City of Ladies

Breaking: DADT Unconstitutional

2010-09-10T00:11:00.002-04:00

So says Judge Virginia A. Phillips of a federal district court.

Obviously this won't change anything immediately, but hey.

Kagan Confirmed

2010-08-05T16:37:00.004-04:00

The Senate voted 63 to 37 to confirm Elena Kagan as the next Supreme Court justice. She is the fourth woman on the court - this is the first time three women are serving at the same time - and the sixth person who is not a white male.

The vote was mostly along party lines: all the Democrats except Ben Nelson voted for her, and all but five Republicans against.

...So how badly do I want her to suddenly come out?

BREAKING: Prop H8 Unconstitutional

2010-08-04T16:46:00.005-04:00

Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. Federal District Court for the Northern District of California, has declared the 2008 ballot measure unconstitutional under both the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.

The ruling will obviously be appealed, but for now, squeeee!

Edit: And execution of the judgment is stayed pending appeal, so no one can get married yet. Ffffff.

Edit: Appeal filed, but so's a motion to start marrying people anyway.

You are responsible for what you do

2010-07-29T18:36:00.008-04:00

I'm really amazed I have to say this twice in less than one month, but apparently some people are very, very attached to the idea that they can do no wrong (and very fond of banning people who suggest otherwise).

I didn't think it was a difficult concept. Someone from a historically marginalized group tells you that you're perpetuating that marginalization, you take a look at what you did and try to do better in the future. You don't go "OMG you're the sexist one! If you didn't have all that sexism in your head, you wouldn't have thought what I did was sexist!" (An example from a commenter in one of this poster's other threads: "You're sexist! If you didn't think that the mother was the one who should always be taking care of the children, you wouldn't think policies restricting children's movement were sexist!" In defiance of the fact that since, in the real world, mothers do the majority of childcare, policies about children disproportionately affect women.)

That said, the poster's being a queer woman in no way precludes her post excluding queer people and promoting an essentialist view of gender. Or have we never seen gender-essentialist women before?

I'm not really sure how to describe this mentality. It's easy enough to call it a mechanism to shift blame for oppression onto the oppressed party (because she can't really think that her culture is not informed by sexism and homophobia, I hope), and while it's obviously that as well, I'm also interested in how it works in terms of blogging specifically. Was it an overreaction, surprise that anyone took issue with what she wrote?

I wonder how much of that has to do with the difference between writing on a small blog and writing on a large one. When I wrote a guest post for Feministe, I specifically kept in mind that it would be read by people of many backgrounds and political positions. This blog doesn't have a lot of readers, and I wouldn't be surprised if the ones that do come are demographically similar to the bloggers - white, middle-class, American, possibly Jewish, possibly TAB. I've probably written a lot of racist, classist, and ableist stuff here that I haven't been aware of because of a commentariat that isn't necessarily diverse enough to notice and call me out on it - and that's my fault, for not writing about issues that affect more groups. But when I wrote that post for Feministe - a reworking of an earlier post - I made sure to define my terms, tried (not always successfully) to avoid unnecessarily excluding or targeting anyone, and attempted to weigh the concerns of both sides. Because Feministe has readers who are more sensitive both to anti-Semitism and to Islamophobia than I am, and who won't take my background and terminology as assumed.

And when people called me out for fucking up - for mocking the valid concerns of a group I belong to - I apologized, rather than saying "People who think anything I've said could possibly be anti-Semitic are narrow-minded and provincial anti-Semites."

I don't think the significant thing there was the way I wrote. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone fails to estimate what the response will be like to something they say. If that post received relatively little criticism, that means I got "lucky," not that I didn't say things that were offensive. (I say "lucky" - it isn't especially, since if I make a mistake that goes unnoticed I'm likely to make it again where it could hurt someone.) I think the important thing was the way I responded.

This is not meant as "yay me, I am a good blogger." Rather, this is to say that it's not difficult to apologize and try to do better. I am a rather prickly personality, and somehow I manage.

Because I am responsible for what I do. As a writer, part of what I do is choose words and phrases and paragraphs based on what they mean to me and to my audience. But since I write publicly and not privately, some of the people who might read my pieces are people I wasn't thinking about when I wrote, and their take on it is no less valid. They can't read my mind and know that I didn't "intend" to be racist or ableist. They can only read what I chose to put on the screen in front of them. If I didn't mean to write something that marginalizes them, it's my job to remember that they're my audience, too, and not do that again. Not tell them it's their fault for daring to take part in the discussion as a person who has faced racism or ableism that sounded like that, or that they'd better shut up until they can adequately appreciate my sophisticated yet natural wisdom.

You don't tell people that they're only seeing an -ism because it's in their heads, and that you're not responsible for marginalizing that you've done. This is a cardinal rule of anti-ism work. You own what you do.

Perhaps Mai'a isn't used to considering a wider range of responses. I don't know; it's not my place to psychoanalyze, because I can't see in her head either. All I saw was what she gave me: a post that other queer people and women saw as marginalizing, and an extremely inappropriate reaction to their concerns.

--

I admit I fucked up by assuming that this poster was heterosexual, though in my defense, the "I didn't meeeeeean to be homophobic, you're the homophobic one for noticing" is typically the resort of heterosexual people called on their straight privilege (as it is the resort of other groups of privileged people). However, I will definitely be more careful in the future, and remember that I too have internalized stereotypes of groups to which I belong. I also admit that I need to do a better job of taking off the American goggles. (From the comments visible there, it also appears as if I said that the poster was not black; this is because comments that would have made it clear that I do not believe that were deleted.)

The Undermedia

2010-07-20T20:59:00.002-04:00

"We know the undermedia has power. And it comes from positioning it against the mainstream media."

"These stories kept building, building, building in this undermedia. You can call it Fox News; you can call it Breitbart sites; you can call it the Drudge Report; you can call it whatever you like — but this undermedia builds up stories."

These are two quotes I found, from very cursory Googling and without venturing onto his site, of Andrew Breitbart, a right-wing blogger, using his favorite word, "undermedia." It would seem that it's been his favorite word for a while, but I comment on it now because I first heard it today, once again on the radio.

From the first quote, it might seem like he has a point. Blogs and other non-mainstream forms of media do have power, especially because people are getting their news more and more from the internet. Blogs often cover issues and provide information that the MSM just doesn't cover, or for which they insist on providing "balance."

Except then you look at the second quote, and you realize what a ridiculous concept is the "undermedia" as Breitbart conceives it/ Because, while he talks about Breitbart sites and the Drudge Report - sure, even the most popular blog is still a blog, and there are plenty of popular blogs with a liberal slant - he also uses, as an example of the Oppressed Non-Mainstream Media, Fox News. The network that has more viewers than all the other major American networks combined.

This is yet another example of what Fred Clark describes as the "Persecuted Hegemon" complex and what we here just tag with the "whine more" tag. (Fred uses it specifically for the Christian right wing, but I find it applies pretty well across the board.) Of course, Breitbart isn't facing actual persecution. He and his blogs don't face any political repression; indeed, the blogs get loads of visitors (far, far more than the blog you're reading right now) and Breitbart himself is a sought-after speaker.

But Breitbart calls himself part of the "undermedia." It's the phenomenon of simultaneously dominating discourse:

being seen - as a white, presumably cis/straight/TAB conservative male - as being an impartial observer rather than the representative of an interest group

allying himself with the most popular media network in the country, and

belonging to a movement whose input is deliberately sought on media stories in the interest of "balance" - even when such input is along the lines of "Gay and trans people don't deserve civil rights because, well, you know, they're icky." (I was going to link a piece here about the stupidity of this, but I can't remember where I read it.)

...while still claiming to be persecuted.

But of course Breitbart is persecuted, because other voices are speaking. The mere existence of other media - the inability of his media of choice to stifle all other media - means that his media of choice are the "undermedia." (I've covered this before: see "Country First.")

We should all be persecuted like Andrew Breitbart.

What the ever-loving fuck

2010-07-12T13:46:00.003-04:00

[Pentagon spokesman Geoff] Morrell also insisted that the questions with which most critics took the most umbrage -- i.e., those related to lifestyle issues like socializing outside of work as well as showering and sharing barracks with openly gay and lesbian colleagues (as though that does not currently occur) -- were developed as part of a process within the department and the working group to address the "privacy" issues of concern to heterosexual members of the military. Morrell said, "We think it would be irresponsible to conduct a survey that did not address these questions," but insisted they were asked to help the military determine what adjustments might be necessary "when DADT is repealed."

