Orson Scott Card: NOT a homophobe

Orson Scott Card’s latest anti-gay screed (via IOZ) is the equivalent of an early ’70s manifesto defending the restriction of the priesthood to non-blacks. The more out of whack with mainstream sentiment the cherished exclusionary position gets, the more passionately (and incoherently) it is defended.

Outspoken critics of positive social change like Card only serve to remind the younger generations who are behind the emerging consensus how ossified and absurd the institutional religious position is. A sampling:

Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them?

How long, indeed? Soon, dutiful parents will have no choice but to pull their kids out of public school and force them to watch the entire Left Behind series on an endless loop (or The Work and the Glory, for LDS nippers). [Image: PBS]

How dangerous is this, politically? Please remember that for the mildest of comments critical of the political agenda of homosexual activists, I have been called a "homophobe" for years.

This is a term that was invented to describe people with a pathological fear of homosexuals -- the kind of people who engage in acts of violence against gays. But the term was immediately extended to apply to anyone who opposed the homosexual activist agenda in any way.

How I revel in promoting the homosexual activist agenda. I sit at home at night thinking up ways to subvert traditional marriage and turn our beautiful suburbs by stealth into modern-day outposts of Gomorrah. Homosexual-activist-agenda-promoters weren’t content to let misguided anti-gay tropes that perpetuate a climate of fear and disgust and lead to anti-gay violence stand without challenge. So they pointed out how unreasonable and unsupportable opposition to equal rights for gays was. This was a step too far for some.

Remember how rapidly gay marriage has become a requirement. When gay rights were being enforced by the courts back in the '70s and '80s, we were repeatedly told by all the proponents of gay rights that they would never attempt to legalize gay marriage.

My personal goal is to require straight men across America to experience at least a year or two of gay marriage to give them a more empathetic perspective on the travails of adherents to the homosexual activist agenda.

I’m left wondering what distortion of common English usage Card has deployed to decide that same-sex marriage has become a “requirement.” Last I saw, same-sex marriage was still illegal in all but two states, one of which will not permit same-sex marriages between residents of the great majority of other states. Even in the two jurisdictions where it is permitted, gay couples are in no sense “required” to get married there. And straight people are certainly not “required” to gay marry.

These are the common sense meanings of the phrase “gay marriage has become a requirement,” but clearly no one is proposing that these absurd scenarios be legally mandated.

In using this terminology, Card seems to share Atrios’s fear that the government will “try to make me gay marry a dude.”

Here's the irony: There is no branch of government with the authority to redefine marriage. Marriage is older than government. Its meaning is universal: It is the permanent or semipermanent bond between a man and a woman, establishing responsibilities between the couple and any children that ensue.

Here’s the irony: Card carefully words his definition to permit the polygynous marriages that formed such a central part of the early LDS experience, and still feature in the doctrine of eternal sealing among family members (men and women receive differential treatment in the spiritual consequences of second marriages). Perhaps also ironic are the Old Testament heroes of polygamy, David and Solomon, who each had hundreds, if not thousands, of wives and concubines. In claiming that government cannot redefine marriage, is Card taking a stand in defense of polygamy? If so, more power to him—I see no compelling reason to legally preclude polyamorous relationships between consenting adults. But Card will quickly run into trouble if he condemns gay marriage while remaining silent on the topic of polygamy.

I’m always reminded in these discussions of the ignominious doctrinal walkback that Bruce R. McConkie performed on behalf of the LDS leadership after President Kimball’s seminal 1978 revelation sanctioning the priesthood for blacks. Rereading McConkie’s words, it’s not hard to transpose this debate onto that one, and wonder why, as in the perennial, illogical renovation of nativism in the immigration debate, our social institutions so rarely learn from past mistakes.

There are statements in our literature by the early Brethren that we have interpreted to mean that the Negroes would not receive the priesthood in mortality. I have said the same things, and people write me letters and say, "You said such and such, and how is it now that we do such and such?" All I can say is that it is time disbelieving people repented and got in line and believed in a living, modern prophet. Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or George Q. Cannon or whoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.

It doesn't make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June 1978. It is a new day and a new arrangement, and the Lord has now given the revelation that sheds light out into the world on this subject. As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them. We now do what meridian Israel did when the Lord said the gospel should go to the Gentiles. We forget all the statements that limited the gospel to the house of Israel, and we start going to the Gentiles.

watching strangers play Rock Band

I don't know what's more disturbing, that people have filmed themselves playing Rock Band and posted it on youtube, or that I am actually watching it.




