Quote of the Day - Lithwick On Not Getting Over Kavanaugh

Dahlia Lithwick's piece in Slate about her refusal to get over Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the US Supreme Court is very, very good and worth reading in its entirety, first and foremost in my opinion because she is the rare mainstream journalist today who refuses to both normalize or be entertained by the Trump regime's atrocities.

She writes:

"The enduring memory, a year later [after Kavanaugh's rage-filled testimony], is that my 15-year-old son texted—he was watching it in school—to ask if I was 'perfectly safe' in the Senate chamber. He was afraid for the judge’s mental health and my physical health. I had to patiently explain that I was in no physical danger of any kind, that there were dozens of people in the room, and that I was at the very back, with the phalanx of reporters. My son’s visceral fears don’t really matter in one sense, beyond the fact that I was forced to explain to him that the man shouting about conspiracies and pledging revenge on his detractors would sit on the court for many decades; and in that one sense, none of us, as women, was ever going to be perfectly safe again."

It's a nuanced essay, acknowledging that the female members of the court, who all lean more liberal than Kavanaugh, have to at least perform "getting over it" if they ever hope to have even the slim possibility of the vengeful Kavanaugh siding with them on matters of national importance for potential decades to come.

That doesn't mean, however, that we all have to be okay with his presence on the Court, even though - like Lithwich - I despair that the general public largely is by now.

It's also not lost on me that George W. Bush, who lost the popular vote in the 2000 election, appointed two conservatives of his own to the Supreme Court. Trump, loser of the 2016 popular vote, has thus far appointed two.

Angry, sexually-predatory, and entitled man-babies on the Court notwithstanding, that 4 out of 9 members of the nation's high court have been appointed by deeply-unpopular men who lost the national popular vote will one day be more widely acknowledged as a significant erosion of the legitimacy of the court, particularly in terms of public opinion.

If that's not depressing enough, Trump is very soon set to have appointed a full quarter of the nation's federal appeals court judges, the level just below the Supreme Court. These courts and judges generally get far less attention than the Supreme Court, but this statistic is incredibly alarming for many reasons, a key one of which is that the vast majority of federal court cases never actually reach the Supreme Court and Donald Trump is a misogynist white supremacist who lacks the judgment and temperament to be making  appointments of such importance.


Related: Gilead of Republicans Stand by Their Man, Kavanaugh

Anti-LGBT Group Changes Tune on Role of Judiciary

Over at Shakesville, I have a piece up regarding the National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) apparent new strategy for overturning same-sex marriage.

After years of railing against the judiciary and "unelected judges" supposedly overturning "the will of the people," it seems they're now banking on a conservative replacing Anthony Kennedy on the US Supreme Court so that person can eventually help overturn Obergefell.

Head over to Shakesville to read the whole thing!

Quote of the Day: On Benevolently Sexist Laws

"Amici are historians of the United States, whose research focuses on the lives of women. This brief, based on decades of study and research by amici, aims to provide accurate historical perspective on laws claiming to protect women. From their vantage point as historians, amici wish to point out the constraints on women’s liberty and equality in laws that purport to protect women, by sketching the long history of such laws and showing that intentions to protect had the effect of restricting women’s choices and undermining their dignity as full citizens."

- via the Brief (PDF) submitted by historians in Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt, contesting a Texas law designed to shut down most health clinics that provide abortion services in the state. 

If you have time to read it all, it's a worthwhile account of the US legal system's history of paternalistic "benevolent sexism" toward women. Examples cited include coverture, by which a woman's legal identity was incorporated into her husband's, and women's exclusion from political and occupational spheres.... for their own benefit.

Such laws often relied on arguments that stated, in various ways, that women (weak, dependent, intellectually incompetent) were as a class "opposite" of men (strong, autonomous, intellectually competent). This framing of the genders was taken, as it is still often is, as a commonsense truth that barely required proof.

Similarly, the Texas law at issue in the above case purports to protect the health and welfare of women seeking abortions in the state, and recounting the history of such paternalism, the brief ultimately argues that such laws ought to be carefully scrutinized "to assess whether its ostensibly protective function actually serves to deny liberty and equal citizenship to women."

Radical Conservative Activists Call For Rebellion

I really hope that post-apocalyptic Earth will contain better remnants of our society than cockroaches, Twinkies, and symbolic conservative statements in which signees are make a big show of Taking A Stand on the issue du jour.

Via NOM's weekly newsletter (don't ask), I learned that a group of "prominent" legal scholars has signed a declaration calling on citizens and public officials to "resist" the US Supreme Court's marriage ruling.

What a world when predominately-white, male, conservative college professors and "think-tank" folks can call for legal obstruction and rebellion without being widely disparaged as thugs, yeah?

Anyway, this group's chief complaint is nothing new. The ruling will supposedly lead to a host of "evils" BLAH blah BLAH, and that the scholars oh-so-nobly "stand with" Abraham Lincoln and James Madison in believing that constitutional matters should not be decided by 5 judges.

7 years ago, I reviewed Leonard Levy's excellent book Original Intent and the Framer's Constitution. In it, Levy makes a strong case that we should question conservatives' claim that they eschew judicial activism and, unlike liberals, merely discover and apply law.

Judicial review - that is, the power of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution and say what the law is - has existed since the very beginning of the Supreme Court, albeit not without controversy.  Indeed, that controversy is why declarations such as these, coming as they do only in instances which coincide with a groups' political leanings, ring so hollow.

Here, I suspect that it's not the Supreme Court's power of judicial review that these conservative folks are opposing, but rather, judicial review in the case of same-sex marriage.

This statement, like so many before it, is the cowardly whinging of privileged folks about an issue that disproportionately affects other people.  Truly taking a stand would be for this group to call for the eradication of judicial review even in cases that they believe have "come out right" for them.

I challenge them to do so, if they have any integrity at all.

Quote of the Day

I've been catching up on news, and finally got around to reading the much-lauded dissent in the 6th Circuit's same-sex marriage case (PDF), authored by Judge Martha Daughtrey.  The 6th Circuit upheld (2-1) the bans on same-sex marriage in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

In addressing the "responsible procreation" argument that marriage defenders often deem to be a "civil," "rational" reason for banning same-sex marriage, Daughtrey observes:

"How ironic that irresponsible, unmarried, opposite-sex couples in the Sixth Circuit who produce unwanted offspring must be 'channeled' into marriage and thus rewarded with its many psychological and financial benefits, while same-sex couples who become model parents are punished for their responsible behavior by being denied the right to marry."

