Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

President Donald Trump recently called to the White House one of his most acerbic critics, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, to chat about gun control and school safety; the two are not at all the same thing. Murphy could hardly refuse. Trump wanted Murphy to shape, in concert with others, a national package that might help to prevent the slaughter of innocents in schools and also the victims of gun violence in our large cities, the nation’s shooting galleries, a “comprehensive” reform of gun laws that would ameliorate conditions in cities such as Chicago, former President Barack Obama’s abandoned haunt, and school kids left at the mercy of gun toting mass murderers. Murphy and his confederate in the congress, Connecticut Senator Dick Blumenthal, had persistently denounced Trump as “eccentric,” and touched with madness, accusations laundered through Connecticut’s media that have been temporarily shelved now that the madman is making cooing gestures in Murphy’s direction; for, really...

We appear to be moving from one farce to another -- at warp speed. U.S. Representative John Larson, who holds what may be the safest Congressional seat in Connecticut, organized a 60’s style “sit-in” protest in the House. This followed a filibuster in the Senate by U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, assisted in his endeavor by U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal and other co-conspirators. What are the Democrats doing, and why are they doing it? On the matter of safe seats, it’s a toss-up between 1st District Representative Larson and 3rd District Representative Rosa DeLauro. The Democrats have been trying to get top-billing as moral crusaders from the usual moral epigones, such as the New York Times and the Hartford Courant.

Seasoned members of the U.S. Senate may be forgiven if they think U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, elected to the Senate only five months ago, is a bit of an upstart. It is an unwritten rule in that august body that newly arrived Senators should be seen but not heard until they’ve paid their dues for a year. In the past two years, Connecticut lost two Senators of longstanding, Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman, who were replaced by Democrats Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both of whom in the last six months have been vigorously pressuring their brethren to vote into law a much watered down version of Connecticut’s recently adopted gun law.

Religious people – people who actually practice their faith – may be forgiving for being somewhat bewildered by the suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Enfield, possibly because they know that their religion is only indirectly connected to places where religious services are held. A real atheist like Christopher Hitchens might approve of the ACLU suit, which seeks to prevent students in Enfield from attending graduation services at First Cathedral in Bloomfield, for its nuisance value alone. But he probably would reject as an outdated medieval superstition the unstated claim that gives moral unction to the suit. What harm could possibly come to an atheist or agnostic who attends a graduation, purely a secular activity, in a building in which religious services have been held? Buildings are not sacred objects; still less are they professors giving off notions that might ensnare the non-religious. A building of brick and mortar is not an idea....

In the quibble over whether corporations are persons – they are not – and whether as political or business entities they should not be entitled to full First Amendment rights, it has been forgotten how the Citizen’s United case arose. In its decision, a lower court, averting to the McCain/Feingold and other restrictions, banned the publication of a DOCUMENTARY on Hillary Clinton that was to air prior to an election. The documentary, no less partisan than any created by Michael Moore, winner of the prestigious Palm D’Or award, was – no one will deny – political speech protected by the First Amendment. In striking down the restrictive laws that banned the publication of the documentary, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the First Amendment’s protection of political speech. At a very basic level, the decision is a win for free speech rights. And those who have told us countless times that the First Amendment allows political speech that is offensive to some cannot plausibly argue that the ...

Question: When is a house not a home? Answer: When it’s a Jewish temple. Chabad Lubavitch, an Orthodox Jewish organization, bought a Victorian era house in Litchfield and announced that it planned a temple on its property. The temple would require changes in the house: a roof steeple bearing a clock face with Hebrew lettering on it to identify it as a synagogue and a star of David. These changes did not pass muster with Litchfield’s Historic Commission, which previously, according to a story in the Waterbury Republican American , “had ordered flower boxes removed from in front of homes and more recently a historic plaque to a Revolutionary War hero taken down from the side of a house.” During a Sept 6 meeting, Commission Chairman Wendy Kuhne offered an objection to the plan. According to the minutes of the meeting: “A steeple will be added to the roof of the building and have a clock face with Hebrew alphabet lettering. The siding will be a combination of wood and Jerusalem stone. Mrs....

T’is the season to be secular – and litigious. In Kirkland, Washington, a high school principal this year refused to allow a production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” because Tiny Tim, the character in the tale who melts the stony heart of Scrooge, was incautious enough to pray, “God Bless everyone.” The “G” word rarely has been in favor among secularist censors, and this year was no different. On most occasions, one may expect an eruption of righteous anger when books are banned by school systems that object to ribald language or offensive messages. When Huckleberry Finn was dumped from libraries by timid administrators unnerved by the “N” word, a tortured cry went up from defenders of the First Amendment. But not this time. Florida and New Jersey school districts have banned Christmas carols altogether, perhaps fearing the litigious American Civil Liberty Union lawyer hiding under the school nurse’s bed. In Somerville Massachusetts, the mayor formally apologized to those o...