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Anti-Gay Marriage Letters To The Editor: How Many Is Too Many?

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Biased By Choice?

The Editors, were they to respond to this, no doubt would claim they were reflecting the voices in their community. To which, one must say, so what? Isn’t the obligation of a local newspaper, whose reach is now all but infinite, thanks to the Internet, to teach, to communicate through knowledge, to form community, and to raise the standard of discourse? Or are Letters to the Editor merely a public forum for unedited, uneducated gay-bashing? What are Letters to the Editor for?

MyCentralJersey.com, which is run by newspaper giants Gannet and USA Today, has been stacking the deck with outrageous letters against marriage equality that clearly are so far away from the voice of reason, not to mention the voice of any community in New Jersey, that one has to wonder why they are being published, why so many are being published, and who is making the decision to publish them?

In case you didn’t click on all those links, here are titles of a few choice Letters to the Editor against marriage equality that MyCentralJersey.com saw fit to print. (Sadly, you’ll have to pay to read the full letters, but these abstracts are enough to get the gist):

Weak bonds doom gay marriages.”

Marriage definitions shouldn’t be abandoned.” (The entire letter reads, “Since their lover is not of the opposite sex, they cannot become husband and wife.”)

It’s a civil union; it’s a partnership; it’s not a marriage.”

Gay marriage approval would harm parents.”

Gay marriage would have broad impact.”

Homosexuality will never be accepted.”

Gay marriage would not reflect public opinion.”

Don’t believe rhetoric supporting gay marriage.”

Facts are clear: Gay marriage won’t work.”

Get the picture? How many anti-marriage equality Letters to the Editor does MyCentralJersey.com feel the need to publish? Now, to be fair, they certainly publish Letters to the Editor in favor of marriage equality, but, to my eye, not in equal degree. And even if there were a one-to-one ratio, ignorance and hatred, ensconced under the headline of “opinion,” have no place in our local news, or our homes.

Take the most recent ignorant attack, today’s “Gay marriage not a civil right.” (When did we stop using verbs?) Author of the letter, Robert T. Heath, writes,

“Homosexuality is a form of same-sex relationships involving practices and behaviors that have always been understood as abnormal, unhealthy, immoral, and destructive to the fabric of any society. That fact is never going to change despite all the misinformation, lies, and deception propagated by its “advocates.”

“Who in their right mind would want our children to be taught and encouraged about homosexual lifestyles and behaviors when they are not even close to being sexually active? Yet this is already being presented in “educational” books and subtle media presentations to “indoctrinate” a way of thinking that will make homosexuality seem okay.”

Really?

As I’ve written numerous times now, Julian Bond, the Chairman of the NAACP, Coretta Scott King, Senator Nia Gill ALL agree that same sex marriage is a civil right. (Let’s not forget that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that marriage is a civil right.)

I believe in having one’s say, but it is everyone’s responsibility to hold reasoned, intelligent arguments – or spend some time with a book.

But my issue is not with Mr. Heath. No doubt the local readers of MyCentralJersey.com will roundly excoriate him, just as the readers of NJ.com did George Berkin. (Regular readers here will be pleased to learn that Mr. Berkin has not penned another piece for NJ.com since I wrote, “New Jersey: Just Say “Yes” To Gay Marriage, and “No” To George Berkin.”)

My issue is with the Editors of MyCentralJersey.com, who once again, for whatever undisclosed purpose, have chosen to publish among their pages, the ignorant ranting of an uninformed bigot.

A Letter to the Editor is not an Internet chat room. Every newspaper publisher has a responsibility to their community. It’s time the Editors of MyCentralJersey.com exercised that responsibility.

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‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

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Stephen Miller, the architect of Donald Trump’s child and family separation policy and one of his longest-serving, die-hard loyalists, will become the incoming president’s deputy chief of staff for policy, a top role in the second administration of the Republican nationalist.

