The current and longstanding BSA membership policy, which applies equally to youth members and adult leaders, denies membership to “open or avowed homosexuals.” The proposed resolution, in its first 731 words, includes language consistent with Scouting’s historic principled foundation and purpose. In the last sentence, it abandons this safe, sensitive and prudent policy in favor of what can most charitably be described as presumably well-intentioned, but calamitous:

“No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.”

Because the inclusion of this sentence legitimizes homosexuality, and “sexual orientation or preference” is just an alternative way of saying “open or avowed,” the adoption of this proposed change in youth membership criteria will seriously jeopardize the cornerstone of morality that for 103 years has given Boy Scout youth, their parents and adult leaders cause to invest expectation and effort in this outstanding organization.

That national leadership would even consider such a ricochet off into the realm of sophistry and hazard prompted critical commentary of those leaders in June 2012. What then seemed more the mischief primarily of two members of the BSA national board has, by “evolution” or metastasis or some other erosive influence, brought us to the meeting and decision today.

If wisdom prevails in those deliberations, the 1,400 local council representatives convened will not support the proposed changes in BSA youth membership criteria. By defeating the proposal, they will avoid becoming their own worst enemy of the counsel Scout leaders and parents have earnestly conveyed to youth they have sought constructively to influence: “Just because something may at the moment be popular; just because you may be inclined to justify it with the idea that ‘everyone else is doing it’ does not make it either right or acceptable.”

If the proposed change is adopted, there will be no comfort or satisfaction in the quip, “Even when you foul up, all is not lost; you can always serve as a pitiful example.”

The following post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations.

The Obama administration has had a rough couple of weeks. CBS News headline: “Top Obama officials knew about IRS probe, says White House.” The Economist headline: “The administration seems to have trampled on press freedom.” Real Clear Politics headline: “Woodward: Obama Administration Did Not Tell the Truth About Benghazi.”

What do all of these headlines from one of President Obama’s worst weeks in office have in common? It is this: Big government, by its very nature, almost always becomes corrupt. This is because big government (in place of good government) is driven by two things: money and power, and both have a tendency to corrupt people … even good people. This is one reason Sutherland counts limited government as one of its core principles.

Take the IRS scandal, which stems from a recently released Treasury inspector general’s report that showed the IRS was improperly scrutinizing conservative and tea party groups applying for tax-exempt status.

The IRS activity is classic big government using its power and authority to target groups it feels are hostile to its ideology. Big government wants more government, meaning more power and money, and tea party groups want less government and more freedom. So big government discourages, interrogates, and targets tea party groups hoping to find inappropriate, if not illegal, activity so it can take action against these groups that it does not like. Sounds more like a move straight from Stalin’s communist Russia than America, doesn’t it?

Sutherland Institute’s own website has been searched by 100 local, state and federal groups since January 2011. Federal groups include the IRS, Homeland Security, the FBI and the Department of Justice. Who knows what these visits represent, but this recent news about the IRS targeting conservative groups certainly raises questions.

And then there’s the Justice Department’s wiretapping of more than 20 phone lines used by Associated Press journalists, along with the department’s intense tracking of the activity and whereabouts of Fox News correspondent James Rosen. The Justice Department tracked Rosen’s location using security badge access records, traced his phone calls and obtained a search warrant for his personal e-mails. Again, big government appears to be using its power, assets and authority to potentially stifle a key component of freedom: the ability of the press and its sources to communicate and share vital information. It appears that if big government doesn’t want certain freedom of communication to take place, it will wield its power to stop it.

And the last in this latest string of embarrassments for the Obama administration is the clashing statements on Benghazi, where four Americans were killed in an attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya. Newly released emails indicate State Department officials worked to remove references to al-Qaida and to earlier warnings made by the intelligence community about security in the region, which contradicts statements made immediately after the attack about who was involved and what the motives were.

So once again, big government using its power to conceal, revise history, stonewall, obfuscate and prevent any damaging truth from coming to light.