Note the taped up drums, indicating high levels of use, and the ability to play decent drum solos, indicating that maybe if you play Rock Band long enough, you can actually learn an instrument ... ?

This is a very strange world we live in.

urban riots - a thing of the past?

I watched Do the Right Thing again a few weeks ago. In some ways it seems very much the product of 1989 that it is (Rosie Perez's dance scene in the opening credits, Spandex biker shorts on every man, woman and child); in most ways it holds up very well. To borrow from Spike Lee, who will remember Driving Miss Daisy in 20 years?

The movie was not well-received by white critics at the time. New York Magazine recently revisited former NYMag columnist Joe Klein's notorious prediction that the film would spark riots among black audiences upon its release. Spike Lee remembers it not-so-fondly:

New York’s former political columnist Joe Klein and its former film critic David Denby had very strong reactions.
One of the big criticisms was that I had not provided an answer for racism in the movie, which is insane. And what’s even more insane is people like Joe Klein and David Denby felt that this film was going to cause riots. Young black males were going to emulate Mookie and throw garbage cans through windows. Like, “How dare you release this film in summertime: You know how they get in the summertime, this is like playing with fire.” I hold no grudges against them. But that was twenty years ago and it speaks for itself.

Klein's original article doesn't seem to be available, but this Time article from Richard Corliss titled "Hot Time in Bed-Stuy Tonight" is.

Everywhere, the film has polarized white liberals for whom Bed-Stuy is as exotic and unknowable as Burkina Faso. Some see Lee as the movies' great black hope; others tut till they're tuckered. A few fear that Do the Right Thing could trigger the kind of riot it dramatizes and perhaps condones.

I doubt white liberals were the only ones with opinions on the film, but they seem to be the only ones whose opinions were discussed in contemporaneous newsmagazine columns.

I don't know why it is but columnists never seem to expend much ink worrying about the "shenanigans" of white sports fans, for instance, these in Boston after the Celtics won the NBA championship on Tuesday (via).



Love of basketball causes drunken sports fans to riot--Richard Cohen or David Brooks better get on this alarming social trend right away ...

"Afghanistan is not our country any more"

Here’s a story I just read in the Toronto Star. To summarize:

On the highway to Kabul, one of the open-bed trucks in a U.S. military convoy in Afghanistan had been improperly loaded and its containing straps had been snapped, spilling munitions all over the road.

The Americans stopped traffic but didn’t bother explaining why. An ambulance carrying the victim of a motorcycle accident was caught in the jam, unable to pass. While the Americans threatened anyone who approached with machine guns, the victim was lying there dying.

The journalist who wrote the piece couldn’t watch this happen, so she approached the convoy. She was afraid she’d be shot, as this happens often to people who approach military convoys. One soldier at his turret aimed his machine gun at her, and another one came over to scream at her.

Finally, the soldiers allowed the ambulance to pass.

When an ambulance passes by on the street with sirens on and lights flashing, which happens often here in New York City, motorists and pedestrians are expected to get out of the way, no matter what. This is based on the principle that, however much a hurry you are in, if someone’s life is in danger, you will step aside and patiently wait for the vehicle to get through.

Our soldiers are supposedly in Afghanistan to protect Afghanis. If that is so, then why do they so often end up protecting themselves at the cost of Afghani lives? Our entire presence in the country is represented by this anecdote.

Here is what the journalist was told by her Afghani driver at the scene of the incident:

"This is why Afghans have come to hate Americans," said my driver, who works as an interpreter for ISAF and is a strong advocate of the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan is not our country any more. They are our bosses. They treat us sometimes as if we are trespassing on our own land."

Is this freedom? Is this liberty? Is this democracy?

No, this is empire.

no more cowbell!

It's Memorial Day, so the asshat with the cowbell is back. God help us.

hhka!

2000007
Uploaded by KayM4ster

Modeselektor with TTC.

I don't know what they're saying, but I like it. Happy Birthday! is a great album overall.

And I thought this was entertaining, though again I'd probably have more to say about it if I understood French:

FLDS children going home

The FLDS children in Texas will likely be going back to their homes soon after a higher state court ruling:

HOUSTON — A Texas appeals court ruled on Thursday that the state had illegally seized up to 468 children from their homes at a polygamist ranch in West Texas. The decision abruptly threw the largest custody case in recent American history into turmoil.

