What You Should Know

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

By Senator Rev. Rubén Díaz

32nd Senatorial District, Bronx County, New York

Tel. 718-991-3161

It Does Not Make Sense

Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to dictate to us how much soda we should drink. With this action Mayor Bloomberg confirmed what I wrote a few weeks ago in one of my “What You Should Know” columns, that some elected officials want to create in New York a Nanny State.

For your information, in case you did not read it before I am including inserts of what I wrote before.

You should know that some Members of the New York State Legislature are pushing hard to prevent McDonald’s and certain restaurants from giving out toys to children when they receive their meals unless those meals meet certain standards.

Senate Bill 6386, sponsored by Senator Gustavo Rivera, and Assembly Bill 7662, sponsored by Assembly Member Felix Ortiz, both Hispanic and Puerto Rican, are calling for a law to dictate which restaurants may or may not distribute toys or as they call them, “incentives,” to children, especially poor children in our communities, when their parents take them to McDonald’s or any other restaurant to purchase a meal. Now Mayor Michael Bloomberg has joined them in banning the sale and purchase of any bottle of sodas of more than 16 ounces.

It does not make sense and it is disturbing to see these same elected officials fight tooth and nail to give a woman the right to kill an unborn baby, because according to them, it is a woman’s choice to do what they want with their bodies. Michael Bloomberg, Gustavo, Felix and others have no problem in being pro-choice and giving a woman a right to murder an unborn baby, but they have problems and are willing to take away the right of the mother and father or child to eat whatever they want.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that obesity is a problem and that people should be more careful with what they eat, but if people want to be fat and eat hamburgers or anything they want, it is their right to allow them to eat whatever they want. I think that it is a lot better to be fat than to terminate the life of an unborn, innocent baby. Does anyone believe that people are elected into office to regulate what food and drinks moms and dads can serve their children?

Do these same elected officials who fight for any woman to have a supposed right to choose to kill her unborn baby realize that they are way out of line to try to assume authority over moms by telling them what to give her child to eat or drink?

When pro-lifers like me state the obvious that abortion affects two lives and that the fetus is a life, and that to crack their skulls with forceps or to use saline water to be evaporated, the pro-choice, pro-abortion politicians argue back with that old cliché “my body, my choice”. I’m pretty sure that Mayor Bloomberg, Assembly Member Ortiz and Senator Rivera would stand by their side.

How can those same officials think they have the right to tell moms how they should feed their children or what to drink?

Parents struggle to do what’s best for their children, and at least so far, in this country parents are not dictated to by local elected officials about how to feed their children. If they want to cook at home, they can. If they want to go out and eat and drink 32 ounces of soda, they can.

You should know that there are more important issues before us in the State and City of New York, and we sure don’t need Mayor Bloomberg, Senator Rivera, Assembly Member Ortiz and others to divert our attention by creating a Nanny State.

I am Senator Reverend Rubén Díaz and this is what you should know.