And of course the million-dollar question: What was President Obama’s role in all of these scandals? The president says he learned about all of them through the news … a statement that, if true, raises a whole raft of questions about his competence as America’s chief executive.

But one thing we know he has done is relentlessly characterized his political opponents as unreasonable obstructionists who care nothing about average, struggling American men, women, and children, and who care only for the well-being of the rich. The president sent the message to every well-meaning (and less well-meaning) federal employee that those who disagree with him politically were ill-intentioned fiends, and who wouldn’t want to go after such bad people as that? President Obama, by his endless demagoguing and policies to expand government, created the big government political culture that breeds the kinds of scandals we’ve seen in the last week.

The reality is that if you give government power to do everything you can think for it to do, it will use that power to do whatever it wants to do.  Freedom will become secondary.  Individual liberties will be secondary.  Because as the government gains more power, everything it does will be about power.  Only by limiting government’s power and authority can we safeguard our freedoms as individuals, as families, and as communities.

For Sutherland Institute, I’m David Buer, sitting in for Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

Receive the Mero Moment each week directly to your iTunes by clicking here.

Rebecca Walker (photo: David Fenton, 2003)

In 2008, the daughter of novelist Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, wrote about how her mother’s extreme feminism poisoned her life. Rebecca Walker rued her upbringing and praised the happiness that motherhood has now brought her. Her article caused a bit of an uproar at the time.

My mother’s feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn’t even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery. Having a career, travelling the world and being independent were what really mattered according to her. …

Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.

Five years later, mother and daughter are still estranged, and the original piece by Rebecca Walker is worth reading again.

Two words: digital learning.

The Deseret News published two news stories showing how this is happening. The first contains stories of K-12 age children whose educational lives have been saved or changed by digital learning: children who were being robbed of educational opportunities by non-Hodgkins lymphoma or bipolar disorder; children who sought to graduate high school early or get college credit while still attending high school; or children whose childhood is cut short because they have to go to work to help support their families.

These stories show how digital learning, done right, is truly centered on the child – working around the child’s individual schedule, moving at the child’s pace, and with help available from teachers “around the clock.” They show how digital learning is redefining public education to abilities – truly personalizing education based on the needs of the child, rather than adults or “the system.” They also show how digital learning, though child-centered, is improving the lives of teachers by using technology to accomplish mundane tasks like grading while allowing teachers to focus their time doing what they do best: helping children learn.

The second article details a movement to create a system of voluntary “interstate reciprocity” in which states agree to accept credit for college courses completed online in other states because they meet an agreed-upon set of standards. This would be similar to already existing reciprocity agreements in areas such as teacher licensing, for example, which allow a teacher working in another state to teach in Utah without being required to start over and get a Utah teacher’s license. With reciprocity agreements in place, digital learning opportunities in higher education would be expanded to young people who would not otherwise have access to them.

These are just a few of the many examples of how digital learning is changing education for the benefit of children. It makes one wonder about the thinking and priorities of those who claim to represent the education community while seeking to oppose or delay[1] digital learning innovations.

Who is the most trusted person in your life? And why is that person your most trusted person? What triggers these questions is a recent Reader’s Digest poll surveying subscribers about their most trusted American. Those subscribers told Reader’s Digest that their most trusted American is actor Tom Hanks. In fact, the top four most trusted Americans are actors: Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep.

There’s a lot we could talk about here, but let’s just focus on a couple of things.

First, it’s not surprising that subscribers to Reader’s Digest would choose Hollywood actors, especially these four actors. America lives a Hollywood culture. Entertainment is America’s No. 1 pastime. We watch way too much television. We get way too many cultural cues from gossip magazines about celebrities. And, for the most part, average Americans really do believe that Hollywood actors are more intelligent and more informed than them.

Only people my age and older would remember a time when Jack Klugman, a popular television star who once played a medical examiner named “Quincy,” was actually asked by a congressional committee in the early 1980s to testify on an orphan drug bill. By the way, that bill was being blocked by Utah’s own Orrin Hatch who eventually was swayed by the actor to vote for the bill. Klugman’s experience also was no doubt responsible for the popular expression, today spun by the Holiday Inn chain, “I’m not a real doctor, I just play one on TV.”

