optimistic

In a fundraising e-mail sent this weekend to supporters, Bachmann said her "campaign's momentum continues to grow."

But the USA Today story also reports that in New Hampshire

A new poll by WMUR-TV shows Romney with a strong, double-digit lead of 37% vs. 12% for Cain. Bachmann and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum are tied near the bottom with 2% each.

The good news of course is that if Ms. Bachmann raises her share in New Hampshire to 4% she can say she has doubled her support.  And even at 2% she is twice as popular as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.

Washington Post Columnist George Will has often been the subject of severe criticism on this Forum, so it is with some joy that we can report his latest column is a positive, constructive one.  Mr. Will is opposed to Pennsylvania splitting its electoral college votes by Congressional District, and mounts an intelligent case for the electoral college.

Winner-take-all allocation of states’ electoral votes enhances presidential legitimacy by magnifying narrow popular vote margins. In 1960, Kennedy won 49.7 percent of the popular vote but 56.4 percent of the electoral vote (303 to 219). In 2008, Obama won just 52.9 percent of the popular vote but 67.8 percent of the electoral vote (365 to 173).

But Mr. Will discloses that part of his motivation is his fear that such a change might endanger a Republican election in 2012

if the Republican candidate carries nine of Pennsylvania’s 18 districts and the statewide vote — Obama’s Pennsylvania poll numbers are poor — Republicans will have cost themselves nine electoral votes, which would be condign punishment.

And yes, The Dismal Political Economist did have to look up the definition of the world “condign”.  Mr. Will as expected, used it correctly.