In response to questions from reporters, Morrell clarified that the survey responses could lead the military to conclude that it would "perhaps need adjustments to facilities themselves," indicating that it is not outside the realm of possibility that, in order to preserve the privacy and modesty of heterosexual service members in group showers and barracks, the military would consider segregating gay and lesbian service members in some way.

The army was desegregated over sixty years ago. "Separate but equal" was struck down almost sixty years ago. Yes, there were some very sincere racists who might have had their poor feelings hurt. And we, as a country, decided that we did not care, because equal rights were more important.

Tarring and Feathering

2010-07-08T11:28:00.015-04:00

(I don't normally like to do this, but since I've been banned from commenting there, I have nowhere else. So be it. If you want to skip the interpersonal drama, you can scroll down to the double dash -- for the generalized parts.)

So, I occasionally read Womanist Musings, usually on the order of "catching up once a month or so on what I've missed." Because of this habit, I happened to read this apology post before reading the grossly cissexist and homophobic post that prompted it. (Trigger warning on the latter link.) The original post was about Perez Hilton, a gay male gossip blogger who posted an upskirt photo of singer Miley Cyrus, and generalized to other gay men who still enjoy male privilege; the apology covered the cissexism in the original post, but not the homophobia.

Of course, unapologetic -ism is nothing new at Womanist Musings, but given that Renee posted specifically to apologize for wielding her cis privilege to hurt others, I thought it was possible that I had a chance at a similar apology for the use of her straight privilege as a weapon.

Boy, was I wrong.

If you'll read the comments on the apology post, you'll see that I make my problems with the original post very clear. Namely, they are:

that Renee othered Hilton's sexual orientation by making numerous snide asides about his lack of sexual interest in women

that Renee implied that Hilton has no right to complain about homophobia (but it's totally not acceptable!)

that Renee employed offensive stereotypes of gay people

and that it's not acceptable to use homophobic rhetoric against gay people just because you don't like them, because that affects gay people whom you're not targeting

I also went into detail about each of these complaints. This included:

an illustration of the fact that yes, Renee has written about sexism in the past without othering the sexist person's sexual orientation (her coverage of the Chris Brown case was somewhat lacking in the same snark about "he wants to fuck women, right? so why would he hit a woman?") and without saying that he has no business standing up to -isms that he faces (a post on sexism from Black men doesn't say that they "scream" about racism as if "only their oppression matters," nor does it use either a stereotype of Black men that is equivalent to the "shrill" stereotype of gay men, or the "oversensitive" stereotype applied to all oppressed people)

an explanation that saying that Hilton has no business complaining about homophobia also means that Renee's transphobia negates her right to blog, as well as, in general, setting up a mythical perfect person who is the only one with the right to complain about -isms - and that the nonexistence of such a perfect person and the consequent negation of anyone's right to complain about oppression is quite handy for the people who benefit from that oppression.

Renee eventually left the discussion (after misrepresenting my objections, accusing me of sexism, saying I was erasing others' experiences because I objected to her erasing of my own, and pretending that I had asked her to give up her issues and focus on homophobia when I had, instead, asked her not to be actively homophobic), which continued for a little bit in her absence.

More recently, one of WM's guest bloggers, Sparky, posted about the importance of safe spaces. Part of the post was about when it is appropriate to speak up about an -ism in someone else's safe space, which recalled to my mind the issue of homophobia and transphobia in what was supposed to be a safe space for women at the same blog. I commented, disagreeing with Sparky's argument that sometimes it is necessary not to bring up that oppression in a space devoted to another kind of oppression, and Sparky commented back clarifying that it was different for single-issue blogs and intersectional blogs. Another commenter mentioned the past post in a way that misrepresented the views of the people objecting, so I explained what was going on as well as why I had commented - because I expect an intersectional blog to be a safe space. Fairly on-topic, wouldn't you say? Talking about calling out -isms in safe spaces in a post about calling out -isms in safe spaces?

Of course, the magic wand of privilege can make anything "off-topic," so my comments were duly tarred. And then the comment thread becomes a wonderful source for privilege bingo, hitting "But I know gay people who don't think it's homophobic!", "I didn't mean to be homophobic so it wasn't homophobic!", "You're derailing!", "You're oppressing me!" (the source of the post title), "You have no right to expect a safe space!", "THE GAY AGENDA!!1!", and the wonderful old "You're just oversensitive!"

--

Of course, WM isn't the only internet (or real-life) "progressive" place crawling with -isms. That doesn't make this any less wrong. In theory, at least, "progressive" is not a synonym for "cis heterosexual supremacist" or "white TAB supremacist" or "white male supremacist." (No matter what other marginalized communities the people in question may be part of - female, disabled, POC, gay - if you enjoy any privilege, when you are the gatekeeper of that kind of space and discussion, you take responsibility for not using that privilege against other people.)

This means that it is incumbent upon maintainers of "progressive" (inclusive, intersectional, etc.) spaces to make those spaces safe for everyone. Make a racist comment at a campus feminist meeting? Congratulations, your group is not a safe space for people of color. Offhand rape joke at Students for a Democratic Society? There goes a woman who might have made a difference to your movement. (This is part of why I have a problem with Joe.My.God. - because it is not a gay male blog, though it is run by a gay man, and though it deals with issues relating to plenty of groups, it's not a safe space for most of those groups. The comment section is often a cesspool of sexism, for example, and the habit of referring to unpleasant people as "Miss" doesn't help much either.)

And intersectionality is crucial here. One commenter at WM (who I assume is heterosexual, though I could be mistaken) explained that she felt that her experiences were validated by Renee's sarcasm. Guess what? I found that sarcasm offensive, as I found the subsequent attempts to erase my experiences. Now, I really doubt that there was no way to validate straight women's experiences without hurting queer women. This comes of weighing your options and choosing to use what may have been a slightly more effective rhetorical technique to make straight women feel better, at the cost of hurting queer women. Not caring if you're hurting queer women? Makes you homophobic. And when you make yourself out to be the maintainer of an inclusive space, unapologetically throw around your straight privilege, and ban people for pointing it out, you betray that intersectionality and inclusiveness, and your blog is not a safe space for queer people.

This is why you recognize that you are abusing your privilege, apologize, and do better in the future.

If cissexism in your "safe space for women" drives away women who need the safety you advertise, you have failed women. If your philosophy includes a recognition of the fact that "all isms affect women" and you proudly use homophobia as a tool to fight sexism, you have failed women.

--

As I explained there (partly in comments that were left intact and partly in ones that were deleted):

Part of what straight privilege means is that Renee can walk away from this and forget after two minutes about those touchy queers "tarring and feathering" her. (Yeah, pointing out someone's privilege is apparently equivalent to torture now.) For her, walking away means not having to confront her internalized biases.

For me, walking away means resigning myself to the fact that one of the most prominent progressive bloggers doesn't think homophobia is even worth acknowledging, much less apologizing for. For me, walking away means accepting second-class status in a particular space where I expected to be treated as an equal human being.

Facts are stubborn things

2010-06-11T10:20:00.003-04:00

I heard on NPR this morning that a U.S. border patrol agent shot and killed a teenager across the Texas border in Mexico.

A border patrol spokesman argues, as do people defending the shooter, that he was acting in self-defense - apparently the teen who the agent shot was throwing rocks at him, and the agent was in danger. It's unclear at the moment whether or not this is true.

Of course, if it's true, this isn't the first time in American history when government agents have fired on and killed rock-throwers in self-defense. It's happened before.

And when it happened before, we called it the Boston Massacre.

What is wrong with people? Why is it so hard to believe that an American could do something bad?

it liiiives

2010-05-14T01:54:00.006-04:00

So, Elena Kagan's been nominated for the Supreme Court. Not a huge surprise. Nor is the explosion of outrage from the OMG SHE IS A GAY brigade.

Here's Bill O'Reilly, on Kagan and same-sex marriage:

"Americans have a right to know if their Supreme Court justice has an orientation that may or may not dictate which way she votes on a vital issue."

Of course, if Kagan is gay, it would mean she would support gay rights. Just like women always support women's rights and black people always support black people's rights.

But seriously, has O'Reilly not been paying attention? Maybe he's just forgotten about Larry Craig and Ted Haggard, but there's another case in the news right now! Surely O'Reilly isn't arguing that George Rekers didn't actively oppose gay rights. I hope he isn't, because there's plenty of documentation.