Although the court did not order the children’s immediate release, it raised the prospect that many of them would be reunited with their families, possibly within 10 days. The children have been in foster homes scattered across Texas since early April, making their parents travel hundreds of miles to visit them.

I had doubts from the start that sweeping up all the children in a community, separating them from their siblings, and throwing them into foster care was in the best interests of the children in every case. There has been evidence of abuses, and young teenagers shouldn’t be permitted to be married off to old men by their parents, but there are better ways to police the situation than raiding the community and taking away all the kids.

The case began on April 3, when Texas investigators, saying they were responding to a girl’s call for help, raided the 1,691-acre Yearning for Zion ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Eldorado, about 45 miles south of San Angelo.

The caller was never found, and investigators now suspect that the call was a hoax.

. . .

The appeals judges who ruled, Chief Justice W. Kenneth Law and Justices Robert. H. Pemberton and Alan Waldrop, all Republicans, said removing children from their homes was “an extreme measure” justifiable only in the event of urgent or immediate danger.

Instead, the court said, the state argued that the “belief system” at the ranch condoned under-age marriage and pregnancy and that the whole ranch functioned as a “household” in which sexual abuse anywhere threatened children in the entire community.

But in reality, the judges said, there was no evidence of widespread abuse, and they faulted the district judge, Barbara Walther, for approving the children’s removal based on insufficient grounds.

. . .

Jim Cohen, a law professor at Fordham University, said it was highly unusual for an appeals court to intervene in a continuing case, especially one involving child protection.

“It showed the proof was really weak, not a close call at all,” Professor Cohen said.

Tim Edwards, a lawyer in San Angelo who represents four mothers, said: “This is a wonderful day. It confirms not only my feeling, but the feeling of many, many attorneys involved in the case, that Child Protective Services failed to meet their burden of proof to justify a court order to remove more than 400 children from their homes for the last six or seven weeks.”

Mr. Edwards said even if the children went home soon, the effects were likely to linger.

“You’re talking about a situation that is traumatic to many people,” he said, “and the recovery from that trauma may be slow in coming.”

. . .

Laura Nugent, a lawyer in Austin who represents four of the children, said she was thrilled. “I feel this is the correct way to rule on the evidence,” Ms. Nugent said. “I felt all along that the department did not bear their burden of proof.”

Ms. Nugent, whose clients are 6, 10, 11 and 12, said she was unsure whether the ruling applied to all the children she represented and was awaiting details.

“They all want to go home,” she said. “They are emphatic that they want to go home and be reunited with their parents and their siblings.”

Which raises a question: everybody seems to “know” what is best for children of this age, but did anyone think to ask the children themselves? Presumably they should at least have their opinions about where and with whom they want to grow up heard.

It was not the first time a raid on polygamists may have backfired. In 1953 Arizona authorities under Gov. Howard Pyle raided the fundamentalist community of Short Creek, which is now Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, taking about 160 children into state custody.

But the custody ruling was overturned on appeal in 1955 after lawyers for the children argued that they were denied adequate legal representation. Most of the women and children then returned to Short Creek to join their husbands, who had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor conspiracy to commit unlawful cohabitation and were sentenced to one year on probation. Governor Pyle lost the 1954 election.

Mohave County Judge J.W. Faulkner later said he made a legal “blunder” during the custody hearings, writing after his retirement in 1955 that the reversal “will inevitably give new life to the cause of polygamy, and prolonging the fight for another 50 years."

the Sanctuary

Duke from Migra Matters announces the launch of the Sanctuary, a website designed to give a voice to migrants and migrant advocates. It's an open forum in the Daily Kos model--anyone can join and post diaries, and there are built-in anti-troll measures based on community ratings. Some long-standing immigration bloggers have signed on as founding editors, and I'll be cross-posting there as well. Check it out, leave a comment, even put up a diary. Make yourself heard!

After months of planning and work, I'm proud to announce the opening of a new on-line community for all those interested in humane and practical immigration reform, migrant-rights, human-rights, and the greater struggle of all who those have left friends and family behind to start new lives in new lands.