People believe Hollywood actors. But why shouldn’t they? Actors are acting. They get paid for us to believe them! And that leads us to a second point. It’s not a coincidence that Americans chose Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep as their most trusted Americans – these are four fine actors. Maybe the best Hollywood now has to offer. I watched Denzel in his movie “The Book of Eli,” about a blind post-apocalyptic survivor. Only you didn’t know he was blind until the end of the movie. That’s how good of an actor Denzel is. And that’s why Hollywood actors are enlisted for all sorts of serious and trendy political causes.

Would you believe Tom Hanks about space flight? The National Space Society does. Hanks is a member of its National Governing Board – all because he made a movie about Apollo 13. I’m not saying he doesn’t know about space flight. In fact, making “Apollo 13” had to be a fascinating learning experience. All I’m saying is that if I want to know about space flight, I’ll probably take the word of someone who’s actually flown in space, not an actor who plays an astronaut in a movie.

So let me ask you: Who is the most trusted person in your life? If that most trusted person is someone you’ve never met, you might want to get yourself a reality check. For me, my most trusted person is my wife, Sally. I have work colleagues I trust implicitly with my life. I also have a couple of neighbors whose judgment and care I trust unequivocally. And, like most Americans, there’s those one or two old friends that I haven’t seen in years who, if I needed them today, would be right there to care for me.

Then again, I never met Ronald Reagan and I’d say I trusted him with our country. In light of that, you might be wondering where America’s politicians fell on the Reader’s Digest poll? The first one to appear is Michelle Obama at No. 19. Former President Jimmy Carter came in at No. 24. Hillary Clinton ranked No. 51. And President Barack Obama is the 65^th most trusted American.

For Sutherland Institute, I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

The regulatory costs of the first terms of President Clinton (1993-1996) and President George W. Bush (2001-2004) also occurred during economic recoveries, after recessions in 1991 and 2001, respectively. And, perhaps not coincidentally, those recoveries were far more robust, healthy, and, most importantly, returned far more jobless Americans to gainful employment and better lives than the current “recovery.”

Hat tip to The Weekly Standard blog for posting this chart. To see the full report from George Washington University, click here.

The Blaze reported on an article from Chief Executive magazine listing the “Best and Worst States for Business.”

The top states are:

1. Texas
2. Florida
3. North Carolina
4. Tennessee
5. Indiana

The bottom states are:

1. California
2. New York
3. Illinois
4. Massachusetts
5. New Jersey

Of course, correlation is not causation, but it is at least interesting that the top five states all have one really important thing in common, as do the bottom five. The top five all define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. In fact, four of the five have state constitutional amendments on that point. The bottom five all have either redefined marriage (New York, Massachusetts) or created an alternative legal status providing all the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples (California, Illinois, New Jersey).

The National Organization for Marriage published a briefing paper that very effectively addresses this question (click here to read).

If you don’t know the answers, then keep reading.

The Tax Foundation – a nonpartisan national think tank that publishes information concerning federal, state and local taxes – regularly publishes “tax maps” that compare states across the nation on areas like tax rates, tax burdens, and how heavily states rely on different kinds of taxes.

For the sake of encouraging a more informed public dialogue on taxes in Utah, we collected a variety of these maps to post on our blog. If you want to see the full list of available tax maps from the Tax Foundation, click here. Enjoy!

Tax Burdens – Sales and Income Taxes

Tax Rates – Sales, Income and Gas Taxes

Tax Rates – Taxes on Harmful Substances

Tax Reliance – Sales, Income, Property, and Corporate Income Taxes

There will be a quiz on this information next week.

Salt Lake City’s Main Street in the 1890s.

Wednesday, May 8, 1895, was the last formal day of the Utah Constitutional Convention.