Yes.

The 6th Circuit's upholding of same-sex marriage bans represents a departure from the four federal appellate court decisions in favor of same-sex marriage, potentially leading to Supreme Court review that could lead to a ruling with nation-wide implications.

I'm glad appellate court judges are addressing and countering the "responsible procreation" argument, because it's, perhaps, the best argument marriage defenders have to assert any semblance of a rational basis for marriage bans. And, of course, this "best" argument isn't even good.

7th Circuit: Same-Sex Marriage Bans Unconstitutional

Bam!

As expected due to Judge Richard Posner's blistering, and quite wonderful, questioning of "marriage defense" attorneys during oral arguments, the 7th Circuit has found that Indiana and Wisconsin do not have a reasonable basis for denying same-sex couples the right to marry (PDF of opinion).

I've read the entire opinion, of which no doubt NOM and company are already issuing their reactionary cries of judicial activism gone awry.  But, it's a paragraph at the very beginning that I want to highlight today:

"The argument that the states press hardest in defense of their prohibition of same-sex marriage is that the only reason government encourages marriage is to induce heterosexuals to marry so that there will be fewer 'accidental births,' which when they occur outside of marriage often lead to abandonment of the child to the mother (unaided by the father) or to foster care. Overlooked by this argument is that many of those abandoned children are adopted by homosexual couples, and those children would be better off both emotionally and economically if their adoptive parents were married."

This observation is, for me, what has always made "marriage defenders" seem particularly cruel and oblivious to the reality.

So many "pro-family" conservatives wring their hands about the hoards of purportedly irresponsible heterosexuals, particularly men, who have children out of wedlock and yet their top policy solution is, "I know, let's make life more difficult for a subset of the parents who adopt the resulting children!"

If these people were sincere in their desire to actually help the families that exist in the real world, they would be grateful to same-sex couples and looking for ways to work with us to provide the best environments for all families, not just those families they deem to be the bestest most supreme families of all.

In their zeal to prevent same-sex couples from marriage, they also present one of the worst PR campaigns for marriage ever:

Marriage: It's for pressuring straight men into sticking around and raising the unintended children that they don't even want!

Brilliant strategy, folks!  Put these people in charge of all the things!  /sarcastic thumbs up sign

But seriously, combined with their correlative opposition to abortion, same-sex adoption and parenting, no fault divorce, and sex ed, it's almost like some social conservatives are intentionally trying to create the world's most unhappy, miserable people. Or, at least, more babies in orphanages.

Yet, their policies they refer to as "good old-fashioned common sense."  And, policies that acknowledge the other families that exist in the real world, they dismiss as political correctness gone awry, as though we exist primarily to annoy them and not because we have life aspirations of our own.  This kind of self-centeredness of privileged folks is the worst.

Also, one of the plaintiffs in the above-cited case is named Virginia Wolf.  Which is awesome and why is no one talking about that?!

It's a Good Day For Marriage Equality

One of the biggest lies opponents of marriage equality tell themselves and the public is that their substantive arguments are rock solid and that people, wither willfully or ignorantly, misunderstand their arguments and therefore do nothing but unjustly call them hateful bigots.

That's why, whenever the substantive arguments of equality opponents get the smackdown in the public square and, specifically, in courts, it's always with much schadenfreude that I observe it.  I refer today, most recently, of Republican-appointed Judge Richard Posner's, of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, questioning of  the attorneys for Indiana and Wisconsin, who are defending their states' bans on same-sex marriage - via Slate, and 7th Circuit website. (See also Freedom to Marry, for more background on the case).

Many "marriage defenders" believe, especially when couched in people like prominent conservative "Robbie" George's intellectual-speak, that the purpose of marriage is responsible procreation - that is, they believe that marriage exists to (and because) heterosexual sex can result in babies and therefore heterosexuals need their own institution.

Yet, when conversation with "marriage defenders" becomes a dialogue or a line of questioning, rather than a monologue where this "truth" is dictated to us from them (or "God"), two things becomes readily apparent. The first is that, when they're not actually outright explicitly hating on LGBT people and same-sex couples, they actually don't think much about us and our needs to protect our families at all. When questioned about the needs of our families, they callously show that they haven't sincerely considered the harmful impact their advocacy has on us, or the way their staunch advocacy contributes to more explicit hatred of LGBT people, or what protections, if any, we should have if not marriage.

Two, the conversations show the irrationality and weaknesses of this purportedly "civil" "definitely not bigoted" "responsible procreation" argument, from a substantive standpoint.  I've had these conversations, like many advocates of equality have, over and over and over again.

Any bigot can engage in Internet debate and do a touchdown dance declaring hirself the "winner."  I've seen it happen a zillion times.  The writers at the single-issue bigot blog Opine Editorials, for instance, used to regularly declare themselves "the best" and "undefeated" at debate about the issue - indeed, they were so confident in their position and writing about the evils of same-sex marriage that they inexplicably shut down and deleted their entire blog awhile back.

Thus, it's refreshing, and extremely validating, that those with more power to declare intellectual and legal winners in the public sphere - such as judges - agree that "marriage defense" arguments lack rationality.

I LOVE seeing "marriage defenders" stammer, unable to adequately answer a judge's simple questions about the very crux of their position, and the exceptions they, for instance, create that allow sterile heterosexuals to marry but not same-sex couples if, after all, marriage is all about the babies. I LOVE seeing judges tell them that they must answer certain questions - no evasions allowed, no really- we'll all wait. I LOVE when so-called experts in this debate are declared by courts to not actually be experts at all - because oftentimes, they're not.

The "marriage defense" movement in the US is best characterized by hunches, lazy appeals to what they call "common sense," and a buncha people who are hyper-concerned with, first and foremost, whether or not people think they're bigots.

History will show equality advocates to be winners for these reasons, not because of some invented figment-of-their-imagination "PC gone awry" society.

Scalia In a Nutshell

I've spared all of you the trouble of reading New York Magazine Jennifer Senior's recent interview with conservative US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Here's my summary of important tidbits:

His primary source of news is "talk guys" on the radio, he literally believes in the entity called "the Devil," he especially disapproves of "ladies" saying the "f word," he finds the "soup Nazi" thing in Seinfeld "hilarious," and he suspects he has some "homosexual friends" but they haven't, for some reason, come out to him yet even though he doesn't hate gays or anything.   