The Sanctuary is a grassroots effort of a group of pro-migrant, human-rights, and civil-rights bloggers and on-line activists dedicated to the enactment of meaningful immigration reform that is practical, rational, fair and most of all humane.

Started to help offset the growing influence of right-wing, anti-immigrant, voices that have thus far dominated the debate, it's mission is to create a broad community of on-line pro-migrant activists, and translate digital activism into real-world, practical action.

The Sanctuary is intended to be a "cyber-sanctuary", free from the din of right-wing noise, where those working towards meaningful reform can come together in the hope of magnifying their individual efforts through community action and cooperation, and build bridges with like-minded activists from a wide cross-section of the political spectrum.

By working in cooperation with mainstream organizations and advocacy groups involved in the struggle for immigrant and human rights, we hope to build an issue-focused on-line community that facilitates direct communications and coordination between on-line activists, the new media, and those working daily in Washington, and on the ground to effect change.

After years of having the debate over immigration reform controlled by forces of intolerance and hate, while pro-migrant voices played defense in hopes of swaying public discourse, we are about to go on the offense against ignorance, bigotry, and hate – and The Sanctuary is just the first step in that offensive.

More on The Sanctuary from some of the other founding editors

Announcing the Launch of The Sanctuary by ManEegee from Latino Politico

Path to the Oasis by Nexua from The Unapologetic Mexican

The Sanctuary — A New Nexus by Kai from Zuky

"The Sanctuary" launch! by KetyE from Cross Left

why Clinton is losing

Jodi Kantor in the NY Times ponders the impact of gender discrimination on Clinton’s impending loss. She raises a few good points:

But as others watched a campaign that starred two possibly transformative figures, they felt a growing conviction that the contest was unfair. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters point to a nagging series of slights: the fixation on her clothes, even her cleavage; chronic criticism that her voice is shrill; calls for her to exit the race; and most of all, the male commentators in the news media who, they argue, were consistently tougher on her than on Mr. Obama.

But, Matt Yglesias wonders, how can you talk about Clinton’s likely loss in the primary and not talk about her famous 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq?

Lots of interesting material in Michelle Cottle's notebook dump on what various Clintonistas think the campaign did wrong.

. . .

[I]t's fascinating to me that nobody mentioned the war. Clinton supported the war. In retrospect, the war was a terrible idea. Her support for it was a mistake. What's more, it's inconceivable to me that Obama's campaign could have gotten off the ground had Clinton spent 2002 and 2003 as a lonely liberal voice speaking out against the war, then spent 2005 and 2006 being completely vindicated in her judgment. It's not just that Obama wouldn't have beaten her, he wouldn't have run at all -- it would have been preposterous. She would have faced a from-the-right challenge in the primary that would have gotten some attention but never posed any real threat.

But Clinton's error on the war opened up serious doubts about her substantive and political judgment about one of the highest-profile issues of the moment. In many ways it's a testament to how brilliant her campaign was all throughout 2007 and 2008 that they never allowed the war issue to bury her, considering that an overwhelming majority of Democratic primary voters think she made a mistake.

I’ll take this opportunity to be super-annoying and post excerpts from a couple of letters I emailed Senator Clinton over the past few years. A resident of New York since 2001, from time to time I exercised my prerogative to give my Senators an earful (until I realized they just weren’t listening).

I first wrote her and Senator Schumer in October 2002, asking them not to support the war authorization, but I didn’t make a copy of whatever I sent them.

Then I sent Senator Clinton this letter in December 2004:

I write to encourage you to reconsider your stance regarding Iraq and the war on terror given a the recent DOD strategic communications report from the Defence Science Board. The Dec. 5 Sunday Herald states that "[o]n 'the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds', the report says, 'American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended'.

'American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.'" The report goes on to say that "Muslims do not ‘hate our freedoms’, but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support, for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states."

It seems evident that the hard-nosed approach to the war on terror being pursued by the current administration is having massive unintended consequences, in the form of increased support for Al-qaeda in the Muslim world and decreased US legitimacy. That is largely because stated US goals and objectives (promoting democracy in the Middle East, protecting the US from imminent threats) have not aligned with real ones (stabilizing the energy supply, projecting US power into the heart of a hostile region). It may be easy enough to justify US actions in Iraq to a domestic audience, but the flimsy arguments that have been put forward will not convince the Muslims who need to be convinced for the war on terror to succeed.