(Also an indication of how straights, men, etc. are the "unmarked case." If Kagan were known to be straight, the right wouldn't assume that she was against gay rights. Because straight people are allowed to have their own opinions.)

--

Also, the UK elections. Nick Clegg sold out. Tories in government. I'm just trying to remind myself that on the political spectrum, they're around where the American liberal party is.

Refuting the Pro-Life Position is Easy as ABC

2010-01-11T00:02:00.003-05:00

While searching around the blogosphere, I noticed that there were multiple blogs whose posts included headlines like "2009 Study Confirms Abortion-Breast Cancer Link," "Abortion and Breast Cancer Link Confirmed," and "Study: Abortion Leads to Breast Cancer." After seeing these headlines, I assumed that there had been a study published recently in which a statistical correlation between abortion and breast cancer was found. However, after actually reading these blogs, it seems that these assertions that there is an abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link, along with my assumption about these titles, can easily be dismissed.

The first reason why I doubt the validity of those headlines is that the general consensus within the scientific community is that while there have been well-designed studies failing to demonstrate the ABC link, there hasn't been sufficient evidence in support of the hypothesis. (For a longer, more nuanced explanation, as told by the American Cancer Society, click here.) Although the current knowledge of the scientific community is by no means above criticism and questioning, the current research regarding this hypothesis furthers the amount of evidence that needs to be supplied by proponents of the ABC link. After all, it's one thing to show correlation, but it's even tougher to show correlation when others have shown that there is none.

The main reason why I don't think this particular assertion regarding the existence of an ABC link should be taken seriously is the content of the study cited. The study in question is entitled Risk Factors for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in Women Under the Age of 45 Years. (You have to pay to read the article, but abstract is free.) Read through the abstract, and summarize it in your own head. What does this study appear to be measuring? If your answer included the word "abortion", try reading it again, because it's pretty clear that this study was focused on the relation between oral contraceptive use and being diagnosed with cancer.

So why has this article been used as support for the existence of an ABC link? I'll let LifeNews.com, a pro-life news agency, explain:

When it comes to the abortion link, the study did not produce any new results but it cited the Daling studies from 1994 and 1996that showed between a 20 and 50 percent increased breast cancer risk for women having abortions compare to those who carried their pregnancies to term.

(Note: I added the links to the Daling, et al. articles.)

Really, this is the smoking gun? The article in question involved a prominent researcher from the National Cancer Institute, so perhaps her acknowledgement of a couple of papers from a single source may legitimize them somewhat, but that probably doesn't void all of the studies proposing an alternate perspective. Then again, perhaps we should look at the context in which the citations were used. Let's look at what else Lifenews.com has to say about this revelation:

As Dr. Joel Brind, a prominent breast cancer researcher, says, "what was striking was the way in which the finding of a significant ABC link was characterized."

"Specifically, abortion appears in the data table which lists the associations found for 'known and suspected risk factors,'" he explains. "In the text, the effect of the significant risk factors, including induced abortion, were described as 'consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women.'"

Call me crazy, but listing abortion in a category that includes "suspected risk factors" doesn't even seem to prove that the authors of the article are sure that abortion can increase one's risk of breast cancer. All it seems to suggest is that abortion is being looked at as being a possible factor.

With this in mind, allow me to summarize this entire incident, keeping in mind that my only sources were the abstracts of the articles themselves and pro-life blogs: A journal article was written, by among others, a prominent member of the National Cancer Institute 9 months ago. The paper, which does not actually include any research related to abortions, cites a paper suggesting an ABC link as proof that abortion might possibly be associated with breast cancer. Therefore the National Cancer Institute is guilty of covering up a vast conspiracy that researchers have been aware the abortions cause cancer.

How can you argue with that logic?

But even if it were the case that abortion was proven to somehow increase one's susceptibility toward getting breast cancer, how much would that really change the pro-choice vs. pro-life debate? Now, don't get me wrong; I do believe it's worthwhile to know for sure whether or not there is an ABC link. After all, anyone undergoing any medical procedure should be as informed as possible about her potential risks. That being said, I don't think it would make any difference on the issue of whether or not the procedure should be considered legal and/or ethical.

One of the most used arguments in defense of the pro-choice position is the idea of bodily sovereignty, the belief that every person has a right to control one's own body. So, even if the ABC link were definitively shown to exist, that probably wouldn't convert many people to the pro-life side simply because the same idea suggests that a woman has the right to use her bodily sovereignty to decide for herself whether or not she's willing to increase her risk of getting sick in the future in order to exercise a choice she otherwise favors. There's nothing wrong with doing a little cost-benefit analysis and deciding on one's own what's best for oneself.

So, there you have it: According to pro-lifers, abortion is bad because of questionable scientific evidence of a phenomenon that doesn't really do much to counter the the pro-choice stance.

A Last-Minute Entry for Fail of the Year

2010-01-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

2009 was a year full of scandals and acts of stupidity, and although I have no intention of making a top 10 list of fails of the year, there's still something that happened last week that deserves to be ridiculed as we rid ourselves of some of the baggage from the previous decade. The fail I'm referring to is a recent political advertisement from Andy Martin, a Republican candidate running for the senate seat that Obama once held. Here's the transcript of the radio ad:

ANDY MARTIN: I'm Andy Martin, Republican candidate for United States Senator. I approve this message because Illinois Republicans deserve the truth about their candidates.

I have over 40 years of experience and integrity fighting corruption and fighting for the truth in politics. I helped expose many of Barack Obama's lies in 2008.

Today I am fighting for the facts about Mark Kirk. Illinois Republican leader Jack Roeser says there is a solid rumor that Kirk is a homosexual. Roeser suggests that Kirk is part of a Republican Party homosexual club. Lake County Illinois Republican leader Ray True says Kirk has surrounded himself with homosexuals.

Mark Kirk should tell Republican voters the truth.

I'm Andy Martin, a Republican you can trust, for United States Senator. Please vote for Andy Martin.

ANNOUNCER: Paid for by Illinois Republicans for Andy Martin.

This is not the first time that Martin has made unusual accusations, as evidenced by his credit for starting the rumor that Obama was a Muslim, and as with the Obama accusations, this isn't the first time that his assertions are based on a single source. Let's face it: Just because someone calls someone else gay does not mean it's necessarily so. It's especially a rumor of questionable veracity when the candidate in question has married a woman before.

But the questionable accuracy of this ad isn't the only reason why it's such a fail. It fails because the Martin's campaign spent enough money to buy a full minute of time to talk to his consituents, and the most convincing reason he could come up with for voters to support him was: "Vote for me because there's a chance that my opponent might be gay."

Overall, this is definitely a ridiculous ad that reaches the ranks of failing political ads from earlier in the decade like the one in which Saxby Chambliss copped a feel of his own granddaughter and Mike Gravel's "Rock" ad.

Whaaaat?

2010-01-01T13:35:00.013-05:00

Was at the movies last night. The previews were really just disheartening. I'm, sadly, not surprised to see a hilarious comedy about a man kidnapping his ex-girlfriend - the trailer showed him carrying her over his shoulder and keeping her locked in the trunk of his car - but haven't we moved beyond the point of playing dragging someone behind a vehicle for laughs? As a society?

I don't know what could have been going through their heads. I can get that maybe someone originally cooked the idea up either in ignorance of the entire history of lynching in America or figuring that they'd disregard anyone who might care, but the whole chain of command? Stupid, or evil?

That evil is the sort of thing we combat all the time. But what about that stupid? Are there schools that don't teach students about violence against minorities? That let them think that the only things they need to know about African-Americans are slavery and the March on Washington?

A Letter

2009-12-30T14:04:00.001-05:00

Oh look, a post.

I've covered something like this topic a while ago, before this blog existed, but now's as good a time as any, and the circumstances of now make it appropriate for me to phrase this as a letter.

Dear *******,

I know it "hurts your feelings" when I get annoyed at you touching me without my consent. It hurts my feelings when you touch me without my consent. It hurts my feelings when you yell at me for being annoyed when you touch me without my consent. It hurts my feelings when you touch me without my consent in a way that I've asked you not to do more times than I can count. It hurts my feelings when you yell at me for being annoyed when you touch me without my consent in a way that I've asked you not to do more times than I can count. It hurts my feelings when you promote rape.