Miller, an immigration hardliner who was also responsible for Trump’s Muslim-majority country travel ban, has a history of promoting white nationalist rhetoric. He is responsible for the separation of thousands of young children from their parents, and even from their siblings, as a means to deter other asylum seekers from crossing the southern border into the United States. Under Trump and Miller’s “zero tolerance” policy, there were no plans to reunite the children with their parents.

Despite efforts by the Biden administration, thousands of children have never been placed back into their families. As of May, 1400 children remained separated from their parents.

READ MORE: Trump Nomination of Stefanik to UN Resurfaces ‘Ultra MAGA’ Transformation

“Miller will return with more influence than he had in the first Trump administration, where he served as a senior adviser for policy, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN,” The Daily Beast adds, noting that Miller was also behind Trump’s “American carnage” inauguration address.

CNN reports that “Miller is also a lead architect of the president-elect’s plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He has said that a second Trump administration would seek a tenfold increase in the number of deportations to more than 1 million per year. In an interview on Fox News last week, Miller expressed eagerness at the prospect of beginning mass deportations as soon as possible.”

“They begin on Inauguration Day, as soon as he takes the oath of office,” Miller said.

“Confirming the appointment, Vice President-elect JD Vance posted a message of congratulations on Monday to Miller on X and said, ‘This is another fantastic pick by the president.’ The announcement was first reported by CNN,” The Associated Press reports.

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In 2019, The Guardian called Miller “the white nationalist at the heart of Trump’s White House,” amid an “extraordinary email leak” that revealed Miller had “promoted white nationalist articles and books in emails to a writer at Breitbart, who after leaving the hard-right website leaked 900 messages to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).”

Miller also wrote at least part of Trump’s infamous January 6, 2021 speech at the Ellipse, during which he said, “…and we’re going to walk to the Capitol…”

CNN, in a minute-by-minute analysis of the insurrection,  reported that at 9:52 AM, “Trump talks to senior adviser and lead speechwriter Stephen Miller for 26 minutes, according to White House records that were obtained by the committee and released at a public hearing. After Trump’s conversation with Miller, Trump adjusts a draft of his upcoming speech to add more lines about Pence and the joint session of Congress, according to the committee, which reviewed the drafts.”

In February of 2017, just weeks into Trump’s first term, Miller told reporters, “our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial, and will not be questioned.”

Watch the video bel0w or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Probably Illegal Rumors’: Trump Calls for Investigations — to Protect His Interests

 

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Trump Nomination of Stefanik to UN Resurfaces ‘Ultra MAGA’ Transformation

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U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has accepted Donald Trump’s nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, drawing criticism from opponents who challenge the president-elect’s decision to cite her prior controversial and shifting statements, including her apparent hostility toward the international organization.

“Stefanik has repeatedly attacked the United Nations over accusations that the world body is antisemitic. Last month she called for a ‘complete reassessment of U.S. funding of the United Nations’ in response to efforts by the Palestinian Authority to expel Israel from the United Nations as war rages in the Middle East,” Politico reports. “Stefanik this year drew praise from Republicans and Jewish leaders after she grilled college presidents in a House hearing on their handling of campus demonstrations over the Israel-Gaza war.”

But before Donald Trump won the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, Congresswoman Stefanik had opposed the real estate mogul and later attributed responsibility for the January 6, 2021, insurrection to the now-former president, who sought to overturn his election defeat.

Stefanik, 40, currently also serves as the Chair of the House Republican Conference, a role she won after MAGA Republicans ousted U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from that leadership position. Cheney, who opposed Donald Trump, served as one of two Republicans on the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

READ MORE: ‘My Family in Danger’: Democratic Congressman Reveals Chilling Details of ‘Potential Plot’

In 2021, Mother Jones reported that Stefanik had said Trump was soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin, and noted that her replacing Cheney “marks the triumph of Trump-uber-alles fealty within GOP circles. A heretic is being excommunicated and replaced by a loyalist. It’s been noted that Stefanik entered the House as a moderate and now is being anointed as a top Trumper who has fully supported Trump’s Big Lie that the election was rigged against him.”