Unlike the lawyer-dominated Philadelphia Convention, the top occupation of Utah delegates was farming, though lawyers were certainly represented. The president of the convention was John Henry Smith, and prominent delegates included Thomas F. Kearns, who would later be a U.S. senator and owner of The Salt Lake Tribune (and donor of the Governor’s Mansion), and Orson F. Whitney, who would later be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There were 97 delegates to the convention, 49 Republican and 48 Democrat. A full 37 had been born outside the United States. Only 28 had been born in Utah.

The Utah Constitution, like other state constitutions, typically gets much less attention than it deserves. This is a problem because under the system adopted by the Framers of the United States Constitution, states, rather than national government entities, were intended to have the most direct interaction with citizens.

The first application for statehood of what would become the Utah Territory was made in 1849, two years after the Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. Unsuccessful applications were made five more times over the next four decades. Community leaders in the territory knew immediately (and would have that knowledge confirmed repeatedly over the years) that statehood was the way to protect local autonomy.

Eventually, on July 16, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed the Enabling Act for Utah statehood. In the November election of that year, delegates were elected for a constitutional convention. The delegates met in convention from March 4 to May 8 of 1895 and drafted a proposed constitution for the state.

The new constitution was easily ratified by voters the next year. Congress approved and President Cleveland signed the Proclamation making Utah a state on January 4, 1896.

Seventy years later, a vote was held on whether to hold another convention for a major overhaul of the Utah Constitution, but the proposal was rejected by 85 percent of voters. Thus, the 1896 constitution, with occasional amendments, has served us well for well over a century.

In future posts I will talk more about the convention and some of the unique provisions of the Utah Constitution.

The following post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations.

The Boy Scouts of America is scheduled to vote later this month on its proposed nondiscrimination policy on sexual orientation for its youth. I was asked by a BSA official to provide some thoughts on the subject in a letter and here are some of those thoughts. I wrote,

Sutherland Institute is sure of a few facts and consequences, if the policy is approved.

First, BSA is not being challenged legally on this issue. … In other words, this debate, as much as it has been unnecessarily contentious, is a self-inflicted wound for BSA.

Second, the proposed policy is a solution looking for a problem. The fact is that no one knows how many youth not in Scouting, but who would like to be, self-identify with a homosexual orientation. What everyone does know is that that number is unremarkably few….

Third, homosexuality, whether imagined or enacted, is incompatible with Scouting. … For a Scouter to think homosexual thoughts or to act on those attractions is not being one’s better self.

And, fourth, there is the issue of psychological and emotional abuse of a child. For BSA to passively accept the idea that a 10-year old has some irreversible homosexual “orientation” that seals his sexual fate for the rest of his life is psychological and emotional abuse of a child….

The consequences for BSA in passing the proposed policy are clear and obvious.

• On January 1, 2014, the unremarkably few youth who self-identify as homosexual are allowed into Scouting.
• On January 2, 2014, “gay rights” advocates will file a federal lawsuit claiming that the new Scout policy violates the “Equal Protection” clause of the U.S. Constitution by prohibiting “gay” adult leaders.*
• By January 3, 2014, media throughout the nation will exaggerate and over-report on the relatively few “gay” youth who sign up for Scouts – for a significant moment in time the new face of Scouting will be homosexuality.
• By January 4, 2014, media throughout the nation will underreport on the significant exodus of faithful Scouters and their families from the Scouting program.
• By January 5, 2014, in just one week, BSA will realize it just burned down the house to fry a piece of bacon in implementing the new policy.
• By the summer of 2014, a federal court will rule that BSA’s policy prohibiting “gay” adult Scout leaders is irrational and based on animus, ordering BSA to immediately reverse its historic policy and thereby trigger another grueling, costly and protracted lawsuit.
• And, at some point in 2014, everyone who has ever cherished Scouting will realize that it no longer represents what it once stood for nor can it possibly meet its historic purpose and mission to serve America’s youth….

BSA is a private organization. Sutherland Institute is concerned about public policy. As a significant institution of private culture, BSA’s decisions have enormous public impact. If it’s a concern at all, please know that BSA’s decision will spill over into public policy and influence generations of law and policies to come.

That’s what I wrote to the Boy Scouts.

For Sutherland Institute, I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

* BSA has a federal charter.