He also proclaims, with an air of intellectual superiority, that "words mean things" within the same conversation in which he uses only the masculine pronoun to refer to all attorneys, law students, and law clerks. And, finally, he definitely doesn't care about his potential legacy as being on the wrong side of history. He has Absolute Truth on his side.

What a neat guy.

A few months ago, I noted my glee with how the anti-gay right's attempts to sway the Supreme Court via the much-critiqued Regnerus study didn't work all that well in this past summer's DOMA case.

As I read the above interview with Scalia and his attendant affirmation of conservative dude culture, and reflected upon his especially bitter, scathing dissent in Windsor, I once again admit that I am glad - like really glad and probably more glad than I politely should be - that this guy lost a case he seems to have cared greatly about.  That likely means something importantly progressive actually did happen.

And They Say We Want Special Rights

Sign on the storefront of Sweet Cakes By Melissa, which the owners seem to have temporarily closed during an investigation about their refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding:

"This fight is not over. We will continue to stand strong. Your religious freedom is becoming not Free anymore. This is ridiculous that we can not practice our faith. The LORD is good and we will continue to serve HIM with all our heart." 

Will someone please, for the love, direct me to the passage in the Bible that sayeth, "Thou shalt not bake cakes for gay weddings"?

Because if that clause doesn't exist, it's difficult to see the above quote as anything other than imaginary martyrdom and contrived persecution. These people are operating a business, not a church or private club. They are not being preventing from going to church. Rather, as businessowners, they are being expected to comply with the law rather than being granted special rights to discriminate against some classes of people.

One of the owners of the bakery tries to explain:

“Discrimination is really the wrong terminology for what took place,” said Aaron Klein in an interview with KATU. “I didn’t want to be a part of her marriage, which I think is wrong."

That's weird.

Aside from the fact that Mr. Klein should maybe familiarize himself with the meaning of "discrimination," do bakers usually attend and participate in the wedding they bake for, or do they mostly bake the cake and have it delivered or picked up to be taken to the ceremony? At my Immoral Lesbian Wedding, we picked our cake up, never interacted with the bakery owners, and talked to the baker for like 15 minutes.

I'm sure it was very traumatic for her.

And, that's what gets to me.

Why, why is same-sex marriage and homosexuality the line in the sand, for some people? 

If the argument is now that baking while Christian constitutes "practicing" one's "faith," then I want to see Christians really own that argument and start applying it, ahem, indiscriminately to instances of sin other than homosexuality. For instance, presumably, anti-gay Christian bakers who cherish their religious freedoms do not inquire into whether, say, the cake they are baking is for someone's second or third or fourth marriage. They bake the cake even though they are possibly baking a cake for a relationship that goes against their religious beliefs and morals. They might even, say, bake a cake for a dog wedding even though they refuse to bake cakes for same-sex couples.

Presumably, they sell cupcakes even to non-Christians, and to those who lie, who cheat, who steal, who rape, who molest, and perhaps who even kill.  Even though their baked good is not necessarily complicit in these immoral deeds, the baked good, if good, would be contributing to the pleasure and happiness of the immoral person. And, well, to bake is to practice one's religion, so.

Furthermore, Oregon's anti-discrimination law also includes race and sex, among other characteristics.  That means, that even if someone holds a strong religious belief that, say, women should not be pastors, a bakery could probably still not legally refuse to bake a cake to celebrate a woman's ordination. It could likely not legally refuse, on religious grounds, to bake cupcakes for an African-American man's graduation from medical school, even if the owner strongly believed, for religious reasons, that it was immoral for anyone other than white people to go to college.

That businesses, even if they're owned by Christians, are expected to comply with anti-discrimination statutes is not some brand new threat to so-called religious freedom brought about by same-sex marriage. People have been discriminating against others for religious reasons since this country's founding and demanding the right to do so.

In a way, I'm almost sad when I hear of unsavvy businessowners who seem convinced that being a Christian means that they get to expect some extra special entitlement to engage in illegal activities whilst simultaneously seeming to believe that if they don't get those special rights they, and their religious freedoms, are under attack!  They take this stand, this one stand, and choose to jeopardize their business and for what, really?  To fulfill fantasies of purported Christian martydom?

The bakery owner continues:

“There’s a lot of close-minded people out there that would like to pretend to be very tolerant and just want equal rights,” Aaron said. “But on the other hand, they’ve been very, very mean-spirited. They’ve been militant. The best way I can describe it is they’ve used mafia tactics against the business. Basically, if you do business with Sweet Cakes [by Melissa], we will shut you down.”

Ah yes, the Tolerance Trap.  Don't fall for it, dear readers!  It's okay to not be tolerant of other people's intolerance of you! It. really. is.

And the so-called "mafia tactics"? One of the bakery's trucks was broken into, although no one has been apprehended or charged. Illegal actions and violence should be widely condemned and I can think of no LGBT group or individual, myself included, who would condone such actions. What's unfortunate, though, is that Homosexual Activists seem to be guilty until proven innocent with respect to that incident, which is a similar narrative with echoes from the absurdly accusatory "Price of Prop 8" propaganda piece.

The other "mafia tactics" seem to exclusively involve non-violent boycotting of this business, an approach that social justice and civil rights advocates widely-recognized and lauded for their non-violent activism have successfully used throughout this nation's history.

But, when it comes to same-sex marriage, it seems that many Christians just really want special rights. They want to take this stand, even though, in reality, they could be taking stands against a myriad of other ways that the legal system holds them to the same (or lower!) anti-discrimination standards it holds others to even though those standards might conflict with their religious beliefs.

[Update: And the purportedly small-but-vocal anti-gay definitely-not-bigoted-though fringe is reacting to this bakery incident in their typical measured, loving, and rational way. Hmmm, let's see if any of those gazillions of nice, civil "marriage defenders" condemn this violent rhetoric or, you know, specifically and personally call him out.  As a related note, I am deeply intolerant of speech that calls for my death at my wedding ceremony. Yes, I admit it. The bigots caught me!]

Yes, Please Submit This Anti-Gay Marriage Brief!

Welp, this was an... interesting article on same-sex marriage, penned by a David Usher who apparently is President of an outfit called the Center for Marriage Policy.

In it, Usher, whose bio does not say he's a licensed attorney, has sputtered some bizarre, word salad-ish "legal" arguments against same-sex marriage. Stay with me here, though, because that part of his article is actually pretty boring. His arguments are not clear or well articulated, and they do not, in my opinion, coherently reference relevant legal principles despite his assertion that his organization is working on a neat legal brief with a "ranking constitutional scholar" to challenge same-sex marriage.