Yes, I said "promote rape." Because once you establish that consent does not matter, the difference between kissing the back of someone's neck and putting your penis in their vagina is a difference only of degree, not of kind.

I'm not worried about myself, because I don't listen to you anymore. But my sister will probably have a boyfriend in a couple of years - what are you going to say to her if she comes home and tells you he raped her?

"So he put his penis in your vagina without your consent. Oh my god such a big deal."

"You'd better not break up with him over it."

"In life, people are going to have sex with you sometimes. Deal with it!"

That's, of course, if she tells you. I certainly wouldn't.

Are you disappointed that the only safety videos you could find when we were kids were ones that said that you are the only one who can let someone touch your body? Would you rather have shown us ones that said that our parents were the only ones who could let someone touch our body, and it was their consent that mattered?

Even if you accept that there are situations where you will have to be touched, isn't it better to start from a position of "No one can touch you without your consent" and carve out exceptions from there, instead of taking as your axiom "People will touch you. Get over it"?

I don't see why it's so difficult to understand. Having sex with a consenting person is, at worst, bad sex. Having sex with a non-consenting person is rape. Hitting a consenting person is sport, or BDSM, or Fight Club. Hitting a non-consenting person is assault. Touching a consenting person is affection or theatre or medical examination. Touching a non-consenting person...?

"It hurts my feelings" is an understatement. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. I keep my mouth shut almost 100% of the time - when friends of friends hug me without asking, when my grandmother puts her hand on my thigh or pats my behind or when my aunt comes up behind me and squeezes the back of my neck - because I've decided it's not worth being yelled at every single time. You have no idea what it took just to tell my roommate's boyfriend off when he ran into the room and jumped on me before we'd even met. She may think I'm a bitch for it. But that one time is the anomaly among all the times I am touched against my will and decide I don't want to be punished on top of and for being violated.

You are supposed to be the people I can trust. You are supposed to be the people around whom I don't have to worry about my social credit.

I guess I should be glad that so far these confrontations have only taken place in private. Every time this happens is another object lesson: if you touch someone against her will, telling her to get over it and not hurt your feelings will let you get off scot-free. Is this the attitude you want to be cultivating? Do you want to be telling people how to sexually assault your daughters, and your daughters to shut up and take it?

Sincerely,
Rebecca

Lots of Catching Up to Do

2009-12-24T23:30:00.000-05:00

Holy shit! It's been a loooong time since I posted anything. With this being the case, I'm just going to go over some of the things I've been meaning to write about recently. But don't worry, I promise that next time I write, I'll have time to go more into depth.

What Part of Doctor-Patient Confidentiality Do You Not Understand?

A couple of months ago, a law was passed in Oklahoma requiring that in order to undergo an abortion procedure, a woman would have to fill out a questionnaire providing information about herself and the circumstances related to the procedure. The questions can be viewed here, specifically on p. 8-17. The 37 questions in and of themselves aren't that unusual. In fact, a bunch of them are yes/no questions, and many of them basically ask something along the lines of: "Was this procedure performed in compliance of Section X of state law, which mandates that the doctor do A, B, and C." A few of the questions, though, are a bit more unusual, but they're definitely interesting from a statistical perspective (i.e. There's a question about reasons for getting an abortion.), and quite frankly, they seem less appropriate to be compulsory under the law. So, based purely on the information I've presented thus far, this questionnaire seems like a small nuisance on the path to getting an abortion, but surely I wouldn't waste my time blogging about 15 minutes worth of paperwork involved in getting an abortion unless something stranger was going on.

So, what's the catch? Why am I so baffled that this law was passed? As it turns out, the answers to each person's questionnaire, minus things like name and address, are supposed to be submitted to the state so they can be be posted online. While I could definitely understand posting aggregate statistics, such as listing the percent of people who answer yes and no to each question, posting indivdual pieces of raw data is disturbing. When you think about, there's really no reason to do this except to discourage women from exercising their ability to have a legal abortion. After all, if the interest was learning about demographics and such surrounding this procedure, the total, calculated data would be posted, not individuals' raw data. The raw data just provides people with a way of connecting the results to indivduals. After all, with so few places to get an abortion, and some basic knowledge of someone's circumstances, such as the date of the procedure, an acquaintance or family member could go online and get info about that woman's abortion. The fear of being found out could shame women into keeping unwanted pregnancies and facilitate acts of violence against women who chose to get abortions.

But the thing that bothers me more is that this is a clear violation of the role of doctors. Now, I may not be a doctor, but I do know a bit about the field. For instance, right now I'm training to be an EMT, a basic and relatively easily obtained level of medical rank. In my training I learned the basics of the role of a medical professional very early on, and one of these basic things I learned about was patient confidentiality and HIPAA. (When I refer to the basics, I mean stuff taught by day 2 of the course. In theory, anything that someone could learn by undergoing less than a week of EMT training should be common knowledge to most other medical professionals.) The basic idea of confidentiality in a medical setting, when viewed in a broad sense, is pretty straightforward. Basically, it's inappropriate to to tell anyone about a particular patient's medical history unless the person being told is another medical professional who could potentially use that information to provide further care to that patient, the doctor is required to report the incident to police because the cause of the injury is a particularly heinous crime like child abuse, or if a court grants someone special access to one's medical records, an event that often occurs in medical malpratice lawsuits. (The exceptions are a bit more complicated, but the spirit of the law remains.) This custom exists to ensure a special trust between the doctor and the patient, thereby increasing the odds that the patient is honest and unintimidated, providing the physician with the best information available, and improving treatment. It's very clear that posting one's name and address with the questionnaire would be blatantly illegal, but what about the rest of the information? As I said earlier, particularly when one considers the rarity of abortions, the raw data could be enough to identity a patient (potentially leading to violence against her), and information in such a format serves no interest other than the restriction of abortion rights. Therefore, this law unnecessarily forces women to risk face an additional threat while obtaining an abortion, and it puts doctors in an inappropriate role as purveyors of their patients' personal information.

Newsflash: Obama Isn't a Muslim, Kenyan, Socialist Secretly Trying to Destroy America

On the air, Rush Limbaugh talked about President Obama and, believe it or not, he wasn't to pleased with the man's views. Specifically, he had a problem with Obama'a college thesis, entitled "Aristocracy Reborn." This paper contained many criticisms of contemporary views of the constitution, suggesting that "The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom." However, there was one tiny errorone tiny error with Limbaugh's analysis: The paper was a satirical essay on how people view Obama, and not the president's actual work. Oops.

So, how did Limbaugh respond to the news that he was basing an analysis of the president on false evidence? He simply refused to admit guilt. Instead of just saying, "I screwed up and I'll fact-check these sorts of things more closely in the future," he insisted that although this particular paper turned out to be the work of someone else, Limbaugh is sure that the president thinks these sorts of things in actuality. Way to go, Rush. You've just proven that there's no actual distinction between the words that come out of your mouth and a news story that's known not to be accurate. Thanks for clarifying the lack of differences for those who didn't already notice.

The Moment of Zen

Here's a video of Rep. Akin (R-MO) emphasizing the importance of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance... and then forgetting the words to the pledge:

Newsflash: Obama Still Isn't a Muslim, Kenyan, Socialist Secretly Trying to Destroy America

Arlington, Tennessee Mayor Russell Wiseman commented on Facebook that he was upset that Obama was giving a speech that conflicted with the Charlie Brown Christmas special on television. Among the claims Wiseman made was that Obama was a Muslim, that America had become a Muslim nation, and that "...our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that had stayed in there, things would be different..." Disregarding for a second that I doubt Obama was familiar with the local television scheduling situation in Tennessee and that the topic of the speech was of interest to Americans of all religions, Wiseman put the blame for this controversy solely on those that made "a mountain out of a molehill" and publicized the mayor's comments, rather than on the guy who actually made a mountain out of the president interrupting a television show. Wouldn't it be such a nice Christmas gift to see a politician take responsiblity for his own words... or at least buy himself a DVD of the Christmas special so that he could watch it after the president is done speaking?

Palin's Book (Insert Your Own Punchline)

Seriously, to anybody reading this, feel free to insert your own punchline in the comments. Here are a couple of videos pertaining to Palin and her new book. In the first, Andrew Sullivan, a conservative writer, says what he really thinks about Palin, and in the second clip, Palin supporters are confronted by an actual quote from the former governor. Look at the change in the Palin-supporters' faces between 2:00 and 2:30. It's priceless.

