Crazy About The Traditional Family

     How would you like to live in the state governed by America’s “Craziest Governor”?  We’re not often in

Does this man look crazy to you?

the national spotlight here in Maine, but the left-wing political/media outfit Politico bestowed that honor upon us in this recent (hit) piece on our esteemed governor.  Of course, to Politico, if you’re conservative, pro-life and don’t speak politicorrectese you’re a certified nut.  Still, crazy is crazy.  And I have to admit, Governor LePage has, on occasion, expressed himself a tad too colloquially; but there are plenty of politicians on the left who have done the same, and Politico finds them perfectly sane.  So, I was inclined to laugh off Politico’s dubious honor . . .at first.

     I say "at first" because Governor LePage did something today that has caused me to think that maybe he is just a little bit nuts.  He didn’t invite anybody to kiss his posterior, and the word “Gestapo” never passed his lips.  He’s running for reelection in a state increasingly dominated by the political left, and yet he made a public appearance at the state’s largest annual pro-life rally, “Hands Around the Capitol.”   And he didn’t just slip in, wave to the crowd and slink out again.  No, he took the stage and made an impassioned speech defending the traditional family, here in the only state where the people (rather than the courts or legislature) have ever formally approved gay marriage.  Politically, it was the most insane thing since Howard Dean’s famous scream.  And yet I have rarely heard a political speech that was a more accurate, insightful and courageous explication of the truth.

     Actually, it wasn’t really a political speech at all, because the Governor was not talking so much about law or policy as he was about a crisis of culture; for instance: “The more I look at the data, the more I’ve come to understand that children need two parents: a mother and a father.”  That qualifies as hate speech in many places (just ask ousted Miss California Carrie Prejean).  How about this: “We can have all the early childhood intervention in the world, but nothing will supplant good parenting.”  Not that pro-lifers shouldn’t work to change abortion laws; he urged us to continue doing so, but added: “The next big challenge is to put the family back together.”

     Whatever faults he may have, this is a guy who gets it.  He sees clearly that the disintegration of the traditional family is heavily implicated in all the various social pathologies that currently plague us.  He knows, and is not afraid to say, that strong families with a loving father and mother can prevent more problems than government programs, however well-intentioned, can ever solve.  In other words, he simply describes reality as it is, which is, I believe, the essence of sanity.  In fact, Paul LePage may be the sanest governor in America.