“But Stefanik’s Trumpification stands out because only a few years ago—well into Trump’s presidency—she was speaking critically about him on key fronts. In fact, at times Stefanik sounded practically like a Never Trumper, as she called on Trump to recognize that Russia had attacked the 2016 election to help him, urged him to release his tax returns, and assailed him for his comments about women.”

The following year, Stefanik proudly declared, “I am ultra-MAGA.”

Before that, Stefanik had made decisively anti-Trump statements, like, “Russia meddled in our electoral process,” and, “We’ve seen evidence that Russia tried to hurt the Hillary Clinton campaign,” and, “I am concerned about some of the contacts between Russians and surrogates within the Trump Organization and the Trump campaign.”

In December of 2022, The New York Times published a lengthy profile on Congresswoman Stefanik, detailing how she had “embarked on one of the most brazen political transformations of the Trump era. With breathtaking speed and alacrity, Ms. Stefanik remade herself into a fervent Trump apologist, adopted his over-torqued style on Twitter and embraced the conspiracy theories that animate his base, amplifying debunked allegations of dead voters casting ballots in Atlanta and unspecified ‘irregularities‘ involving voting-machine software in 2020 swing states.”

“Ms. Stefanik’s reinvention has made her a case study in the collapse of the old Republican establishment and its willing absorption into the new, Trump-dominated one.”

Critics now note that she deleted her original statement condemning the January 6, 2021 violence at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection.

And point to an interview she did that highlighted that New York Times report:

Her “reinvention” would also come to include her full-throated support for George Santos, the now-expelled Republican former U.S. congressman and convicted felon, an endorsement that remains on her social media page.

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In January, Stefanik declared she had “concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages.”

Former Republican Capitol Hill communications director Tara Setmayer blasted Stefanik for, among other things, calling those convicted of crimes surrounding the January 6 insurrection “hostages.”

Stefanik faced condemnation after that declaration, but escaped a resolution that would have censured her.

NPR’s Brian Mann, who had reported on Stefanik in 2018, wrote Monday that the New York Republican lawmaker’s “foreign policy values during her early career (neocon, antiRussia, internationalist, proNATO) have proven entirely flexible. They have been adjusted or abandoned to reflect Trump’s agenda.”

“Underestimating Stefanik,” he warned, “has ended so many careers.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Probably Illegal Rumors’: Trump Calls for Investigations — to Protect His Interests

 

 

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‘My Family in Danger’: Democratic Congressman Reveals Chilling Details of ‘Potential Plot’

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U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz Friday evening revealed the chilling details of an apparent potential assassination plot he says has endangered his life and his family. The Florida Democrat says police arrested a suspect who is a former felon, had body armor, a rifle, an antisemitic manifesto, with “only my name on the ‘target’ list.”

“The day before the election, I was notified by the Margate Police Department, located in my Congressional District, about a potential plot on my life,” Congresman Moskwitz said in a statement. “The individual in question was arrested not far from my home; he is a former felon who was in possession of a rifle, a suppressor, and body armor. Found with him was a manifesto that, among other things, included antisemitic rhetoric and only my name on the ‘target’ list. There are many other details that I will not disclose as I do not want to interfere with an ongoing investigation. I want to thank local law enforcement, the US Marshalls, the FBI, the US Capitol Police, and the US Attorney’s office.”

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“As someone who was appointed to the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump, I understand the failures and importance of fixing the protection of our current and future Commander- In-Chief and Vice President.”

Rep. Moskowitz adds that, “At the same time, I am deeply worried about Congressional member security and the significant lack thereof when we are in the district. Regardless of our political affiliations or differences, we all have families we want to keep safe.”

In a post on social media, Moskowitz added, “Serving my constituents is a great honor, but it has put my family in danger.”

READ MORE: ‘Probably Illegal Rumors’: Trump Calls for Investigations — to Protect His Interests

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