In October 2002, I urged you and Senator Schumer to vote against giving the president the authority to go to war in Iraq. I knew then that the president was not going to Iraq for the right reasons, and that starting a war against a country that had not attacked us, and was in no position to do so, right in the heart of the middle east, would be hugely counterproductive. (This is the "naked self interest" argument against the war. There are other persuasive arguments against the war, foremost among them the fact that we now have the blood of thousands of innocent civilians on our hands.) You ignored my advice and continue to position yourself as a hawk in the war on terror. As pleasing as the short-term domestic political results of this approach may be, it will backfire in the long run, both politically and for the people of the US and the middle east.

As someone who supports 90% of your policies, I strongly encourage you to rethink your position on Iraq. This isn't just about poor execution of a good idea, as many have cast it, including Senator Kerry in the recent presidential race. Launching a preventive war in Iraq was deeply flawed conceptually, and will have dire consequences for Americans abroad and at home for years to come. This is still a minority view at home, but as we reap the benefits of our actions in Iraq, it will gain traction with your constituents. I urge you to be at the forefront of that sea change, not reluctantly dragged along by it.

I can no longer say I support 90% of Clinton’s policies. That’s probably more a reflection of changes in my views than in hers, though.

Noting that the good senator opted not to take any of my advice or that of the legions of other constituents upset about the war, I wrote again in July 2006:

I applaud you for your recent statement expressing your support for the winner of the Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut later this summer. Senator Lieberman has done more to damage the prospects for a national Democratic resurgence than almost anyone else in the party. His unquestioning support for the war in Iraq and for President Bush is unconscionable, and also extremely foolish politically given that these are the issues that Democratic voters are most concerned about at the moment.

I urge you to revisit your own position on the war in Iraq. The administration's policy has demonstrably failed. The administration has made clear that it is incapable of resolving the situation in an effective, competent manner. The country looks to Congress for alternatives to the current policy of failure, particularly to the Democrats. You are uniquely positioned to give voice to the discontent of the majority of voters who are dissatisfied with the administration's policies on the war in Iraq and the war on terror. We cannot afford "more of the same" for another three years and possibly beyond. Also, from a political point of view, I encourage you to view Senator Lieberman's current situation as a test case for the 2008 presidential primary. You will not make it through the 2008 primary unless your current position on Iraq changes. It doesn't matter what the polls say now, the political situation is dynamic and the momentum is with Lamont and other leaders like him who are giving voice to the massive frustration of voters on the left. So I ask you, as your constituent, to lead rather than follow. I believe that your recent statement expressing your commitment to the winner of the Connecticut primary is a step in the right direction.

Realizing how little attention powerful senators like Clinton and Schumer pay to emailed letters, I decided to stop wasting my time. But the point of this post is that any examination of Clinton’s failure in 2008 should start and end with the war in Iraq. If she’d made the right choice in 2002, she would have been in a position to destroy any opposition in 2007-2008.

slumber will come soon

The word of the day is "slumber."

So, you're feeling unimportant,
'Cuz you've got nothing to say.
And your live is just a ramble
No one understands you anyway

Well, I've got a piece of news son,
That might make you change your mind
Your life is historically meaningful
And spans a significant time

Slumber will come soon
And you are helping to put it to sleep
Side by side we do our share
Faithfully assuring that
Slumber will come soon.

Well, now do you feel a little better
Lift up your head and walk away
Knowing we're all in this togeter
For such a short time anyway

There is just no time to parade around sulking
I would rather laugh than cry
The rich, the poor, the strong, the weak
We share this place together
And we pitch into help it die

I'm not too good at giving morals
And I don't fear the consequence
If life makes you scared and bitter
At least it's not for very long

Slumber will come soon.

--Greg Graffin

Slumber. Embrace it.

wrong again

One of the vanishingly few political positions the LDS church has staked out a firm position on since the 19th Century was its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, opposition which helped lead to the amendment's defeat. First proposed in 1923, the amendment is quite simple:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

The proposed amendment hardly even seems controversial anymore. Maybe it wouldn't be except for its potential ramifications for the gay marriage debate. Which brings us to one of the only other political positions the LDS church committed itself to: opposition to same-sex marriage. In particular, the church helped bankroll Proposition 22, which added to the California Civil Code the provision that "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

One all-too-common result of the church's institutionalized homophobia is depression and suicide among LGBT Mormons. From a Salt Lake Tribune article published just before the initiative passed:

Just last week, a 32-year-old gay Mormon man put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger on the steps of a Mormon chapel in Northern California. He was profoundly opposed to Proposition 22, though his family insists the suicide was not politically motivated.