The basic argument, and here's where shit gets funny, is that the US Supreme Court's recent DOMA ruling has created "three classes" of marriage, a structure that places "mother-mother marriage" at the top, "heterosexual marriages" in the middle, and "male-male marriages" at the bottom. No word on where non-mother lady/lady marriages fit into this schema, they seem not to exist.

You really kind of have to read a few paragraphs to get the full effect of the article.

It's a peculiar twining of MRA ideology with gender traditionalist homobigotry that, frankly, I haven't seen a lot of.  Add in the implicit argument that sexual orientation isn't an actual trait, with consequent notion that gay people therefore don't actually exist or aren't relevant to the issue of "gay marriage" and, well we get arguments that aren't anywhere near rationally related to reality, let alone rationally related to legit government purposes.

Furthermore, I expect many opponents of same-sex marriage to have some level of hatred/disgust toward lesbians and bisexual women, but many of them also have a somewhat traditionalist, simultaneously condescending and idealized view of heterosexual women, especially those who are mothers.

Usher, though, kind of lays it all out by insinuating that all women are basically greedy sperm-burglars who opt to marry other women, not because they're gay, but because women basically want the extra help around the house, in addition to wanting boyfriends on the side who will pay them child support and give them a little pickle tickle on the side I guess.

For real. His own words:

"When two women marry, it is a three-way contract among two women and the government. Most women will bear children by men outside the marriage – often by pretending they are using birth control when they are not. Entrapped men become economically-conscripted third parties to these marriages, but get nothing in return.

This is a significant advantage compelling women who would otherwise become (or are) single mothers to choose to marry a woman instead of a man. They can combine incomes, double-up on tax-free child support and welfare benefits, decrease costs, and double the human resources available to raise children and run their household. They are sexually liberated with boyfriends often cohabiting with them to provide additional undeclared income and human resources without worrying about what happens when they break up with their boyfriends." 

I emphasized a sentence in there that really highlights the traditionalist view of gender. Note the stark admission: In male-female households, Usher takes for granted that only one parent, the mother, is available to raise children and run the household, even though, presumably, two adults exist in that household.  In female-female households, he asserts that the human resources available to raise children and run the household are magically "doubled."

I'll say it again that gender traditionalists are often their own worst PR campaign for "traditional marriage."

Usher goes on to whinge that it's so unfair that heterosexual marriages, what he calls "class 2" marriages, have to "subsidize" the other two classes of marriage. Mumblemumblesomethingjust'cuz.

Things get fun again when he starts talking about "class 3" marriages, that is, male-male marriages. He opines:

"Marriages between two men are destined to be the marital underclass. In most cases, these men will become un-consenting 'fathers' by reproductive entrapment. Men in male-male marriages who become fathers by deceptive means will be forced to pay child support to women in bi-maternal marriages, and become economically enslaved to Class-1 marriages."

Again, this is what happens when people deny that sexual orientation is relevant to the larger marriage conversation. It's as though heterosexual men who are duped by female sperm burglars will throw their hands in the air and resign themselves to marrying other men, where they will live lives of financial servitude to the Matriarchalist Overlords.

I mean, the whole article is like watching a conservative "think tank" guy mistake his own crappy MRA speculative fiction fantasy story for a legal argument.

So, I just want to reiterate.

According to this Usher dude, "The Center for Marriage Policy is currently drafting a preliminary brief [asserting these theories] with the assistance of a ranking constitutional scholar."

Good luck with that.

Illinois Considers Marriage Equality

As I mentioned yesterday, the Illinois General Assembly is currently considering a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. 

Called the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, the bill would not only allow same-sex couples to marry, it explicitly notes that religious organizations would not be required to solemnize any marriage.

The law would also recognize civil unions, or "substantially similar relationships[s]" performed in other states, as civil unions in the state, and would recognize legal marriages performed in others states as marriages. It also appears to allow couples who are currently civil union'ed in Illinois to retain that status or to voluntarily convert their relationship to a legal marriage. (I forsee further legal complications and infamous grey areas!)

Of course, regardless of the outcome of this state-level bill, legally married and civil union'ed same-sex couples will continue to not have access to most of the federal rights, benefits, and privileges of marriage.  We can thank the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) for that.

Also of note, the proposed marriage equality bill in Illinois also amends the bill's use of the oxymoronic "generic masculine" in the marriage act. Laws in Illinois, as well as the State Constitution, generally use "man," "he," and "him" to refer to all human beings. In the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, however, I saw at least two added "or hers" in the text.

That little tidbit isn't going to get attention, but I say kudos for the eradication of that common microaggression against women. (Don't tell the Cardinal though, we don't want to piss him off any more than he already is!)

Quote of the Day

From the First Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling finding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional:

"A second rationale of a [put forth in justification of DOMA] is to support child-rearing in the context of stable marriage. The evidence as to child rearing by same-sex couples is the subject of controversy, but we need not enter the debate. Whether or not children raised by opposite-sex marriages are on average better served, DOMA cannot preclude same-sex couples in Massachusetts from adopting children or prevent a woman partner from giving birth to a child to be raised by both partners.  

Although the House Report is filled with encomia to heterosexual marriage, DOMA does not increase benefits to opposite-sex couples--whose marriages may in any event be childless, unstable or both--or explain how denying benefits to same-sex couples will reinforce heterosexual marriage. Certainly, the denial will not affect the gender choices of those seeking marriage. This is not merely a matter of poor fit of remedy to perceived problem, but a lack of any demonstrated connection between DOMA's treatment of same-sex couples and its asserted goal of strengthening the bonds and benefits to society of heterosexual marriage."

That is, if children "do best when raised by their moms and dads" really was a prime reason for enacting DOMA, then it would have been logical for DOMA to (a) have prevented same-sex couples from raising children via adoption or reproductive technologies, (b) to have provided additional incentives for men and women to marry and remain married, (c) to have provided disincentives for unstable heterosexuals to procreate, and (d) to prevent childless couples and male-female couples unable to procreate from marrying.

DOMA did not, and does not, do any of these things. It "simply" prevents those in legal, same-sex marriages from accessing the federal benefits of marriage, available to male-female married couples, on the sole basis of the sex of their partners.

 Thus, the DOMA "solution" to the "problem" that same-sex marriage allegedly presents society, namely the "deinstitutionalization of marriage," is not a rational remedy for that "problem."

 Can those who oppose SSM nonetheless agree that DOMA does not represent a good, legitimate, or logical connection toward its purported goal of strengthening the bonds between children and their biological parents?

