Editorial
Ted Kennedy Is Serious Threat to Peace and U.S. Soldiers
If JFK Were Alive, Ted Would Be in the Woodshed for a Spanking
Joe, Bobby Kennedy Would Also Be Upset with Younger, Spoiled Brother

            There are a couple of ways one could destroy any chance of freedom and democracy in Iraq in the upcoming election.  One would be the approach that Ansar Al-Sunnah, the insurgent group is taking.  That would be to promise that they will “wash the streets of Baghdad with the voters' blood" and hope that enough people are too terrified to vote. 
            That would be like standing in the way of the fire fighters on 9/11, saying they were a threat to peace.
            The younger Kennedy is a high level U.S. government official telling all of Iraq just before the election that the real problem is not the terrorists, but the U.S. military, and that all the troops must removed …leaving the Iraqis defenseless before the ruthless whim of Ansar Al-Sunnah. That could destroy any chance of significant turnout for the elections.  It won’t. But that is exactly what Sen. Ted Kennedy is urging.
            At a speech before Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies yesterday (Thursday), Kennedy stated : “The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution.” He called for at least 12,000 U.S. troops to leave at once. 
            He poisoned the well regarding this historic vote in Iraq by stating, “Sunday's elections are not a cure for the violence and instability.”  In the course of his speech, he used the word “fail” or “failure” to describe the projected outcome for democracy in Iraq and the US military mission nearly a dozen times. 
            Where exactly did Kennedy get the right to declare the election a failure before the vote has even take place?  What is it about Iraqi culture that has convinced our Senator that they can never co-exist with an American presence as they make the transition into a democratic state?

Massachusetts Is the Serious Threat
            In his speech, Kennedy declared:  “We must recognize what a large and growing number of Iraqis now believe the war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation.”  However, that is not what Ansar Al-Sunnah said was their big concern.  In a joint statement on December 31, 2004, Ansar Al-Sunnah and two other insurgent groups stated explicitly why they were opposed to democratic elections in Iraq, and it had nothing to do with citing the US as an “occupying” power.  They said democracy could lead to the passing of “un-Islamic laws,” such as “permitting homosexual marriage.”  It is the in-your-face depravity that Muslims loathe the most, and to them, laws being passed permitting homosexual marriage typifies how we define the “democracy” we are sending them. 
            With this being evident, it is difficult to exonerate Kennedy from any of the current bloodshed in Iraq.  As a leader in the Senate, he was one of the only opponents in the senate of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.  He was the author of the hate crimes bill which gave homosexuals special federal protection in 2004.  And it was in his home state, with his beaming approval, that homosexual marriage was first legalized by an unprecedented act of judicial activism. 
            It is impossible to know the answer, but one must wonder, would Ansar Al-Sunnah have mobilized to the extent that they did if gay marriage was never allowed in Massachusetts?  Had it actually been put to a vote, as was required before our legislature in 2001, and gay marriage had been banned, would the insurgents still have a token of “democratic depravity” to rally behind today?   They would not.  True “democracy” would have demonstrated that the western world does understand what the word “marriage” means. 
            It is not possible to eradicate gay marriage in Massachusetts before the Iraqi election this Sunday.  However, the means for citizens of Massachusetts to do just that in the immediate future is already in motion (if we could stop the snowstorms).  It is in the form of a Bill of Address sponsored by Rep. Emile Goguen of Fitchburg, and it will remove Massachusetts’s shame from both our country, as well as the rest of the world. 
            If you live in Massachusetts, let your elected officials know you support the bill.   Show Iraq and Ted Kennedy that democracy does work.