Once again, the church finds itself on the wrong side of history, as Prop 22 was invalidated by the state's high court yesterday.

The California Supreme Court struck a historic but possibly short-lived blow for gay rights Thursday, overturning a state law that allowed only opposite-sex couples to marry.

In a 4-3 ruling that elicited passionate responses on both sides of the debate and touched off celebrations at San Francisco City Hall - the scene of nearly 4,000 same-sex weddings four years ago that were invalidated months later - the court said the right to marry in California extends equally to all, gay and straight alike.

The state Constitution's guarantees of personal privacy and autonomy protect "the right of an individual to establish a legally recognized family with the person of one's choice," said Chief Justice Ronald George, who wrote the 121-page majority opinion. He said the Constitution "properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples."

. . .

The high court - with a 6-1 majority of Republican appointees, including George - is the second in the nation after Massachusetts' to declare a right of same-sex couples to marry. It is the first high court to rule that the state's Constitution forbids all discrimination based on sexual orientation with the same strict type of prohibition that applies to bias based on race, sex or religion.

The judges drew explicit parallels to the black civil rights struggle of the last century.

Not long into the oral argument before the California Supreme Court in March over whether gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry, Chief Justice Ronald M. George showed his hand.

Three times he quoted from the court’s 1948 decision in Perez v. Sharp that struck down a state ban on interracial marriage, a high point in the history of a prestigious and influential court.

“The essence of the right to marry is freedom to join in marriage with the person of one’s choice,” Chief Justice George said, quoting Perez.

That was when Shannon P. Minter, a lawyer with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, knew things were looking good for his side. The chief justice seemed to be accepting arguments for same-sex marriage that were consciously rooted in the struggle for equal rights for blacks.

And this in a court with a solid majority of GOP appointees! Back to the SF Gate:

[T]he court majority rejected an array of legal justifications for excluding gays and lesbians from marriage, including religious conservatives' argument that same-sex matrimony would alter the definition of marriage and weaken the institution.

Allowing same-sex couples to marry "will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage," George said.

Addressing the same groups' related argument that marriage should be reserved for couples who can procreate, George said the right to marry "has never been limited to those who plan or desire to have children."

. . .

Marriage, George said, is not just a bundle of rights, but is a relationship uniquely honored by the state and society. Confining same-sex couples to a different category marks them with "second-class citizenship," the chief justice said.

As for the argument that marriage has historically been reserved for a man and a woman, George said that even the most widely accepted traditions "often mask an unfairness and inequality" that only the victims understand.

One justice positioned herself in the mushy middle:

Justice Carol Corrigan, Schwarzenegger's sole appointee to the court, said in a separate dissent that she personally believes "Californians should allow our gay and lesbian neighbors to call their unions marriages." But she said public opinion is to the contrary, at least for now, and should be allowed to run its course.

"When ideas are imposed," Corrigan said, "opposition hardens and progress may be hampered."

That is--how can I put this politely--bullshit. Call it what you want, call it upholding God's word, call it fighting the work of the devil, but don't call standing in the way of marriage equality "progress."

The church's current leaders leave the task of explaining the church's stark opposition to basic equal rights to the next generation, burdening them with all the logical and moral contortions this will produce. Some will consequently choose, as I did, to simply abandon the whole project.

not even Afghanistan

Eric Kleefeld passes on some of Hillary Clinton's not-for-your-ears accusations that the "activist base" of the Democratic Party is a bunch of troublemakers.

We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me.

Ok, if true, that sounds pretty good to me. We know it is only a matter of time before we get our nalgas kicked out of Afghanistan just like every other imperial power that has ever stormed into the country and waddled out. We know this because Michael Scheuer (never one to shy away from bloodshed, if called for to defend la madre patria) told us so in 2004. He could have told us in 2001 if we had bothered to listen.

But there's one problem. MoveOn is unhappy with Clinton's claim:

Senator Clinton has her facts wrong again. MoveOn never opposed the war in Afghanistan, and we set the record straight years ago when Karl Rove made the same claim. Senator Clinton's attack on our members is divisive at a time when Democrats will soon need to unify to beat Senator McCain. MoveOn is 3.2 million reliable voters and volunteers who are an important part of any winning Democratic coalition in November. They deserve better than to be dismissed using Republican talking points.