[Cross-posted: Family Scholars Blog]

Argentina Passes Gender Rights Law

Via npr, Argentina's Senate, with a 55-0 vote, passed a law this week allowing anyone to change their legal and physical gender without having to undergo judicial, psychiatric, and medical procedures beforehand.

The article claims (and I believe it is an accurate claim, although others can chime in here) that no other country in the world currently allows that to happen. In the US, for instance, state laws regarding changing one's legal gender vary, but a person is often required to undergo sex affirmation surgery (also sometimes called sex reassignment surgery) prior to changing the gender on one's birth certificate.

Some quotes from the article:

"'The fact that there are no medical requirements at all — no surgery, no hormone treatment and no diagnosis — is a real game changer and completely unique in the world. It is light years ahead of the vast majority of countries, including the U.S., and significantly ahead of even the most advanced countries,' said [Justus] Eisfeld, who [is co-director of Global Action for Trans Equality and] researched the laws of the 47 countries for the Council of Europe's human rights commission.

Marcela Romero, who was born a man but got a sex-change operation 25 years ago, spent 10 years arguing in Argentina's courts before a judge ordered the civil registry to give her a new identity card listing her gender as female. 

'It's something humiliating ... many of us have had to endure psychiatric and physical tests," she told The Associated Press on Thursday. 'With this law we'll no longer have to go through this.' 

.... 

'This law is saying that we're not going to require you to live as a man or a woman, or to change your anatomy in some way. They're saying that what you say you are is what you are. And that's extraordinary,' said Katrina Karkazis, a Stanford University bioethicist who wrote 'Fixing Sex,' a study of the legal and medical boundaries around gender identity issues in the United States. 

'Rather than our more sedimented ideas about what it is to be male or female, this sort of throws all of that up in the air in a really exciting way,' she said."

Indeed. This new law seems like a win for human autonomy and self-determination. 

Argentina also passed a law legalizing same-sex marriage two years ago.

*Cue the bigot slippery-slope panic*

A Free Speech Primer

Apparently, if someone says something offensive and you criticize that statement, you are threatening the speaker's freedom of expression.

So thinks notable constitutional law scholar and former teen TV star, Kirk Cameron:

"While gay rights activists are eviscerating Kirk Cameron for calling homosexuality 'unnatural,' 'detrimental,' and 'ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization,' the former 'Growing Pains' star has received 'thousands of emails and comments" of support, Cameron's representative told ABCNews.com today.

'Cameron is thankful for the thousands of emails and comments that he's received from those who value the freedom to express one's beliefs,' the actor's rep said in an e-mail statement."

He expressed his views on "Piers Morgan Tonight" where he was promoting "Monumental."

Despite not holding demonstrable expertise or an academic background in history or law (unless Wikipedia or his personal website is omitting it) "Monumental" is "a documentary in which [Cameron] roams Washington, D.C. attempting to decipher the true intent of the founding fathers."

LOL. I can see it now:

"Aww shucks, I was roaming around and there it was! Hiding behind the Washington Monument!"

But really. Good luck with finding that One True Intent.

Let me guess! *Potential Spoiler Alert* I bet it very coincidentally jives with Cameron's already-held religious and personal convictions!

And all those people expressing their support for Cameron's reprehensible statements/freedoms of expressions? Yep, I'm just going to save these gems for the Homobigotry Is Definitely Over file [content note (dare I call it what it is?!) Yep: homobigotry]:

SBaker2 opines:

"When dealing with diseased and mentally imbalanced perverts, one expects to receive all the hate-mongering, name-calling, and attacks they can muster. Many of these freaks were once institutionalized. Now, they are armed and dangerous to same-sex kids and Christians, their primary targets."

John Thomas opines:

"when the truth bites one must realize the holy spirit may be trying to talk to you. I have no love for homosexuals at all and certainly no tolerance. How did they ever become to be called GAY when all I've known are so miserable all the time?????"

SoapDishford opines:

"Kirk's statements are not out of touch with the beliefs of most Americans, they are only out of touch with the looney left."

CRAZEDMTNFREAK opines:

"Homos choose to participate in faggotry, DP."

These quotes, mind you, were not cherry-picked.

They were but a small, but representative, sampling of some of the totally free expressions following a WorldNetDaily (I know, what does one expect from uncritical readers of that source) article giving Cameron a chance to defend himself from the big mean homoleftists who are SO MEAN to him and all of the upstanding defenders of True Marriage, True Values, True Civility, True Religion, Jesus, God, America, and First Amendment Rights.

Re-Visiting the Glass Escalator

Despite women's long history of being denied equality in admissions to universities and graduate programs, one of the earliest and most famous US Supreme Court cases regarding the right for state schools to discriminate on the basis of sex in admissions was brought (and won) by a man.

In Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, the male-dominated US Supreme Court decided in his favor 5-4 in an opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She wrote:

"The facts are not in dispute. In 1884, the Mississippi Legislature created the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls of the State of Mississippi, now the oldest state-supported all-female college in the United States. 1884 Miss. Gen. Laws, Ch. 30, 6. The school, known today as Mississippi University for Women (MUW), has from its inception limited its enrollment to women."

Seems like they also limited enrollment, at least for a time, to white women, er, "girls."

O'Connor continues:

"In 1971, MUW established a School of Nursing, initially offering a 2-year associate degree. Three years later, the school instituted a 4-year baccalaureate program in nursing and today also offers a graduate program. The School of Nursing has its own faculty and administrative officers and establishes its own criteria for admission.

Respondent, Joe Hogan, is a registered nurse but does not hold a baccalaureate degree in nursing. Since 1974, he has worked as a nursing supervisor in a medical center in Columbus, the city in which MUW is located."

Of course he has.

The Supreme Court handed down this opinion in 1981, and 15 years later, delivered the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) opinion striking down the VMI's exclusion of women.

This is all old news, of course, from a legal and political standpoint.

However, the facts of the two cases really illustrate how state discrimination toward men and women is, oftentimes, not at all equivalent. And, I think some people forget that. In their zeal to make feminism, "gender egalitarianism," and/or gender studies appealing to men, I sometimes see this "men and women have/had things just as bad, except in opposite ways" meme perpetuated, and I think that's a pretty historically-ignorant claim to make.

In MUW, thanks at least in part to the glass escalator whereby men in traditionally "feminine" occupations advance much more quickly and easily than women, the male victim of discrimination was already a licensed nurse and was already in a leadership position in that occupation despite not having a bachelor's degree.

