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Gay lessons

"In California, the state Senate has just passed a bill that would require school children to study the historical 'role and contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.' Watch out, Leonardo da Vinci: You're no longer just an artist, inventor and mathematician — you're about to become a gay poster boy. ...

"[T]he California law requires the insertion of sexual preference into California and American history, even when the information is completely superfluous. Ironically, the label often serves to circumscribe too narrowly the achievements of those to whom it's applied. Ask yourself: Was Billie Jean King an accomplished tennis player, or an accomplished gay tennis player? Was Cole Porter one of America's greatest gay composers — or just one of America's greatest composers? Sometimes, obviously, it isn't all about sex.

"Time was that the proponents of gay rights insisted both that they were simply ordinary Americans, who live, love, and work just like everyone else. ... But now, liberals are requiring that gays, uniquely, be identified, labeled, and studied in accordance with their sexual behavior when it comes to the history books."

— Carol Platt Liebau, writing on "Textbook Sex," May 16 in the American Spectator Online at www.spectator.org

Goodbye, America

" 'It would end the U.S. as we currently know it.'

"That's Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, speaking of what would happen if an immigration proposal by Sens. Mel Martinez [Florida Republican], and Chuck Hagel [Nebraska Republican], becomes law. ...

"If Martinez-Hagel becomes law, Rector says, we can expect 'the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.' ...

"Immigrant households are about 50 percent more likely to use welfare than native-born households. ...

"Then there's the problem of out-of-wedlock childbearing, which a) correlates strongly with welfare use and b) is more prevalent among foreign-born Hispanics than among non-Hispanic whites (42.3 percent vs. 23.4 percent). 'Children born and raised outside of marriage are seven times more likely to live in poverty than children born and raised by married couples,' Rector writes."

— Rebecca Hagelin, writing on "Untying the immigration knot," May 16 in WorldNetDaily at www.worldnetdaily.com

Clueless

"If being tall and having silver hair is what is required for being 'distinguished,' then the late John Kenneth Galbraith certainly fit that description. ... However, although Galbraith was revered by other 'intellectuals' and by Harvard students during his heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, in truth, he was ... clueless about economics. ...

"Like many other 'public intellectuals,' Galbraith was a prolific writer and speaker. During the 1970s, it seemed as though he was everywhere, from being interviewed by news broadcasters to debating William F. Buckley on ['Firing Line']. His message was always the same: increase the role of the state in the affairs of individuals, as the state — or at least a state controlled by individuals like him — was morally and intellectually superior to a state of affairs in which the dreaded 'free market' prevailed.

"[T]o the bitter end, when it came to socialism and its demise, Galbraith refused to give up his faith in the collectivist system even as real-world events brought the socialist system down one regime after another."

— William Anderson, writing on "J.K. Galbraith Celebrated Power, Not Freedom," May 15 for the Ludwig von Mises Institute at www.mises.org