Oh dear. Cue IOZ:

You know, most Americans are imperialists. One of the reasons--the reason--that it so amuses me to find the occasional commenter here ask me why I offer no practical solutions to "our" problems, why the closest I ever come to advocating for direct action is to propose minor acts of cultural vandalism. Being an anti-imperialist in America is like being a Zionist in the Third Reich. I am a fringe radical. If you agree with even a tenth of what you read on this site, you too are a fringe radical. Your beliefs and opinions are not reflective of those of your countrymen. The question, "How do we stop being imperialists?" bears as much practical import as, "How do we live without breathing?" We don't. The United States of America is an empire. Maybe you think it's on the downhill slide? I certainly hope so. But it is what it is, nevertheless. The notions that within the body of empire lurks the heart of an egalitarian, constitutional republic, or a libertarian minarchy, or a parliamentary social democracy are the purest forms of political self-flattery. The subjects here may be largely political, but the program is purely perceptual. I am not a reformist.

I am a reformist, but IOZ's view of the situation is much closer to the truth than Moveon's and certainly Clinton's.

and i shot a rabbit once in the desert ...

Listen to somepowers, otherwise known as Mrs. Begnet (but only to our landlords, who insist on leaving the rent receipts addressed as such even though this is not actually her name):

[W]hat is even more irritating, I think, is the way candidates have to parade around Pennsylvania waving their blue collar credentials, telling their own Horatio Alger stories as testaments to the American dream and evidence that despite their "elite" status, they're just regular folks. Op ed writers are jumping on this bandwagon, too, with my least-favorite ever, Maureen Dowd, writing this morning on Obama's supposed classism while conveniently mentioning that she grew up in a house with a gun. (Really, why did I even click on that link? Girlfriend just makes me angry.) Give it up, folks: none of you are actually "regular people," at least not in the sense that you can avoid the amazing privileges you enjoy due to your education, you access to powerbrokers (or status as one), or your ability to have a megaphone to broadcast your ideas. It strikes me as ridiculous and extremely paternalistic that we need photographs or video of candidates bowling or downing shots to vet their abilities to be Commander-in-Chief. This kind of working-class pornography is really no different than hipsters donning trucker hats and raising $2 cans of PBR in the air in time with the chorus of "Sweet Home Alabama" in a New York bar. Can we talk about class issues without everybody having to mention that they know what it's like to be poor?

Hear, hear! More please ...

PSA for cable news hosts

Watching Larry King react to Stephen Colbert on King's own show was surreal ... deer in the headlights doesn't quite capture the experience, maybe brontosaurus in the blast radius would be more apt.

A good rule of thumb when appearing with Stephen Colbert in the vicinity of a camera: Stephen Colbert is smarter than you and the camera loves him more than you. In fact, the only person qualified to appear with Colbert on TV is ... Esteban Colberto!

And here is some more ...



Can someone please convince Chris Matthews to go on Colbert's show? Please? Show him the US News study and maybe he'll consider it ...

Remembering belatedly that Colbert discusses Matthews' recent appearance on the Colbert Report in the clip above and makes this same reference to the US News report ... so yeah, looks like there was a little subconscious appropriation going on there on my part ... PSA to sleep-deprived bloggers: be careful even blogging about Stephen Colbert or you risk looking like an idiot. His mojo is that strong.

Henley's foresight pays off

Jim Henley takes a moment from his busy cable news/talk show circuit schedule to review some of the reasoning behind his decision to oppose the Iraq War before it started.

. . . you didn’t have to be a libertarian to figure out that going to war with Iraq made even less sense than driving home to East Egg drunk off your ass and angry at your spouse. Any number of leftists and garden-variety liberals, and even a handful of conservatives, figured it out, each for different reasons.

. . .

What all of us had in common is probably a simple recognition: War is a big deal. It isn’t normal. It’s not something to take up casually. Any war you can describe as “a war of choice” is a crime. War feeds on and feeds the negative passions. It is to be shunned where possible and regretted when not. Various hawks occasionally protested that “of course” they didn’t enjoy war, but they were almost always lying. Anyone who saw invading foreign lands and ruling other countries by force as extraordinary was forearmed against the lies and delusions of the time.

