The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/888369
D-8 Opinion Wednesday, October 18, 2017 The Press-Dispatch Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Important new step for religious freedom Court Report CRIMINAL Pike Circuit Court Kevin R. Bolin charged with intimi- dation, a level 6 felony. Shelby G. Robling charged with count I possession of methamphet- amine, a level 6 felony, count II unlaw- ful possession of syringe, count III op- erating a vehicle with a schedule I or II controlled substance or its metabo- lite in the body, and count IV posses- sion of paraphernalia. Brian D. Wedding II charged with count I possession of methamphet- amine, a level 6 felony, count II unlaw- ful possession of syringe, and count III possession of paraphernalia. Edward L. Bowling II charged with two counts of operating a vehicle with a schedule I or II controlled substance or its metabolite in the body, a level 6 felony. Levi C. Beck charged with two counts of nonsupport of a dependent child, a level 6 felony. Cory L. LeMasters charged with count I dealing in methamphetamine, a level 3 felony, count II possession of methamphetamine, and count III oper- ating a vehicle while intoxicated. Jacob A. Brand AK A Jacob A. At- teberry charged with count I dealing in methamphetamine, a level 3 felony, and count II possession of metham- phetamine. TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANOR Pike Circuit Court Larry M. Hitt charged with count I operating a vehicle with a schedule I or II controlled substance or its metab- olite in the body, count II operating a vehicle while intoxicated, and count III possession of paraphernalia. Bryan D. Malin charged with pos- session of a synthetic drug or synthet- ic drug look-a-like substance. Lori L. Attebery charged with count I possession of a synthetic drug or syn- thetic drug look-a-like substance and count II operating a vehicle while in- toxicated. Thomas L. Jackson charged with op- erating a vehicle with an ACE of .08 or more. Cody Aaron Michael Smith charged with possession of marijuana. Mark J. Hand charged with false cer- tificate of registration for motor vehi- cle. Jada Lynae Bruce charged with pub- lic intoxication. CIVIL DOCKET Pike Circuit Court LVNV Funding LLC sues Stephanie Hope Lundquist on complaint. Heather Danielle Gentry sues Grego- ry Mark Gentry for dissolution of mar- riage. SMALL CLAIMS Pike Circuit Court Hoosier Accounts Service sues Sher- ri Sumner on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Ed- ward Fiore on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Clint A. Russell on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Jamie M. Jines on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Mi- chael E. Creel on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Zack- ery A. Head on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Stacy L. McCandless on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Mel- anie D. Aaserud on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Leathe A. Vanmeter on complaint. INFRACTIONS Pike Circuit Court Bonnie Beach charged with speed- ing, 84 mph in a 70 zone. Marcos Bravo charged with speed- ing, 88 mph in a 70 zone. Cathleen Butler charged with speed- ing, 70 mph in a 55 zone. Colton DeJarnett charged with driv- ing while suspended. Mitchell Diamond charged with speeding, 84 mph in a 70 zone. Storm Easterly charged with driving while suspended. Jeremy Moore charged with operat- ing a motor vehicle with a false plate. Jimenez Munoz charged with speed- ing, 90 mph in a 70 zone. Bryan Prodzenki charged with speeding, 92 mph in a 70 zone. Eli Zavala Saravia charged with speeding, 84 mph in a 70 zone. Piedad Ayala charged with speeding, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Michael Billow charged with speed- ing, 39 mph in a 30 zone. Belynda Braun charged with speed- ing, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Chandler Buchanan charged with speeding, 79 mph in a 70 zone. Jeffrey Catt charged with seatbelt vi- olation. Anell Clemons charged with speed- ing, 79 mph in a 70 zone. Lauren Craig charged with speeding, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Ana Cruz Lopez charged with speed- ing, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Nicholas Dant charged with speed- ing, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Hannah Eades charged with speed- ing, 79 mph in a 70 zone. Kelsey Farrell charged with speed- ing, 79 mph in a 70 zone. Jesse Freeland charged with speed- ing, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Bobby Johnson charged with speed- ing, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Scott Kaiser charged with