Tuesday, July 10, 2007

ABNORMALLY NORMAL

The longknives are out in opposition to Surgeon General nominee Dr. James Holsinger. The NYT takes the normal position of endorsing abnormality and calling normality abnormal in their editorial of condemnation:
The Senate Health Committee will have to dig beneath the surface on Thursday to consider the nomination of Dr. James Holsinger to be surgeon general. Dr. Holsinger has high-level experience as a health administrator, but there are disturbing indications that he is prejudiced against homosexuals....

What’s troubling is the view he once expressed — and may still hold — on homosexuality, through his activities as a lay leader in the United Methodist Church. On the church’s judicial council, he supported a minister who refused to allow a gay man to join his congregation and argued that a lesbian minister should be removed because church doctrine deems the practice of homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian teaching.” His supporters say these rulings should not be read as his personal views because the council can’t change church doctrine. However, some council members opposed his views, and the bishops later rejected one decision.

Any deviation from accepting deviant behavior must be stamped out. With President Bush already weakened politically, I suspect this nomination will be pulled. On the other hand, he's a lame duck, anyway--what does he have to lose?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about we just leave the office vacant? I checked my Constitution and can't find authorization for Congress to create a surgeon general, but I can find a statement that Congress doesn't have powers which aren't expressly granted to it in the Constitution.

I also checked my Bible and found that government is a terror to those who do evil, but I couldn't see anything about government taking care of our health.

Maybe we could just do a trial run and leave the office vacant for two years and see how that works, and then extend the plan if we decide we like it. :)

Unknown said...

Actually the office was vacant for at least two years at the beginning of the Bush II administration and the so-called "compassionate conservative" couldn't bring himself to abolish it (overcome with compassion for bureaucracy, I suppose).

Alan said...

Now don't you both feel healthier knowing that the federal government is there looking out for you?