He also had opportunities to earn a bachelor's degree in Mississippi at non-sex-segregated universities. The barriers that men faced in entering the field of nursing were, for the most part, ones of having to endure social disapproval, shame, and being marked with the "taint" of feminine inferiority for choosing a "womanly" profession. Yet, just like in the fields of cooking, fashion design, and hair-styling, we see that many of the men who enter those professions often rise to the top for, what can look like on the surface, no other reason than their alleged Inherent Superior Male Competence At Stuff.

Sure, it might not be easy for men to deal with the shame of working in these professions, but there often are not the same structural barriers to entry in those professions as there were for women who historically tried to enter male-dominated professions where licenses were, literally, denied to them on the basis of sex. For instance, in 1872, when Myra Bradwell went all the way to the Supreme Court to try to get her law license, the men on the Supreme Court denied her request because "God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action." Far from being a supervisor who was already-licensed in hir chosen profession, as the MUW guy was, Bradwell was legally restricted from entering that profession in the first place.

Similarly, in VMI, the women were seeking entry into a prestigious military school that provided an experience that could be had at no other institution in the state, and few institutions elsewhere in the US. Unlike MUW, where the assumption was that men maybe shouldn't be nurses but that they of course had the competence to be nurses if they wanted to be, the state's assumption in VMI was that women shouldn't be VMI cadets and of course they lacked the competence and suitability to be VMI cadets.

The different treatment of men and women seeking to enter non-gender-conforming professions seems to follow an unspoken rule of "anything professional a woman can do, a man can do better."

9th Circuit Rules Prop 8 Unconstitutional

"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially re-classify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples." -Judge Reinhardt, Perry v. Brown

Yesterday, as you might have heard, the 9th Circuit held that Prop 8 violates the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

An important take-away of this decision is that it is a narrow one. The Court asked, to paraphrase, "Was it constitutional for California to extend the status of marriage to same-sex couples and then later take that status away?" That is an interesting way for the Court to have framed the issue. Framing is everything in a court case and, while it is certainly true that the State took away same-sex couples' right to marry, the Court could have just as well framed the issue as "Is it constitutionally permissible for voters to deny same-sex couples the right to marry?"

The US Supreme Court, shall this case eventually make it there, should then in theory limit its ruling to the narrowly-framed issue as articulated by the 9th Circuit. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the Supreme Court also decided to frame the issue differently. At least several different legitimate ways usually exist to frame a constitutional issue.

So, in answer the narrow issue, the 9th Circuit recounted the facts of Prop 8. In short, before Prop 8 passed, 18,000 same-sex couples were legally married in the state of California and given all of the state-level rights, benefits, and responsibilities of marriage. After Prop 8 passed, same-sex couples alone then lost the right to designation of "marriage," while still maintaining the state-level rights, benefits, responsibilities of marriage.

Yes, I can already hear opponents of same-sex marriage questioning how it could possibly hurt same-sex couples to take away the word "marriage" from same-sex couples if such couples still received the same rights under a different designation. I would suggest that such people become familiar with the word "stigma." Or, as the 9th Circuit explained:

"...[W]e emphasize the extraordinary significance of the official designation of 'marriage.' The official designation is important because 'marriage' is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a lifelong committed relationship, a marriage by the name 'registered domestic partnership' does not."

I have said before that I have complicated, conflicting thoughts about assimilating same-sex couples into the Cool Kids' Marriage Club and how that might, in turn, stigmatize other forms of relationships between adults and create new hierarchies. On a practical level, I also think that allowing same-sex couples to marry will decrease the stigma associated with same-sex relationships and homosexuality. And so to answer my own criticism, I don't see marriage equality for same-sex couples as the ultimate end goal of the LGBT/feminist/progressive movement that I want to be a part of, I see it as a step in the right direction.

Continuing on with the opinion, the 9th Circuit then asked whether California had a legitimate reason for taking away the designation "marriage" from same-sex couples.

Perhaps explaining why the Court framed the issue as it did, the 9th Circuit articulated that it is much different, and suggestive of a more sinister purpose, to take away a right from a disliked minority group than to merely leave alone a status quo of "man woman marriage." In this way, by extending same-sex couples the right to marry and then taking away that right, this case is analogous to Romer v. Evans, where local ordinances first banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and then, later, voters repealed all laws in the state that protected people on the basis of sexual orientation.

As a notable fact, Justice Kennedy is widely believed to be the swing vote in any Supreme Court same-sex marriage opinion. He wrote the majority pro-equality opinion in Romer. It is an interesting approach for the 9th Circuit to have made the Prop 8/Romer comparison so explicitly here. I would be surprised if that were a coincidence and I hope that bodes well for Team Equality.

The 9th Circuit then addressed the reasons put forth for enacting Prop 8:

1) Prop 8 "advances California's interest in responsible procreation and childrearing" (I have addressed this argument here and explained why it's not a legit reason for discrimination): The Court held that Prop 8 was not rationally-related to these interests because Prop 8 did not restrict the right of same-sex couples to adopt or raise children. A law that was actually aimed to promote man-woman child-rearing would have sought to restrict same-sex parenting.

2) There is no point to same-sex marriage because same-sex couples can't accidentally procreate: The Court claimed that it is no justification to take something away to say that it should have never been given in the first place. Prop 8 proponents would have had to argue, and demonstrate, that same-sex marriage would make it more likely for man-woman couples to procreate "accidentally or irresponsibly" upon the legalization of same-sex marriage. They failed to do so.

3. Prop 8 justifies the state's interest in proceeding cautiously in changing the definition of marriage: The Court aptly noted that, in short, an absolute ban of unlimited duration on same-sex marriage in the state Constitution was not merely proceeding with caution, it is a fundamental barrier. It is therefore not rational to think that Prop 8 was enacted for purposes of acting cautiously.

To end, the 9th Circuit concluded that absent a rational relationship to any purported government interest in passing Prop 8, the voters of California enacted Prop 8 out of animosity or, more likely, "mere disapproval" of gays and lesbians- which is not a legitimate government interest. In making this conclusion, the Court observed that, as in Romer, the pro-Prop 8 ads often relied on stereotypes about the inferiority of same-sex relationships, stated that homosexuality and gays/lesbians are inferior, and that children need to be protected from learning about homosexuality and gay people.


[Cross-posted: Alas]

9th Circuit: Prop 8 Tapes To Remain Sealed

The Prop 8 saga continues!

Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held (PDF) that a lower court abused its discretion in ordering the unsealing of tapes of the Prop 8 trial.

I'm not happy with the decision, but I agree with it. Here's why:

If you remember, the legal defenders of Prop 8 opposed plans to broadcast the trial live. In a pre-trial brief, they claimed:

"The record is already replete with evidence showing that any publicizing of support for Prop 8 has inevitably led to harassment, economic reprisal, threats, and even physical violence. In this atmosphere, witnesses are understandably quite distressed at the prospect of their testimony being broadcast worldwide on YouTube."

The issue of broadcasting the trial went all the way to the Supreme Court. There, without explanation, the Court disallowed the trial to be broadcast.

The judge in the Prop 8 trial, Judge Walker, then continued to allow the trial to be recorded because, as the 9th Circuit opinion cites, Judge Walker asserted that the recordings would only be used for purposes of helping him reach a decision and would not be publicly broadcast. Later, "a different federal judge ordered that the recordings be unsealed because "no compelling reason" existed for keeping them from the public.

And so we come to the 9th Circuit opinion.

Let's talk here about what the opinion is definitely not saying. What this opinion says, if you read it, is not that the recordings must remain sealed because the witnesses in support of Prop 8 are so very scared of same-sex marriage supporters.

Indeed, as key Prop 8 witness David Blankenhorn admitted to me in conversation at Family Scholars Blog, he "never felt physically threatened" because of his testimony and he didn't even seem to be aware that the Prop 8 legal team was putting forth the narrative that witnesses like him were Too Scared To Testify. (Fun Fact: Check out Page 18 of The American Foundation for Equal Rights' brief! (PDF) I love that part of a blog conversation that I provoked is part of the official Prop 8 record! #bragging).

What the 9th Circuit opinion says, if you read it, is that Judge Walker said that he was only going to use the recordings in his own chambers and that he should therefore be held to that. To not hold Judge Walker to his assurance would, in fact, harm the integrity of the judiciary.

What do I think?

I think the tapes should have never been sealed in the first place, and that the US Supreme Court erred in saying that the trial could not be broadcast live, because I strongly question the accuracy and truthfulness of the claim that the broadcast had to be hidden from the public in order to somehow protect the Prop 8 witnesses, who were already relatively-public figures in the anti-SSM movement. I also think many professional opponents of same-sex marriage are petrified of the recordings going viral, mostly because their arguments, witnesses, and substantive points were pretty well walloped by the pro-equality attorneys and experts.

However, given that Judge Walker stated that the recordings would only be used in his chambers, and would not be broadcast to the public, I also think the 9th Circuit makes a compelling argument that it would harm the integrity of the judiciary to not hold Walker to his word regarding the release of the recordings.

The 9th Circuit will soon be issuing a ruling on the merits of the Prop 8 decision. I'm far more interested in that outcome, quite honestly.

[Cross-posted: Alas]

On "the Core" of Marriage

In the comment threads over at Family Scholars Blog there has been a fair amount of discussion about what constitutes the core of marriage. By "core," it seems as though people are referring to the essence of marriage, or to its defining features and/or purpose.

Supporters of same-sex marriage (SSM) are sometimes challenged to identify this core of marriage, since it is us (supporters of SSM, that is) who argue that marriage is something that two people of the same sex can have.

Why I view this challenge as problematic is because I contend that it is inaccurate to speak of marriage as though it has, or should have, one "core" that is universally-accepted by all in a society, much less across all societies that have ever existed. For one, it is a demonstrable statement of fact that people have differing beliefs as to what constitutes the, or even a, core of marriage. To some, the core of marriage is "one man and one woman." To some, it is "two adults in a romantic and mutually-supportive relationship." To some, it is "one man and one woman (and this same man and another woman, and this same man and possibly another woman)." To some, it is "a group of people who are all married to each other." Further variations exist.

Two, a related point, marriage is a human construct and, as such, is given meaning by the humans who utilize it, recognize it, and speak of it.

Sure, some argue that marriage is not a human construct and that it instead comes from, say, God or is just a fact of nature. But, that argument is unconvincing. How does one prove that marriage comes from God? How does one recognize a marriage in nature, in the way that, say, we would recognize a tree or a flower?

Most of us understand how babies are made but, in nature, absent the existence of a marriage license, how do we know that a marriage exists? Is it every man-woman pair that engages in sexual intercourse? Is it only the ones who say they're married? Is it any man-woman pair that has children, even if they don't plan on staying together for life?

My point with these rhetorical questions is that marriage is not a universal, readily-recognizable entity in the way that tangible, natural phenomena are.

Abstractions aside, what matters to many same-sex couples isn't where marriage supposedly comes from or what its "One True Core" is. Many do not view this conversation as an esoteric debating exercise. What matters are the rights, benefits, obligations, and privileges that flow from a state which grants some partnerships the legal status of marriage.

In legal terms, in the US, marriage has multiple meanings or "cores." In New Hampshire, for instance, "[m]arriage is the legally recognized union of 2 people. Any person who otherwise meets the eligibility requirements of this chapter may marry any other eligible person regardless of gender." The core of marriage is two people, of any gender, who meet certain requirements.
But, in Nevada, the state's Constitution reads, "[o]nly a marriage between a male and female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state." There, the core of marriage is between two people, one of the male sex and the other of the female sex, who meet certain requirements.

From a religious standpoint, Catholicism defines marriage as a "covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. [It] has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptised."

Other religious groups, such as the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), Unitarian Universalists, and some rabbis in the Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism movements view both mixed-sex and same-sex couples as capable of comprising the core of marriage.

In light of this definitional diversity, perhaps marriage doesn't have to mean the same thing for everyone across all secular, societal, and religious contexts. Perhaps it is an institution that never can mean the same thing to all in a society. Certainly not in a society that is increasingly accepting of the equal dignity of non-heteronormative relationships and their needs to protect their families via the legal system.

If it involves consenting adults, I generally support the right of private organizations and individuals to define marriage as they deem fit. The Catholic Church doesn't want to perform same-sex weddings? Fine. I don't want a wedding in a Catholic Church anyway. (I recognize that some people might want that who cannot have it, but I would support that progressive change to come from within the church, rather than through the state forcing the church to solemnize same-sex marriages).

To me, those who make arguments about what marriage supposedly is are refusing to participate in the more relevant debate that needs to take place in a democratic society. When very real benefits, rights, obligations, and privileges are accorded to those who possess the status "married," the only debate is what should the core of marriage, from a civil, legal standpoint, be?