speeding, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Dakota Knieriem charged with seat - belt violation. Brent Kress charged with speeding, 60 mph in a 35 zone. Bryan Lewis charged with speeding, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Mitchell Miller charged with speed - ing, 39 mph in a 25 zone. Kristen Myers charged with count I driving while suspended and count II speeding, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Colton Riker charged with speeding, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Timothy Schulze charged with speed- ing, 72 mph in a 55 zone. Dylan Seng charged with speeding, 70 mph in a 55 zone. George Terwiske charged with seat- belt violation. Sunit Tiwari charged with speeding, 88 mph in a 70 zone. Kristi Vibbert charged with speed- ing, 49 mph in a 35 zone. Holly Weber charged with speeding, 79 mph in a 70 zone. Austin Ashby charged with speeding, 78 mph in a 55 zone. Danny Dalton charged with speed- ing, 85 mph in a 70 zone. Nicholas Gries charged with speed- ing, 84 mph in a 70 zone. James Keown charged with speeding, 85 mph in a 60 zone. Hannah Lloyd charged with speed- ing, 88 mph in a 70 zone. Talor McQueen charged with speed- ing, 103 mph in a 70 zone. Janice Mullins charged with driving left of center. Edward Purnell charged with speed - ing, 93 mph in a 70 zone. Brandon Robinson charged with driv- ing while suspended. Earl Townsend V charged with speed- ing, 74 mph in a 55 zone. ans]. Christian social justice warriors are ferreting out all avenues of perceived dis- crimination and aggression; yet fail to realize Christian- ity and Jesus is offensive to a significant segment of the world's population. Will we see in our lifetime criminal penalties for telling the sto- ries of Sodom and Gomor- rah and linking them to sex- ual aberrations? Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." Is not this offensive to all other re- ligions? Could not this be de- fined as hate speech? It is long past time for the Church to act as if they ac- tually believe it has a mes- sage. Not of social justice, but through the power of the Holy Ghost to preach Christ and Him crucified, which is the power to change lives! Jesus did not enact a polit- ical ideology or platform. By His death and resurrection, we are challenged to imi- tate Him. The lack of a par- tisan creed means that we as Christians cannot use power and force to demand change. The power of Christ through discipleship can change the world without co- ercion! The world in which we live is imprisoned with its evil impulses. The only way to escape the prison called humanity is to tap into the power that Christ promised to those that believe: "…you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;" We must be the body of Christ and shake off the shackles of religious/polit- ical gerrymandering or be content with the status quo. Think about it! Continued from page 7 LIFE in unrelated fields or chip- ping away at unrelated col- lege degrees. We just don't acknowledge or value their skill set, or their uncompro- mised patriotism. We'd rather rely on civil- ian careerists who shrug off mass shootings and get back to the petty turf wars and ethnic politics of mod- ern urban police depart- ments. That's the blind spot. We have men who can pro- tect large, vulnerable gath- erings, but we are deter- mined not to see them. It's not just politicized big- city law enforcement that is dismissive of Special Op- erations Command veter- ans. Corporate boardrooms are no better. I know of at least two West Coast pro- fessional sport franchises that were approached with ex-Ranger proposals to pro- tect their stadium crowds and avenues of approach. In one case, the former Rang- ers and Delta operators nev- er got the courtesy of a re- ply. In the other, they were informed that the team was going with a different secu- rity model. That model is to use un- paid volunteers from vari- ous civic organizations. For the make-believe security officers' donated game-day services, the sport franchise makes a donation to their or- ganization. This is a public relations stroke of genius, yielding a harvest of pho- to opps, press releases and goodwill all around. But it's also a shameful abdication of the team's solemn respon- sibility to protect the vulner- able, disarmed fans and ath- letes it gathers into a con- stricted, nationally televised space for profit. Those volunteers are lit- tle more than ushers. Their instructions are to notify po- lice of any security crisis. This is not a responsible se- curity model. I am confident that ex- Rangers, if brought in to se- cure the Las Vegas concert from the beginning, would have identified the shooter