Before the war, Henley was laboring in obscurity on his blog, raising doubts about the veracity of the government's reports and questioning the intelligence and sincerity of the government's most faithful supporters. And just look at him now!

steno yave: Atrios edition

I can't improve much on this:

For various reasons I've been rather uninterested in getting into the weeds of the Wright issue, though obviously it's the case that we've had decades of prominent and popular white conservative preachers blasting the evils of America and no one has much cared.

Aside from disparate treatment of left and right and black and white in our mainstream discourse, there's also a difference in the basic narrative provided. The narrative from the Right - and its representatives in the conservative religious community - is of an America which was once the garden of Eden, until its tragic fall at the hands of (feminists, liberals, civil rights movement, whatever), and they wish to bring the country back to its former state. Thus they can hate the America that is while dreaming of the perfect America that was. Thus there's no conflict between their unquestioned patriotism and their hatred of the country, as their patriotism is for the True America that was, not its current corrupted incarnation

While the mirror image rhetoric from the Left is about a country which was flawed, often tragically so, but which has the capacity for improvement. Be disgusted with the country as it was and is, while hoping for an evolution to a better country.

everyone knows nothing at all

IOZ, when not warbling about the transcendence of abstention, tells the story of Big Shitpile in a way we, the newly (or oldly) cynical, can understand:

Consider Bear Stearns, who was once as handsome and tall as . . . Well, consider anyway this throwaway line and quite common sentiment these days:

“The problem is bigger than the Fed,” said Meredith A. Whitney, an Oppenheimer financial services analyst. "Trillions of dollars of securities were underwritten on the false assumption house prices could never go down on a national basis. That falsehood has put the entire financial system in a tailspin."

Right. And we all believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and he kicked out the inspectors, and oil would pay for the war, and there will be no permanent military bases. Ladies and gents, boobs and rubes, the falsehood Ms. Whitney--and plenty of others--identifies is a fine tall tale for house-flippers and the jerks who think they're going to hit it Buffet style on eTrade, but the people who run all those "financial services" know that there's no such thing as economic escape velocity. That which goes up must come down. Anyone who knew anything, admittedly a vanishing category these days, knew not only that housing prices could go down on a national basis, but banked on the fact that they would. The run-up was all smoke, mirrors and profit-taking, and the downturn, even in these early stages, will be all about the massive transference of wealth from the public coffers into the so-called private sector.

John McCain tips 9%

Yes, it’s true. Also:

• John McCain cheats at computer Scrabble.
• John McCain wants you to open a Roth IRA.
• John McCain reuses plastic utensils.

So does my dear grandma, but she doesn’t want to bomb Iran!

Via Yglesias.

an important point

From Yglesias:

Reacting to the news that the U.S. government has been supplying arms to the Palestinian Authority (so they can fight Hamas), the Armchair Generalist wonders "why is it that the Bush administration's first answer to every regional conflict is to throw more weapons into the mix? You'd think that, by now, they'd have figured out that hard power doesn't solve these long-term conflicts."

I think they actually do understand this pretty well. After all, if the conflicts were "solved" that would reduce the need for American weapons, and htus reduce the opportunities for American influence. The essence of the approach is to create a series of standoffs where our proxies have the bulk of the guns, but their enemies of the bulk of the legitimacy (in part because they're not serving as our proxy), and thus the guns-without-legitimacy side is able to maintain a permanently tenuous grasp on power that leaves them ever-more-dependent on external American support. The identity or background of the proxy doesn't really matter, and can include ex-insurgents in Iraq, the same Fatah groups we were trying to freeze out of Palestinian politics a few years ago, Iranian-backed Shiite parties in Basra, sundry Somali factions, whatever.

It’s a racket, and with the U.S. government as head racketeer. There's a lucrative side-effect of this process: our national arms exporting business helps keep client states loyal, which keeps the proceeds from weapons sales flowing back to the U.S., creating incentives for the U.S. to perpetuate the conflict—a self-reinforcing process.

It’s quite a scam when you consider that aggressive p.r. efforts to paint the U.S. as the godfather of global democracy lend the whole project just enough legitimacy to stave off complete collapse. People are starting to see this for what it is—modern imperialism—so we’ll see how long the U.S. can maintain the status quo.

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Via Nicolle--thanks for the tip!