Brief Thank You

People on this side of the blogosphere will read Juan Cole before they come here. Nonetheless, I wanted to acknowledge his recent visit to Massachusetts:

What is on my mind is that the opposition to gay marriage in Massachusetts seems to me almost entirely religious in nature. I don't know of any organized agnostics or atheists agitating against it. The religious want to pass a Massachusetts law making gay marriage illegal. This development is disturbing for a number of reasons, but most of all because I think the religious people want to use the power of the state and Federal governments to impose their will on U.S. society. And that is a contravention of the First Amendment and of the Lemon Test put forward by the Supreme Court in 1971. Chief Justice Burger wrote,

"Every analysis in this area must begin with consideration of the cumulative criteria developed by the Court over many years. First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances or inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster and excessive government Entanglement with religion."

A law against gay marriage seems to me to fail the "secular purpose" test, and insofar as the political base for passing it is conservative churches, it would seem pretty entangled with religion, too. And that is my reply to Senator Rick Santorum and others who argue that gay marriage is equivalent to many deviant practices frowned on by society. There is a secular purpose for forbidding marriage of close relatives, since it exposes the offspring to heightened genetic danger. There is a secular purpose for forbidding pedophilia and pederasty, indeed there are many secular purposes fulfilled by such a ban (forbidding the manipulation through intimacy of the young by persons much their senior, which is unfair, and keeping the young from developing all sorts of neuroses and personality problems as a result of an inappropriate relationship for which they are unready). It is said that gay unions offend against the sanctity of marriage. Actually the secular state has no business marrying anyone if it is thereby affirming the "sanctity" of anything. That would severely contravene the Lemon test.
[...]

Religion should not be telling governments what laws they must pass or mustn't pass, where there is no secular purpose served by the law. ... The same impulse of religious intolerance that led to September 11 is what lies behind much opposition to gay marriage. So we have to decide if we are Americans or Taliban.

I was tempted to reprint it all. Read it all.

Progressing

Today, of course, is the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Today, gay and lesbian Americans can marry in one of the 50 states. I was three then and didn't know what was going on. Not now. Of course I see a continuity.

And a sameness. God was invoked then: He meant the races to be separate. God is being invoked now.

A quote then is no less applicable to today's news:

"Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place."
--- Thurgood Marshall (1908 - 1993)

Free At Last

Civilization crumbles. Or not.

With the passage of a midnight deadline, Massachusetts became the first state to process marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples Monday. Cambridge was the only city to seize the first possible moment, opening its offices to 260 couples — even supplying a giant wedding cake — as thousands of sign-waving well-wishers cheered into the wee hours.

Andrew Sullivan, ironically writing in the paper he loves to hate, notes that it's the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

... Today is not the day "gay marriage" arrives in America. Today is the first time that civil marriage has stopped excluding homosexual members of our own families. These are not "gay marriages." They are marriages. What these couples are affirming is not something new; it is as old as humanity itself. What has ended — in one state, at least — is separatism. We have taken a step toward making homosexuality a non-issue; toward making gay citizens merely and supremely citizens.

I cannot think of another minority whom conservatives would seek to exclude from family life and personal responsibility. But here is a minority actually begging for a chance to contribute on equal terms, to live up to exactly the same responsibilities as everyone else, to refuse to accept what President Bush calls the "soft bigotry of low expectations." And, so far, with some exceptions, gay citizens have been told no. Conservatives, with the president chief among them, have said to these people that they are beneath the dignity of equality and the promises of American life. They alone are beneath the fold of family.

But this time, these couples have said yes — and all the president can do (today, at least) is watch. It is a private moment and a public one. And it represents, just as Brown did in a different way, the hope of a humanity that doesn't separate one soul from another and a polity that doesn't divide one citizen from another. It is integration made real, a love finally come home: after centuries of pain and stigma, the "happiest day of our lives."

I will differ with Andrew on one point: when it comes to basic rights, no one should beg. But in the spirit of the moment, let that pass.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all [people] are created equal...." Today, in one state, it's true.

UPDATE: The first marriage has been performed


UPDATE 2: Jo Fish, SullyWatch and via SW, Steve Brady, aptly took Sullivan to task over his "surprise" at the fact that the Catholic Church and conservatives oppose equal marriage. Yeah, I saw it, but I chose to let it pass; I knew that. Besides, I was feeling too good to let it bother me.