immediately and either re- turned fire or pre-emptive- ly shot him off the ledge. At worst, the casualties would have been in the single dig- its. How much do we care about massacres at pub- lic venues? Sure, we care enough to sniffle at the for- mulaic vignettes that the media are so good at. We care enough to fight over gun control, and to circu- late dark conspiracy theo- ries. We care enough to give the shooter his immortal no- toriety, as sought. But do we care enough to prevent the preventable? The jury's still out on that one, but it's not look- ing good. Continued from page 7 MASSACRE Continued from page 7 MILITARY Continued from page 7 WORLD hardly a remote possibility. The editors also assess the various threat levels to U.S. interests around the world (Asia, the Middle East, Eu- rope) and find some trou- bling storm clouds on the horizon. All of the six noted "threat actors" in the index — Rus- sia, China, Iran, North Ko- rea and terrorist groups in the Middle East and A fghan- istan — now rank "high" on the scale of threats to U.S. interests, with Russia com- ing close to being elevat- ed to "severe" from its past score of "high." Russia and China are the "most worrisome," the edi- tors note. Both are modern- izing and expanding their offensive military capabili- ties in ways that indicate it won't be long before they could pose a more serious threat than they already do. And I hardly need to re- mind everyone of North Ko- rea's nuclear ambitions. The latest tests by Kim Jong-un's bellicose regime clearly hint at North Korea's ability to reach targets in the United States and among its allies. In short, the world is be- coming more dangerous, even as America's ability to counter that danger contin- ues to degrade. But it doesn't have to be this way. There's still time for Congress and the presi- dent to turn the ship before it hits an iceberg. Yes, they have taken some positive steps recent- ly to fund readiness more ro- bustly. But they haven't over- turned the Budget Control Act that caps defense spend- ing. And they haven't yet shown a real commitment to fund the military at lev- els necessary to modernize aging equipment and make the military capable of meet- ing its many obligations. President Reagan often spoke of "peace through strength." Our strength is clearly ebbing. Will peace soon follow? Ed Feulner is the president of The Heritage Foundation. on the internet to do that, but I don't feel comfortable doing that yet. So the emotions they evoke make one go through a roller coaster of highs and not so highs. Like for instance see- ing family members and friends who are not with us anymore. Makes one feel the importance of keeping in touch, expressing caring and love for those around us. Making every mo- ment be treasured as best as we can. Such is the mystery of life. I can now agree to many comments I used to hear when I was younger: "Where did time go? " "How fast time flies. Funny I also have heard how time flies when one is having fun, or time is fun when you are having flies. One of the two. LOL. • • • So I often hear questions thrown my way. "Hey, How's retirement? Are you enjoying your time off ? " My standard answer is "I love it." I truly do. A fter all, having 45 years of faithful and nonstop work makes me think the Good Lord is gifting me with the opportunity to just smell the ros- es and harvest the fruits of hard and steady labor. I also hear questions like, "Are you doing a lot of traveling? " To which I answer, "Some." You know, when you hit the seventh decade of life, driving can be some- what of a challenge, from the stand- point of accuracy, good vision and good stamina. I used not to understand this, but now I do. For those who are young- er than I am, you will someday know what I'm talking about. There was a time when being in an airplane for 9 -13 hours at a time was not that hard. Now. after 2-3 hours of flight, I'm ready to be on land. And by golly, those security screen- ing and transferring from one terminal to the other in airports have become quite an ordeal. Now, simple pleasures derived from going to nice eating places, watching nature, brief walks, short drives, be- ing with family, making and getting calls from relatives are becoming a treasure. Oh yeah, I forgot, doing facebook, reading books I've always wanted to read, going to the library and al- so watching Netflix and You tube are so entertaining. I've also gotten busy contacting our lawmakers about issues that are important to our nation build- ing. This I'm doing for the sake of my children and grandchildren. Some- times I get inspired, I think of enter- ing politics, but I need to build up my strength and guts. So I'll confine