I love how people who oppose government action by the Democrats somehow see themselves as constitutional scholars who have incredible insights regarding the founders' intentions not possessed by those in congress. I also love how these ideals of limited government don't apply to Republican-supported actions. It's just so funny when people think like that.

Quotemining Gold

"Climategate" occured recently. The controversy revolves around e-mails from climate researchers in which they essentially admit that much of the evidence in support of the idea of global climate change is fraudulent, or at least that's what critics of global warming claim. There's just one problem: That's not what the e-mails actually say, and one would think that some pretty damning stuff would appear in over a decade of private correspondence. For a good video showing the claims made in the media building up "climategate" along with an explanation of why the e-mails don't unveil an elaborate conspiracy to promote global warming, I'd recommend watching this video.

Keeping Teh Gay Out of New York

As a New Yorker, I was dissapointed that my state was unable to pass legislation legalizing gay marriage. However, I have to admit that even though New York is such a blue state, I was not surprised that the bill to legalize gay marriage received insufficient support. The reason I wasn't surprised is that a few months ago, I had spoken to someone (who shall remain anonymous) who was involved in state politics and was previously asked by the Democratic Party to run for a seat in the state legislature. Although he never actually ended up running, this is relevant because it means that he was able to get to know some members of the state legislature, and he is actually able to talk to representatives directly. As a result, he was able to talk directly to some of the state senators for whom it was questionable which way they would vote. According to this source, these senators normally would've supported marriage equality, but because they live in districts with such large conservative populations, they rely heavily on getting votes from Republicans. As a result, there was a fear amongst these Democrats that a vote in favor of legalizing gay marriage would drive away Republican support and cost them their positions. I confess that this isn't shocking news. After all, it's not unusual to see a politician act in a way that will garner the most votes. That being said, it feels so weird seeing this phenomenon hit so close to home. It's one thing to see some congressman or senator from another part of the country blatantly play to his/her constituents, but it's a whole lot harder to be optimistic about legislation when even on the state level it's hard to find a politician with enough of a backbone to not only think for themself, but to also act in accordance with their own views.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

2009-11-16T00:16:00.006-05:00

As you probably know, the House of Representatives last week passed their version of the health reform bill. It's been knocked on liberal blogs, for good reason: the public option is weak, it mandates that people who can't afford insurance buy it anyway, basic women's health care is not on the list of things that companies are required to cover, and it prohibits companies that have any federal subsidies from covering abortion.

(It does prohibit denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions, which is good.)

Some of these things are steps forward, however small. Some of them are steps backward. Which is why I ask conservatives who are bemoaning the bill's passage:

How many "babies" are you willing to let die in order to kill a Democratic President's health care plan?

How many "babies" are you willing to let die in order to prevent the spread of "socialism!!1!"?

How many "babies" are you willing to let die in order to protect insurance companies' right to profit from the most basic needs of others?

Put your money where your mouth is and try to get the bill passed.

Election 2009; Glenn Beck's Race Baiting

2009-11-04T18:57:00.022-05:00

Assorted thoughts:

Some gains and some losses. Gains are summarized here; most notably, Referendum 71 in Washington, which establishes domestic partnerships as equal to marriage in all but name, appears to have passed by two points. The most notable loss is, of course, Maine, where the pro-marriage side lost by almost six points.

What we learned from Maine. Main(e)ly, that even a good grassroots campaign that's willing to show the real people that the issue affects and to combat the other side's lies won't always win. Or perhaps that it takes a campaign almost entirely funded by the religious establishment, which breaks financial disclosure laws and lies in all its ads, in order to beat that campaign.

I admit that the standard comfort of "the voters who supported it are old and time will bring equality" isn't too helpful on a day like this.

(Commenter Alex at the BTB link does make the ironic point that the right-wingers' push to strip a minority of their civil rights "because otherwise the children would have to hear about it in school" will be the subject of every social studies class discussion today.)

Not election-related, and I don't like to talk about Glenn Beck, but I was linked this so I might as well: Much has been made of Beck's ranting yesterday that black Obama supporters were "taught to be slaves," and its obvious offensiveness to descendants of slaves who still feel the effects of slavery. While his subsequent comment that progressives like Andy Stern (of the SEIU) were "taking 'you' to a place to be slaughtered" has likewise been called out for being an obvious lie, I haven't seen the same criticism made about its race-baiting - Andy Stern is Jewish, and that absolutely reads as a Holocaust reference. As if those weren't prevalent enough already with right-wingers crying that the President will put them in concentration camps and that health care reform is like a Nazi plan.

Interesting

2009-11-03T13:55:00.036-05:00

The European Court of Human Rights has just ruled that Italy cannot display crucifixes in public schools. It's an interesting case because the arguments run so close to those for and against religion in schools in the United States - only they don't split along the same lines.

Here's a little quiz - which side used these arguments?

1. Values of a democratic society
2. Restricts rights of parents to educate their children
3. Discrimination
4. Promotes pluralism
5. Not a sign of belief
6. Religious rights of children
7. European values
8. Europe is trying to crush our values
9. Opponent is ideological
10. Schools must observe religious neutrality

Answers: 2, 6 and 10 are the secular side. 5, 8 and 9 are the religious. 1, 3, 4, and 7 are both.

The most interesting crossovers are, of course, 2 and 6. Here in the United States, it's more common to see religious supremacists saying that prohibiting prayer in schools restricts them from raising their child the way they see fit. It's one of the eternal paradoxes of the "parental rights" school of thought (another one is that it mostly consists of attempts to legalize child abuse): the same people campaigning for more freedom to educate their children without the structural support of the public school system (when it's about sex ed or evolution) are the ones who don't seem to think they're up to the task of teaching the kids about God or, you know, sending them to religious school.

Except of course it's not a paradox at all, because it's never about educating their own children. If it were, they would be content with no religious opinions being forced on their children (no school prayer, comp sex ed), leaving a space for those to be taught outside the public classroom. It's always about using their power to make sure others conform. Same reason you see 6 crop up among this lot when the students are Christian and want to make public display of their faith. (4, 5 and 7, from the religious side, are the same thing we see here when crosses are used as memorials to non-Christian soldiers - because if they obscure the fact that non-Christians serve their country, that's just an unfortunate side effect.)

Echoes of Engel v. Vitale and Lynch v. Donnelly - the former banning school prayer, the latter okaying religious decorations on public property. In the latter we get the same argument that a government-sponsored representation of Jesus has a secular purpose and doesn't advance a religion, while in the former we have a decision that even a non-denominational prayer offends atheists. In the interim (1962-1984) we of course had almost a complete turnaround on the court, which has got only more conservative in the twenty-five years since Lynch. I'm actually afraid for what could happen if school prayer comes up again.

(The state of Italy was fined, but as of yet has not been ordered to remove the crucifixes.)

Values Voters Minues the Values

2009-10-15T21:08:00.004-04:00

One characteristic that makes funadamentalists unique is their willingness to stick to their religious dogma regardless of how illogical it seems. Even when confronted by tons of reasoning and new ideas, they refuse to change their perspective, or are at least hesistant to do so. While I'm not a big fan of this sort of philosophy, I do have to give them credit for sticking to their values when it's hardest to do so. After all, what good are values if you abandon them the second doing so becomes tough?

This idea of sticking to one's views at all costs does, however, come with a huge sense of arrogance and an attitude that essentially says, "I'm right, you're wrong, and everything I do is the work of God himself." Obviously, this sort of attitude is consistent with a feeling of religious self-righteousness. But in order to feel self-righteous in a religious sense, one must act in a manner consistent with religious teachings. So how would a fundamentalist Christian go about achieving this high sense of self-worth? Just live a life consistent with the teachings of the bible.

That's easy, right? Good Christians should be following the bible anyway, so an even better Christian should be at least that christlike. But what happens if some of your views don't match up with those taught in the bible? If that's the case, you have a few options:

1. Don't pretend to be God's gift to the world. This is the most sensible option. If your views don't agree with those of the bible, it's perfectly fine to admit that there's a discrepancy, and that there's some value in thinking for oneself.

2. Pick and choose. The bible contains tons of wisdom, but it also has tons of stuff that aren't as admirable. (God is egotistical and even genocidal on more than a few occasions.) So, how do you resolve this? Just ignore the parts you don't like. Sure the bible encourages things like polygamy, animal sacrifice, and executing rape victims, but the bible's a lot easier to follow when you just ignore those parts.