To be fair, Sullivan has pushed this issue for years, and to conservatives: that's a tough room. One can (and I have, implicitly) invoke the adage about "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." If nothing else, give the boy points for stamina.

I don't know whether Sullivan enjoyed saying that all the president could do was watch. I sure did. But today, I thought he earned a pause. Given his other opinions and his penchant for vendettas (especially against liberals, to whom he owes what rights he has), he's target rich territory. Tomorrow.

And I wanted to see all those fantastic pictures.

Assassination

The president of Iraq's Governing Council has been killed. If the GC isn't safe, who is?

Media Play

From too many sources to cite, it seems that a lot of people are upset that the "nasssty liberal media" has not given the story of David Nicholas Berg's horrific death equal play with the "frat house hazing" pictures and stories from Abu Ghraib.

How very odd. Even though the work intensive of the last few days, I've seen prominent items about Berg every day since the news of the enormity broke.

Could it be that Berg's death has not supplanted and submerged the Abu Ghraib stories in their entirety? Nah, not possible: that would imply that their protests have more to do with politics than principle.

The Great Upset should really have pity on the media: the Bergs are not being very cooperative. They insisted on a dignified, private memorial service instead of a great patriotic caterwauling, perhaps with the Caterwaul-in-Chief presiding and Lee Greenwood as a cantor. They persist in their lawsuit against the government. An awkward juxtaposition, to be sure.

The Bergs and the 9/11 families have some things in common. The families were embraced while they were embraceable. When the some of the families started asking awkward questions, they found themselves described as everything from partisan to mentally unbalanced. I predict the Bergs will encounter the same, if they haven't already.

My sincere condolences to the Bergs.

Abu Ghraib Again

Sy Hersh's third article on Abu Ghraib is in The New Yorker. It's pretty damning.

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, “Any suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened, and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding.” The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, “Some people think you can bullshit anyone.”

Hersh deserves something more than a Pulitzer for these articles. Should he, Taguba, or the crew of 60 Minutes II (despite agreeing to postpone the story, they did run it) visit Baghdad, they might find some of those rose petals Rumsfeld predicted last year. Hersh is also a reminder of what a journalist is supposed to be.

Like the previous two, it's depressing as hell. If I posted everything that made me yell, I'd violate copyright laws. But one statement really got me:

Last week, the government consultant, who has close ties to many conservatives, defended the Administration’s continued secrecy about the special-access program in Abu Ghraib. “Why keep it black?” the consultant asked. “Because the process is unpleasant. It’s like making sausage—you like the result but you don’t want to know how it was made. Also, you don’t want the Iraqi public, and the Arab world, to know. Remember, we went to Iraq to democratize the Middle East. The last thing you want to do is let the Arab world know how you treat Arab males in prison.”

That may be the most disingenuous statement yet. The Iraqis knew what was going on at least six months ago. In November 2003, Abdul Basit Turki, Iraq's first and now former Minister of Human Rights went to Paul Bremer with the stories. God knows how long they'd been circulating before Turki heard them.

It was only the Americans, in whose name this was being done, who didn't know. Well, most of us.

Love and Marriage

Just because I'm desperate for some good news:

You'll see gays kissing each other all week. Producers from the big networks will be in Massachusetts to broadcast what are billed as the first legal gay marriages in the U.S. But the stories won't be totally accurate: gay couples have already legally wed in the U.S., here in Oregon. In a little noticed decision last month, overshadowed by the news from Massachusetts (not to mention Iraq), Oregon Circuit Court Judge Frank Bearden ruled for the first time in U.S. history that a state must "accept and register" marriages of same-sex couples. In March and April, Multnomah County issued marriage licenses to 3,022 gay couples, some of whom sued after the state then refused to recognize those marriages. Bearden's ruling in their favor means that until a higher court says otherwise, those 6,044 lesbians and gays are as married as any heterosexuals who have tied the knot.

It was easy to miss the Oregon gay marriages. They began during a bewildering period earlier this year when four other localities — San Francisco; Sandoval County, N.M.; Asbury Park, N.J.; and New Paltz, N.Y.--also began recognizing same-sex marriages in one way or another. But the Oregon unions differ from the others significantly: no judge has authorized the other marriages, and in the four other states, authorities have intervened — in most cases swiftly — to stop the ceremonies. But in Oregon, a unique ruling upheld by the state supreme court in 1999 says government officials must meet an extraordinary burden to treat gays and straights differently — the same high burden required to justify disparate treatment of blacks and whites, or men and women.