my- self to letter writing to lawmakers for now. • • • On the lighter side of life: There are three stages in a man's life: First stage-Plenty of time, plenty of energy, some money. Second stage- Plenty of energy, Fair amount of money, No time. Third stage- Plenty of time, enough money, no energy. Wisdom of the week: God can mend all broken hearts. You just have to give Him the pieces. Arguing for protection of religious freedom, the Trump administration has opened the door for employers to withdraw from the A ffordable Care Act mandate requiring them to pro- vide birth control coverage at no cost to employees. Under new rules issued by Depart- ment of Health and Human Services, religiously affiliated institutions that find the requirement opposed to their religious principles, or nonreligious employers who find it morally objec- tionable, can stop providing this cov- erage. The birth control mandate when first issued under the ACA exempt- ed only houses of worship. This pro- voked a host of lawsuits among which was that of Hobby Lobby, a closely held firm controlled by evangelical Chris- tians. That lawsuit made its way to the Supreme Court, which granted an exemption to these kinds of "closely held" businesses. We now have, in this new blanket release for employers with religious and moral objections, an important and meaningful step toward reviving and restoring the integrity of our pre- cious religious freedom, under siege now for years. Lawsuits against the Trump admin- istration are now starting to flow. The American Civil Liberties Union claims, "The Trump administration is forcing women to pay for their boss's religious beliefs ... the government cannot au- thorize discrimination against women in the name of religion or otherwise." The total disinterest of those on the left regarding the ideals toward which our Constitution aspires, and their readiness to rewrite it all in the service of their own narrow left-wing agenda, never ceases to amaze. Let's recall that the preamble to the U.S. Constitution says that the point of the whole effort is "to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Pos- terity." Is there anyone that could possibly be- lieve that among these "blessings of liberty" is government mandating employers to buy birth control devices and pills for their employees? And that if they don't, women are forced "to pay for their boss's religious beliefs"? Dripping with irony, and absurdity, is the insistence of these same femi- nists and left-wing activists that gov- ernment stay out of our bedrooms, while they are more than glad for gov- ernment to force our employers into our bedrooms, as long as they show up with their checkbook. Birth control that the A ffordable Care Act requires that employers pro- vide free includes Plan B and ella, both considered by some in the medical community as abortifacients - - abor- tion-inducing pills. It really doesn't matter that there are differences of opinion regarding exact- ly how these pills operate. The fact that there are credible medical sources that see these pills as abortifacients is suf- ficient, in my view, to understand and respect the religious sensibilities here. Increasing infringement on reli- gious freedom comes part and parcel with the massive expansion of govern- ment, particularly over the last half century. In 1970, less than 30 percent of the federal budget consisted of transfer payments to indi- viduals. By 2013, this was up to 70 percent. Of this 70 percent, almost 40 percent is health care expenditures. So the percentage of individ- ual health care expenditures paid or mandated by the gov- ernment has increased sub- stantially over the years. As we turn more power over to government, our lives become increasingly politicized and we relin- quish more and more of our freedom. Washington bureaucrats, working with armies of lobbyists, impose their values on us. These values often carry the banner of political expedience and secular humanism, pushing religious freedom out the door. As the tsunami of government man- dated secularism washes away reli- gious freedom of Christians and oth- ers, we're seeing more pushback. The Supreme Court will hear soon Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colora- do Civil Rights Commission where a Christian baker defends his freedom to not bake cakes decorated for a same- sex marriage. Religious freedom is a bedrock principle defining our nation. It can't be compromised. Kudos to President Trump for working to liberate busi- nesses from left wing tyranny codi- fied into Obamacare. Star Parker is an author and presi- dent of CURE, Center for Urban Renew- al and Education. Contact her at www. urbancure.org.