3. Twist the verses around. Have a belief, but can't find a biblical passage to prove that every thought that pops into your head is inspired by God himself? Fix this problem by taking a random biblical passage (either in or out of context) and twist around its meaning until it justifies your belief system. This technique is particularly fun if you can arrange it so that it's interpreted to mean something with absolutely no relation to its original meaning. For example, you could interpret a passage about incestuous, same-sex rape as justification for centuries of race-based slavery and persecution. (I wouldn't recommend using that suggestion exactly as stated, seeing as it's already been done.)

4. Rewrite the bible. Not everyone has the same viewpoint... unless you edit everyone else's viewpoint. At first glance, this may appear to be a ridiculous idea, but there is some logic to it. After all, the bible was originally in languages like Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Surely some errors must be present in it after centuries of translation and having scribes rewrite it by hand. Good faith efforts to correct these mistakes are reasonable, but surely nobody would even think about changing the bible to suit his or her own personal political beliefs. This idea is so sacrilegious that nobody in his or her right mind would actually do it. That being said, there are a lot of people who are out of their minds.

Enter Conservapedia, one of the internet's more organized collections of nutcases. For those of you who don't know, Conservapedia is a website created by Andy Schlafly as a response to what he viewed as liberal bias on Wikipedia. (Schlafly's mother is the infamous Phyllis Schlafly.) Conservapedia itself is basically an encyclopedia of conservative opinions, rather than of facts and verifiable information. (There are also many objectively accurate articles, but they tend to be about a sentence or two long.) And the opinions expressed on this website are rather extreme. In fact, sometimes it's hard to tell if their views are serious, or if they're just satires poking fun at conservatives.

Back to the subject of screwing with the bible, Conservapedia has found a new way to put the "fun" in "fundamentalism". Simply put, through what's known as the Conservative Bible Project , Conservapedia is attempting to translate a conservative edition of the bible. Evidently, the book most used to arbitrarily justify conservative positions was too liberal for them, so they felt the need to rewrite it with the following guidelines:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias - Liberal bias, of course just means anything Schlafly doesn't want to follow.
2. Not Emasculated - Why use gender-neutral language? Godforbid any theological issue should be made as relevant as possible to more than half of the world's Christians.
3. Not dumbed down - Even the newest parts of the bible are centuries old, and there have been many generations of people who've devoted their lives to trying to better understand them. Still today, we've got plenty of unanswered biblical questions. If that's the result of a dumbed down text, I can't imagine what a more complex version would look like, and I'd have to question how deeply the bible could be understood as part of a project led by a man who isn't sufficiently formally educated in the field of ancient languages.
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms - Isn't that just another way of saying to add more conservative bias? So much for focusing on biblical accuracy. Then again, given Conservapedia's track record with defining the ideology of words, this may not change the ideology of the bible at all.
5. Combat Harmful Addictions - Changing terms like "cast lots" to "gamble" might be well-intentioned (and ineffective), but modern bibles already have this kind of stuff written as footnotes.
6. Accept the Logic of Hell - Because we all know that if any book argues against the existence of Hell, it's the bible.
7. Express Free Market Parables - This is necessary because Jesus healing the sick could otherwise be viewed as socialized healthcare.
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages - The provided example is of the story with the line "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." If that's liberally biased, then I'm even prouder to be a liberal.
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples - There are books of the bible credited to the disciples themselves. Their own words are probably good enough for forming opinions about them.
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness - I wasn't aware that conciseness was a conservative trait. But if wordiness is suggestive of liberalism, wouldn't it be more concise to take the word "liberal" out of "liberal wordiness"?

This is why you've got to love the far right. They think anything and everything is biased against them if it contains even the slightest bit of ideology that does not match their own.

Tosca and Torture

2009-10-08T15:33:00.033-04:00

(apologies, this is so not the current story at the moment. but if I tried to keep up, I would never post anything.)

Some of you may know that I'm a major opera lover. I was thinking today, for whatever reason, about Tosca. Tosca has a scene in which one of the characters is tortured (offstage) for information about a terrorist he's suspected of harboring, while his partner Tosca, who also has the information, is onstage having the torture described to her by Scarpia the police chief and listening to his screams. He doesn't break. She does.

Now, someone in favor of torture might come out of there thinking, "Torture works. She had the information, she was psychologically tortured, and she gave it up."

Here's the thing, though. It so happens that the person by whose physical torture Tosca is mentally tortured is also an accomplice to terrorism. But if he weren't? Nothing about the situation dictates that the person being tortured offstage have anything to do with the crime - all that is necessary is that he or she be someone dear to Tosca. If Cavaradossi weren't guilty? If it were her brother, or her mother?

This is the fundamental problem with torture apologism. This is what happens when you follow the utilitarian aspect of it to its logical conclusion. The argument that one hears is that the human rights of the torture victim are secondary to the lives of the people that could be saved if "we" had that information. Doesn't even matter if each individual detainee is guilty or even knows anything. The overall set of people who would suffer is much smaller than the set of people who would not (so the argument goes) and thus torture is acceptable.

But wait. We've already seen CIA operatives threaten to kill detainees' children and rape their female relatives in order to get information out of them. What's stopping them from actually doing it, from torturing a child in the next room while one of the detainees is forced to listen until he cracks? It's only one child - hundreds or thousands of children could be saved if the supposed terrorist gives us the plans for that bombing or plane hijacking.

The situation presents two problems. One: why is it all right to torture innocent men, but not innocent children? Remember that we don't know that the people we're torturing are guilty; in fact, we know that a good number of detainees are not only innocent, but of no intelligence value. And two: why are apologists trying to deny that the detainees are human, with human feelings, while advocating the extraction of information by threats against people close to them?

It's obvious enough, but it's worth stating again: torture is not practiced to extract information. It is practiced to punish people, not for crimes, but because we don't like them.

(The other famous operatic torture scene is the one from Turandot, where, after giving her captors false information, Liù refuses to reveal what she knows and then kills herself. Oh right, but torture works.)

How To Save Yourself From Teh Gay

2009-10-07T02:51:00.003-04:00

There is an unbelievable amount of content that can be viewed on the internet. Using this resource, you can do anything from sending electronic letters to friends, to purchasing items from sellers halfway across the world, to looking up articles for academic information, to playing video games, and anything in between. But did you know that the internet also has pornography? As hard as it is to believe, it's true. There really are such things online. They can range from oral sex between a man and a woman, to harcore sex between a man and a woman and another man and 3 more women plus a goat and a boxturtle (not that I'd know anything about that). This phenomenon of pornographic diversity is so prominent that it's been given it's own name: Rule 34. This acknowledgement of the vast variety of porn available on the internet may seem logical to the untrained eye, but in reality, all porn is the same. So, why is all porn the same? It's so simple: All pornography is part of a vast conspiracy to turn people gay, particularly the type that features sex acts between heterosexual men and women.

Some people reading this blog may be thinking something like, "Wait a second. How does watching straight porn make people gay?" The answer was explained by Michael Schwartz, the Chief of Staff for Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn and author of Gays, AIDS, and You:

Schwartz's logical skills are shown to be equally impressive throughout the speech, but unfortunately, the complete video of this speech was removed from Youtube before I finished this post. That being said, this video seems to serve as a "highlight reel" for the speech as a whole. So, without further ado, I'd like to break down Schwartz's ideas and put more thought into this he he evidently did:

But it is my observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. They speak badly about homosexuality. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it. And that’s a good instinct.

Disregarding the fact that this is only anecdotal evidence, and that it's very plausible that attitudes regarding homosexuality are socialized, rather than instinctual, this is a pretty unconvincing statement. For argument's sake, let's assume that children do, for some reason or another, have a propensity toward homophobia. (Interestingly, in doing research for this post, I found a journal article suggesting that homophobia could be a genetically determined trait.) Even if this were the case, Schwartz's statement essentially boils down to a the following premise and conclusion: Children dislike homosexuality. Therefore, homosexuality is unhealthy.

The problem with this argument is that it's based on the implied premise that children know what's healthy for them. As we discussed previously, just because a child doesn't understand something accurately doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate this idea would be to look at Schwartz's argument, except replacing "homosexuality" with "eating vegetables". Children have little tolerance for eating vegetables, and they talk badly of doing so. That being said, I don't think any legitimate dietition would support the idea that avoiding the consumption of vegetables is a good idea. In short, just because kids seem to believe something doesn't necessarily mean that it's a reasonable idea.

...studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that its genetic and all those studies have proved its not genetic. Homosexuality is inflicted on people.

If you think this is true, I dare you to go to nih.gov and prove its veracity. I did a quick search through the website and it doesn't have a well-organized listing of studies on the basis of homosexuality. What it does do, though, is provide links to other organizations' studies. The scientific perspective on homosexuality, as explained by the APA can be viewed here. Simply put, Schwartz's assertion was a flat-out lie. (On a sidenote, I looked up articles about this topic using research tools unaffiliated with the NIH, and the most commonly accepted explanation is that homosexuality is caused by interactions with the immune system of one's mother during pregnancy. There are also tons of studies analyzing potential connections between homosexuality and traits like birth order and handedness.)

And one of the things that [an ex-gay leader of a sexual orientation conversion organization] said to me, that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark. He said, 'All pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.' Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.

First of all, it's the 21st century. No 11-year-old is going to go through all the trouble of illegally purchasing a pornographic magazine. As I explained earlier, the internet is for porn. Furthermore, no threat of the alleged dangers of pornography are going to deter people effectively. Similar types of fear-mongering allegations made about masturbation (i.e. it causes blindness and hairiness) have been around for a long time and masturbation is still common. Why Schwartz thinks pornography is any different is beyond my understanding.

But in all seriousness, Schwartz's friend's quote is untrue. Pornography is used to get one excited by viewing other people engaging in sexy behavior. The whole point of it is not to focus on one's own body, but instead to focus on the people depicted in the pornographic material. This is as much an example of turning one's "sexual drive inward" as getting aroused by looking at another naked individual in person. If seeing sexy scenes turned people gay, then people would become homosexual by having sex with a member of the opposite sex with their eyes open.

I know that for all these points, I am, for the most part, preaching to the choir. I seriously doubt that the idea that not all pornography is gay does not qualify as a revolutionary concept. That being said, it is important to realize that the speaker was the chief of staff for a senator. This would suggest that his perspective is influential when Senator Coburn is forming his opinions, and that his views are similar to those of Coburn to begin with. It's not as if I'm talking about some random American. Rather, I'm talking about someone with a lot of power. While Schwartz's perspective isn't exactly mainstream, it's definitely not reassuring to realize that there's a large fringe in this country that actually does agree with him.

Another Democrat pwns

2009-09-27T23:04:00.004-04:00

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-MI: ...And I don't think you can go forward and allow 60 percent of the insurance companies not to provide basic maternity care, in a new system we're setting up that's hopefully gonna be better than the old one. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sen. John Kyl, R-AZ: Mr. Chairman, well, first of all, I don't need maternity care, and so requiring that to be in my insurance policy is something that I don't need, and will make the policy more expensive.

Sen. Stabenow: If I could just object once with my colleague, I think your mom probably did.

News Roundup

2009-09-20T21:32:00.003-04:00

We seem to have died a little again. Here's a quick roundup of a few assorted things I wanted to mention:

Another Republican is on record stating that only Republicans are Americans.

"If they go it alone without the Republicans, it also sounds like they want to go it alone without the American people."

Thanks, Rep. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana! (Link also discusses an attempt to remove liberals and liberal movements from history textbooks and is worth reading.)

Michelle Bachmann has really been bringing the crazy lately.

"That’s why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress, and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions."

See how you like it, Ms. "Defund Planned Parenthood" Bachmann.

"This [healthcare reform] cannot pass. What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass."

...You do that, Ms. Bachman.

Bachmann has also described taxation as slavery, called health care reform "reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom" (lovely!), and expressed a willingness to run for President if she "felt that's what the Lord was calling [her] to do." That's some quality crazy.

We've blogged before about the main (no pun intended) fight for marriage equality in the upcoming election. A DailyKos poll reports that we are set to lose that election 48-46. Maine is a state where we should have a guaranteed win - their conservatism tends toward the libertarian, and the opposition is from out of state. Then again, we thought that was true in California, too. In any case, the only positive thing about this poll is that it may motivate the marriage equality side to play their best game until the election's over, unlike in California where some suggest that polls showing that Prop. H8 would fail lulled people into not acting. If you're in Maine or know people there, tell them to vote NO on 1.

The other major issue coming up is Washington's Referendum 71, which, despite being framed as a marriage debate by the antis, is actually about whether or not to repeal the state's domestic partnership law, and despite significant signature fraud, is still going to be on the ballot in November. If you're in Washington or know people there, tell them to vote YES on 71.

House Democrats have introduced the well-named Respect for Marriage Act, which, if passed, would repeal DOMA and have the federal government respect same-sex marriages performed in states where they are legal.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on behalf of the British government, has issued an apology to Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician, cryptanalyst, computer scientist, and hero of WWII. Turing was convicted of gross indecency (homosexuality, the same charge that sent Oscar Wilde to two years of prison and hard labor) and sentenced to chemical castration by estrogen. He committed suicide two years later. Brown's apology acknowledges not only that the government's treatment of Turing and millions of other LGBT people was "appalling," but also that it was on a continuum with the Holocaust occurring contemporaneously.

It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years.

Thank you, Prime Minister. (Full text of Brown's statement can be found here.)

On a lighter note, have some classical music about Republicans.

Ted Kennedy: Retrospective

2009-08-31T21:14:00.002-04:00

Okay, I'll admit it. I cried myself to sleep last Wednesday.

Here are a few tributes and memories of Senator Kennedy, collected from around the Internet:

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die!"

--Senator Edward M. Kennedy

---

"While we may remember 'Camelot' more for what it represented as the Kennedy era rather than the Broadway musical, the line from the title song that JFK supposedly liked -- 'Don't let it be forgot...that once there was a spot' -- also reminds us that while Teddy's 'dream will never die,' it's the hard work that he did every day that should not be forgotten."
--Mustang Bobby, at Shakesville

("Each evening from December to December
Before you drift to sleep upon your cot,
Think back on all the tales that you remember
Of Camelot.
Ask every person if he's heard the story;
And tell it strong and clear if he has not:
That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory
Called Camelot.
...
Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot...")

---

--from White House Flickr photostream

---

"In lieu of flowers, pass health care reform."
--HRCDemographic4Obama, DailyKos diarist

---

"In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American."
--Senator Robert Byrd

---

"I think today, a part of Ted Kennedy's soul is now in Bo. Teddy made it to the White House after all."

--commenter on RBR

---

"He's left a great void in our public life and a hole in the hearts of millions of Americans and hundreds of us who were affected by his personal touch throughout our lives. People like me, who came to rely on him. He was kind of like an anchor. And unlike many important people in my 38 years I've had the privilege of knowing, the unique thing about Teddy was it was never about him. It was always about you. It was never about him. It was people I admire, great women and men, at the end of the day gets down to being about them. With Teddy it was never about him."

--Vice President Joe Biden

---

"Ted Kennedy has gone home now, guided by his faith and by the light of those that he has loved and lost. At last he is with them once more, leaving those of us who grieve his passing with the memories he gave, the good that he did, the dream he kept alive, and a single, enduring image -- the image of a man on a boat, white mane tousled, smiling broadly as he sails into the wind, ready for whatever storms may come, carrying on toward some new and wondrous place just beyond the horizon."

--President Barack Obama

---

--Mike Luckovich

---

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

--excerpt from "Ulysses," by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Breaking: Senator Kennedy Dead At 77

2009-08-26T04:54:00.002-04:00

Just days after urging his state to prepare to speedily find a replacement in the event that he should fail to reach the end of his term, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts has passed away. Kenedy was arguably the most recognizable senator from the Democratic Party, so it should be interesting to see whether this is a blow to those on the left or if another liberal will step up and take his place as a fierce defender of his political party. Statements from his family and fellow political figures can be seen at the senator's website.

Rep. Barney Frank Smacks Down Town Hall Protestor

2009-08-19T10:58:00.003-04:00

Wingnut: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly supported this policy, why are you supporting it?

The Honorable Barney Frank: When you ask me that question, I am gonna revert to my ethnic heritage, and answer your question with a question. On what planet do you spend most of your time?...You want me to answer the question? As you stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler, and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is as I said before, it is a tribute to the 1st Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table - I have no interest in doing it.

Beautiful.

Video and transcript via Pandagon, emphasis added.

Spotlight on Maine

2009-08-18T19:18:00.002-04:00

Quick update from the land of Prop H8 2.0!