But wait! Mount St. Helens has not exploded again. The coast of Oregon has not slipped into the ocean. The Earth has not crashed into the sun. How could that be? According to what I've read, God has gotten mighty peeved by lesser infractions by fewer people.

Maybe God was taking a nap? Or maybe God doesn't care after all.

Congratulations to the happy couples.

Oh God

Another round just began:

A video being shown on an Islamic militant Web site shows the beheading of an American civilian from Pennsylvania, according to journalists from news agencies and television networks who have seen it. In the tape, which is of poor quality, masked men who claim to have ties to Al Qaeda say the execution is vengeance for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.

Jane Jacobs

Something not about Iraq. Jane Jacobs is visiting New York:

"I love New York so much still," she said. "But the traffic is the worst I've ever known it to be." (In a chapter in her new book, she explains briskly why one-way streets, designed to streamline traffic, only complicate it.) "New York still has so much pizzazz, because people make it new every day. Like all cities, it's self-organizing. People looking for a date on Third Avenue make it into a place full of hope and expectation, and this has nothing to do with architecture. Those are the emotions that draw us to cities, and they depend on things being a bit messy. The most perfectly designed place can't compete. Everything is provided, which is the worst thing we can provide. There's a joke that the father of an old friend used to tell, about a preacher who warns children, 'In Hell there will be wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth.''What if you don't have teeth?' one of the children asks. 'Then teeth will be provided,' he says sternly. That's it - the spirit of the designed city: Teeth Will Be Provided for You."

Records

From Phillip Robertson's article in Salon (DayPass required) about Al-Jazeera cameraman Suhaib Badr al Baz's 74-day "experience" in Abu Ghraib:

Torturers often keep careful records; that is one of the odd but persistent features of the trade. It is never enough to destroy the captive -- there must also be proof of the victory over him, a souvenir. It is the prideful documentary urge that has undone the torturers of Abu Ghraib, although it is unlikely that the officers who sanctioned the abuse appear in the pictures. In any case, the Abu Ghraib prisoners were well aware that they were being photographed.

It would seem that the Nazis were not history's only document freaks. Actually, it doesn't surprise me; I'd heard similar stories about Pinochet's Chile.

But here is a new question: where are those records? It's been two weeks since the shit hit the fan. Did anyone in authority impound them? Does anyone in authority care? If they disappear, it would be rather convenient for all those involved.

More Good News

There are more than 1000 new photos from Abu Ghraib. Depending on how many Steiglitz wannabes were at work this could be going on for a very long time.

Last night, Josh Marshall spotted an AP report of a woman in her 70s who was harnessed and ridden like a donkey. I'm sure she had a lot of info about the WMD. No pics? Darn, I was so looking forward to them.

Najaf is heating up again. I'm not original to say Americans captured are unlikely to escape or be returned alive. Really excellent job, Don.

Bush has apparently "admonished" (the Post's word) Rumsfeld for the way he handled the report (the third of its kind, let's remember). An anonymous senior White House official related that Bush is "not happy." That, for once, I can believe. It's the "not happy about what" part that I question.

Belatedly Discovering the Obvious

Now he tells us:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- America's soaring federal budget deficits represent a major obstacle to the country's long-term economic stability, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned on Thursday.

Greenspan told a banking conference that the federal budget deficit was a bigger worry to him than America's soaring trade deficit or the high level of household debt because those two problems can be corrected by market forces.
[…]

"Has something fundamental happened to the U.S. economy and, by extension, U.S. banking, that enables us to disregard all the time-tested criteria of imbalance and economic danger?'' Greenspan asked.

Answering his own question, the Fed chairman said, "Regrettably, the answer is no. The free lunch has still to be invented.''

Nancy Pelosi

Good for her

"By requesting just $25 billion in additional money for our troops in Iraq -- when we know that at least twice that amount will be needed -- the Bush Administration is once again keeping the true cost of the war from the American people.

"For weeks, despite the increased fighting in Iraq and the continued loss of our brave soldiers, the President and the Secretary of Defense have maintained that an additional funding request could not be submitted before the November election because it was impossible to know the right amount.

"We need to know how the Administration all of a sudden decided that it needed $25 billion since many experts -- including the House Budget Committee -- have concluded that at least $50 billion in additional funding will be necessary to provide our troops with the equipment and support they need to accomplish their mission.

"We must give the troops what they need to be successful under increasingly risky conditions. And the President must tell the hard truth to the American people about how much longer our troops will remain in Iraq and how much more it will cost."