Who’s Happy? Taught or Born? Covid Study – American Family Association of Indiana

Legislature May End Today

The Indiana General Assembly is in its final week. In my Friday video and in next week’s email I will cover some of the victories and misses of this session.

A Poll May Find One Thing, Actions Say Another

There is a new poll that asks if America has gone too far in accepting the transgender ideology. The source is a somewhat left-of-center polling firm (YouGov), yet it may be correct. It shows one-third say we’ve gone too far, another third say not far enough, and others aren’t sure, or it is about right.

A poll is one thing, it’s a simple survey answer during a snapshot in time. Results often depend on how the questions are phrased.

However, when the results of a poll can be seen in real-world measures, the poll is much more likely to be on target. Such is the case with a different new poll from Rasmussen that might bring into question the numbers in the “gone too far” poll.

Rasmussen has found that most Americans (54%) support a boycott of Anheuser-Busch for their promotion of a transgender spokesperson with Bud Light. The reason this poll may be a more accurate answer to the first poll’s question is obvious. People are acting out on their feelings as Bud Light continues to lose customers, sales are falling, and their stock is dropping to the tune of a $6 billion loss in value for the company.

Who’s Happy?

There has been a lot of talk in this year’s legislative session about mental health, particularly among today’s youth. I firmly believe that it is not coincidental that the younger generation is also the least religious of any before it.

A new Wall Street Journal poll has found that while overall the happiness index has fallen dramatically, the happiest people in America today are those with the strongest religious beliefs and practices.

While less than half of U.S. adults say belief in God is important, the number jumps significantly among those who describe themselves as very happy. Two-thirds of this group describe themselves as “very or moderately religious.”

The highest correlation for people saying they are “very happy” is belief in God, with 68% of this group declaring belief in God to be “very important” to them. By contrast, among those who are not happy, only 42% say faith in God is very important to them.

Study of Covid Policies

A new study of Covid responses finds that contrary to claims made by Governors in California, New York, or Illinois and their harsh criticisms of Florida, for example, the states that imposed stricter lockdowns did not fare better in the pandemic.

This is how the researchers explained their study and results:

“We used an index of government pandemic-response measures — including but not limited to closing schools and businesses, canceling public events, stay-at-home orders, and masking policies — that was created and maintained by the Oxford University School of Government. We then compared states’ index scores with states’ health outcomes, measured by Covid deaths and all-cause excess-mortality rates. Since Covid mortality is strongly associated with older age and preexisting health conditions, we adjusted states’ Covid mortality for age distribution and prevalence of obesity and diabetes.

Government interventions had little or no impact on health outcomes, but lockdown measures led to much worse economic outcomes — increased unemployment and decreased gross domestic product — and much worse education outcomes — less in-person schooling, which studies show leads to decreased test scores and long-term, possibly permanent, educational, and economic disadvantages. And multiple studies have found that the negative economic and educational impacts of lockdowns disproportionately affected lower-income families.

A couple of days ago a study of cell phone use in cities lit up Twitter. The study listed about 50 cities looking at cell phone use (cell phones are tracking devices) comparing pre with post-pandemic levels. It finds that most downtown city cell activity has not returned to pre-Covid rates, indicating far fewer people working in or visiting downtowns. Many cities were up above pre-Covid levels, but at the very bottom with 60% less activity were San Francisco, Portland, Cleveland, and Indianapolis.

The reasons for this are not fully known, but one can speculate that perhaps one of the biggest is that Covid changed the mindset of employees who want to work from home and the realization by employers that productivity from home is attainable. Another possible contributing factor could be the surges in crime in our nation’s cities. (Chicago was down 50% from pre-pandemic levels.)

If this study is accurate, the economic impact for Indianapolis building owners, restaurants, retail stores, etc. is significant and it is not good.

Taught Not Born

On Monday the Indiana House agreed to the changes to House Bill 1608 and sent the bill to the Governor with a 63-28 vote. This bill prohibits schools from teaching human sexuality in pre-K-3rd grade. It also requires a school to notify parents if their child changes their name or gender.

The left hates this bill, which really raises questions. If a person is upset that a 6-year-old cannot be taught about sex, transgenderism, or homosexuality that person has a malicious agenda. (Remember the crowd that cussed me out after I testified on this bill?) I am old school. I think the only thing a 6-year-old boy needs to know about sex at that age is that girls have cooties. That’s how it was when I was that age with all my friends, and we didn’t fail to learn what we needed to know about sex later.

The debate on the final vote was more subdued. Only one Democrat spoke against it. Rep. Vernon Smith claimed that the bill wasn’t needed because schools are not teaching about homosexuality and that this was just a political play by Republicans. I disagree. It is being taught or promoted. (Debate over SB 12 revealed that it is in many Indiana school books.) The chart at the bottom of this email taken from Gallup Polling shows that the LGBT lifestyle is a social contagion. If it were inborn, the percentages would be more static.

In Their Own Words:

“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” – C.S. Lewis

7.2 Percent of U.S. Adults Indentify as LGBT