Under Equal Protection doctrine in the US, we generally strive to treat "likes alike" and "unalikes unalike." To continue being very general, it is okay for the state to discriminate, but it must have good enough reasons to do so. That is, those being discriminated against must be different in a manner that is relevant to why they are being discriminated against.

To get out of the realm of abstractions, I will note a core of marriage as articulated by Elizabeth Marquardt,at Family Scholars Blog:

"Rather, a core purpose of marriage is to channel the reality that heterosexual sex quite often makes babies into a stable (most likely to be found in a marital) union of the baby’s own mother and father, for the sake of the babies and the mothers and father."

Here, an important core of marriage, according to Elizabeth, is for children to know and be raised by both of their biological parents. Thus, using this core of marriage, it would be acceptable to not allow same-sex couples to marry because they do not fulfill this core. There would be, it seems, no point to their marriage if marriage is about a man and a woman creating children together and then raising those children together.

And yet, we can easily think of other couples, couples who are allowed to marry, who similarly fail to fulfill this core of marriage:

1. A childless, post-menopausal woman who marries a man
2. A man and a woman who are fertile with other partners, but not with one another*
3. A man who lacks testicles who marries a woman
4. A woman who has had a hysterectomy who marries a man

I could continue.

These examples are not "gotchas." I want to be very clear about that.

See, the only thing our legal system cares about in asking whether whether state discrimination is the acceptable kind of discrimination is whether a legitimate enough reason exists for that discrimination. And, on that front, if the purpose of marriage is to channel heterosexual sex into procreation that results in children being raised by their biological parents, couples 1-4 are just like same-sex couples: Any children they raise will not be both of their biological offspring.

And so, from an Equal Protection standpoint, the legal system should be treating likes alike. But, in most US states, it's not. Most states grant marital status to some mixed-sex couples who haven't "earned" it via reproduction and child-rearing, while denying that status to same-sex couples precisely because they haven't "earned" it in that way.

Why observing this reality isn't a "gotcha" is because I contend that, if the "core" of marriage is what Elizabeth says it is, then it degrades that core of marriage and confuses people about what that core is, when we allow couples 1-4 into marriage. Allowing such couples into marriage is to grant them a special privilege that is denied to those with whom they are similarly-situated.

Indeed, to many LGBT people and allies, it looks like couples 1-4 are granted marriage licenses not so they can fulfill the core purpose of marriage, indeed they cannot, but to give them a nod, a wink, and a pass because they look a lot like members of the Super Special Heterosexual Procreators' Club. (And that's before we even start looking at possible anti-gay/bigotry-related motivations that some harbor).

So, when we start thinking about whether or not discrimination against same-sex couples is the acceptable kind of discrimination in light of what marriage is purportedly all about, it begins looking less and less acceptable due to the overbroad nature of many marriage laws.

Now, I am not, of course, actually arguing that couples who cannot procreate degrade the institution of marriage. But, rather, that we seem to have a societal incoherence in talking about marriage, with those on all sides of the issue claiming that they alone possess its one true definition. (And here it is worth noting that Elizabeth said that she was stating "a" core of marriage, which suggests one of many possible cores, rather than "the" core of marriage).

Our overbroad (or is it underinclusive?) marriage laws are reflective not only of this incoherence, but of the reality that marriage simply means different things to different people.

Maybe we need to do a better job of becoming okay with that.


*In about 10% of infertility cases, a couple's infertility arises from a combination of both of their individuals make-ups. They may be fertile with other people, but they cannot conceive with one another. Such a couple is a particularly apt comparison to same-sex couples.

Since they are failing to fulfill the purported core of marriage, I wonder, if marriage rights were denied to them on that basis, would people tell them they could simply choose to marry other people? Or would that be readily-recognized as cruel?


[Cross-posted: Family Scholars Blog]

They Hate Us For Our Government

I love it when people try to go all rogue libertarian without really thinking it through. Many of them see no need for the things the government does that they completely take for granted or are ignorant of.

Our friend Playful Walrus, who doesn't seem to like democracy, the government, or the US legal system very much, suggests a simple.... very simple.... new legal system of his own. He opines:

"Ideally, our laws would all boil down to:

1. Do not assault or murder.
2. Do not do not steal.
3. Do not damage what someone else owns against their will.
4. Do not be negligent in guardianship over dependents.
5. Do the time if you do the crime.

What am I forgetting?"

I adore that he added that question there at the end. What am I forgetting? Like, he really, really though this new legal system through (for I don't know, maybe 3 whole minutes?), thought it was just as good as any other system, and couldn't foresee any issues on his own. So, naturally, he opened the floor for other people to fill in the missing pieces.

Let me help.

I think my first question would be, well, are these "laws" suggestions or mandates?

For instance, with respect to "do the time if you do the crime," what entity is going to ensure that a criminal does, in fact, "do the time" for the crime? PW's legal scheme creates no police forces, criminal courts, or prosecutors. Is the idea that people will just naturally form vigilante mobs? Can random people just build jails and start imprisoning people?

And, from where would this entity get its authority to restrict other people's liberty? Might makes right?

What about property?

Since PW's legal system didn't establish a government or civil courts (let alone a Patent and Trademark Office), what entity is going to protect people's property rights?

If people's property rights aren't well-defined, how are we going to determine what constitutes "stealing"? Who's going to determine, and punish people, for damaging other people's property "against their will"?

Who's going to build roads, schools, bridges, fire departments, universities, and hospitals- Private individuals? Companies?

Who knows!? Who cares?!

I think what's important here is that PW's system is easy and simple. And importantly, The People will get to work out all the ticky-tacky details as they see fit. What could possibly go wrong?

Ironically, PW seems to think it is primarily progressives, homosexualists, and liberals who want to destroy The American Way Of Life.

Headline of the Day

From the Christian Science Monitor:

"Gay marriage: Court weighs validity of Prop. 8 ruling by gay judge"

Why isn't the sexual orientation of the judges who are weighing the validity of the "gay judge's" Prop 8 ruling mentioned?

If they rule for or against Judge Walker's ruling, will their sexual orientations subsequently be put on trial?

Or, is sexual orientation only relevant if it's a homasexuloogedyboogedy judge making the call? Is this because heterosexual judges are inherently objective about matters that affect the rights of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, in the way that white people are more objective about, say, affirmative-action cases and men more objective about sexual harassment claims?


Consider this an open thread to talk about privilege, fauxbjective, and whatevs.