Maine is a magical land where the local coffee shop, in the first town I stayed in, has a sign in its window "So Proud to Live in Maine" over a newspaper clipping from May 6, and every other store sells things with lobsters and moose on them. It's also the only state with a serious chance of repealing marriage equality.

Other states have enough barriers to getting a repeal on the ballot that it's unlikely ever to happen, but the anti-marriage campaign in Maine has managed to get it up for a vote this November through something called the "people's veto," which is a referendum on a recently passed law. This time, the pro-marriage campaign has a few advantages that No on 8 didn't have: among them, the grassroots lobbying campaign that got the bill passed to begin with (it was a legislative victory, not a judicial one as in California), and the awareness that it won't be easy.

Joe the Blogger has been covering the goings-on up north. You can also read about the campaign or contribute at No on 1/Protect Maine Equality. Me, I may be leaving a bit of pro-marriage graffiti. (In the form of notes, since I probably won't be able to overcome my law-abiding side.)

Edit: I changed the homepage to the Maine Freedom to Marry website on the browsers (both IE and Firefox) of both the hotel's public computers. Ninja!

--

Also via Joe the Blogger, we find out that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has described the recent hate crime in Tel Aviv as terrorism; a step that surprised and pleased me. Joe posted some photos and video from the rallies in support of the victims.

That's "love" in Hebrew. (Photo via Box Turtle Bulletin)

Police have not yet found the killer. At the moment, they are investigating the possibility that he shot up the community center because of a personal feud, which sounds like bullshit to me. Oh, and the Telegraph still hasn't corrected their headline.

"Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare"

2009-08-15T21:38:00.005-04:00

In her most recent post , Rebecca discussed the role of the town hall disrupters as it fits in with a pattern of dishonest tactics repeatedly used by the right. In this post, I'd like focus solely on the most recent, healthcare-related scare tactics, and why they're founded on, for the lack of a better word, bullshit.

Before I begin, let's try a little role-playing. Pretend that you're a member of congress. You're informed that a bill is about to be put up for a vote. (It doesn't necessarily have to be a healthcare bill. It just has to affect an issue that matters deeply to you.) After some research and analysis, you've figured out how you're going to vote on this bill. However, you soon realize that many constituents in your district don't like your opinion for this issue, threatening your chances of reelection. To improve your image, you have to convince the voting public that your view is right. In order to accomplish this you have 2 options: You could either try to persuade those that are familiar with the politcal situation or you could try to persuade those with who are unfamiliar with the politcal issue and the bill itself. Which group would you try to persuade?

I don't know about you, but I'd definitely go with the group of voters who are unfamiliar with the situation on the grounds that they'd be the easiest to convince of my perspective. If they aren't well-informed, chances are that they have less evidence to back up their opinions, essentially making them blank slates. Additonally, if they've accessed less relevant information, they are probably more susceptible to being persuaded by a sound bite. This is advantageous for a politician since it's easier to write one catchy line than it is to produce a complete, logical argument for one's position. But perhaps the biggest advantage of trying to convince these people is that they can't tell when someone is stretching the truth.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think that everyone who opposes the Democrats' healthcare proposal is uninformed about the issue. Rather, it is clear that there are people on both sides of the debate who could stand to learn a thing or two. Additionally, there are plenty of legitimate questions that must be answered before any final decisions are made. That being said, there have been plenty of examples of politicians, particularly Republicans, who have used the public's ignorance to their advantage, and have resorted to using arguments that are incomplete, flat-out wrong, or instances of fear-mongering. These tactics are getting in the way of more democratic forms of debate.

One of the most common complaints I've heard relating to this healthcare issue is the notion that the government will "ration" coverage. Some critics of the healthcare bill argue that if the government gets involved with health insurance, some people won't be able to get the money necessary to fund their medical needs. Such a complaint rarely seems to come with any specific evidence to dispute, but, even if it were completely supported by evidence, it has one major flaw: Private insurance companies are notorious for "rationing" healthcare. The current system has the exact weakness that Republicans are claiming exists in the proposed healthcare system. Private insurance companies are, obviously, private companies. Their goal is to make a profit, and you don't make a profit by spending money on patients' preexisting conditions or any other medical issues that one can avoid paying for. In fact, it is common practice for private insurance companies to jack up prices or even cancel coverage when someone gets diagnosed with a disease that's expensive to treat. Clearly, the current system does not address this problem even remotely.

Another complaint often goes like this: "I and millions of other Americans like the private insurance I'm on right now. Why should we have to switch insurance plans just because a small percentage of the country is uninsured?" (Sometimes this is also mixed in with a complaint about the government doing this to accomondate illegal immigrants, but such a claim is untrue since the bill specifically says so on p. 143. More details here ) The problem with this claim is that it's based entirely on misinformation. The current proposal is for an option to switch to a government plan. Such a switch would not be mandatory. It would just provide an additional choice for a health plan. Some have argued that the government's intervention would force competitors into bankruptcy, but it's certainly possible for a private and a public option to coexist. (It works for the U.S. Postal Service and UPS.) Besides, if expanding the role of the government is as ineffective as Republicans always claim it is, the insurance companies are in good shape.

Yet another idea that's been circulating is the belief that the proposed healthcare change would be an example of socialism. However, as I just explained, the government would not be taking over an industry, as would be expected of a socialist governmental system. Rather, government is just providing an optional alternative. As long as the capitalist coroporations remain in business, it's really a stretch to characterize this as socialized healthcare, much less a plan to socialize the entire economy. (Then again, at this point, nearly everything Obama does is compared to socialism or even facism/Naziism.)

But perhaps the most bizarre accusation is the one that the government healthcare plan includes a provision for "death panels", described as groups of government agents who go around and decide whether someone's life is worth as much as their health coverage. And if someone is not deemed valuable enough, that person supposedly not only gets dropped from the government's insurance plan, but also dies. No, I'm not making this up. Some people actually believe that Democrats want to kill people. Even Sarah Palin has written about this, claiming that the purpose of these panels is to convince people to deny themselves decent healthcare. Obviously, this is just a scare tactic, but some people are actually taking these kinds of claims as truth. (If you actually need proof that this is bullshit, here it is. The gist of the explanation is that citizens would be entitled to consult with government insurance-funded professionals to assist them with services, such as living wills.)

These kinds of claims are scary. By saying that not only is the healthcare proposal flawed, but it's also going to kill people brings this debate to a whole different level of crazy. Suddenly, people start to form their opinions based on their emotional responses to sound bites, rather than actual facts. Not only that, but there is a danger with people falsely thinking their lives or the lives of their loved ones are in danger. It's like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, in the sense that someone could get hurt from a false belief in such outrageous claims. We saw it before when Dr. Tiller, the infamous abortion doctor, was assassinated following a frenzy of violent propoganda and false accusations, and we're seeing it again here. Otherwise uninformed Americans are being told that the Democrats are evil enough to want to kill people and that they're going against God's healthcare system. And what do I mean by "God's healthcare system"? Take a look at this message from the Minnesota Family Council:

In very simplistic terms, the ultimate issue and question is who do we trust or put our security in, God or government? Some may ask what does God have to do with our health care system. For one, He's created the government as an institution in society to do certain things. When we reject His design for government, in a sense, we're rejecting Him. And second, who do we look to for our ultimate security in life, to provide for us, God or the government. Here Jesus' words come to mind about not worrying and trusting God to meet our basic needs. Or if we believe it all depends on us, we'll look to government.

That's right, some are making the argument that Obama is directly defying the will of God. (Isn't it weird how God always agrees with whomever is interpreting his message?) Clearly this is not an appeal to logic. It's just a way to scare people into opposing healthcare. (Ironically, God's record as a physician isn't all that great, as you can see here.) And bad things happen when thousands, if not millions, of people can be convinced that the consequences will be so dire if they don't get their way.

So, what's the status of the country after all of these scare tactics? Most people know not to become hysterical the second anyone demonizes his or her political opponents. However, there are always a few on the fringe who take things a little bit further. Enter FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, two organizations that are getting involved in the debate by disrupting the debate. Remember all the videos in Rebecca's post depicting protestors yelling at politicians? As it turns out, those weren't the kinds of grassroots operations Republicans made them out to be. Rather, they were organized by the aforementioned political organizations, who not only transported protestors across the country, but they also taught them deceitful tactics for intimidating political adversaries.

The town hall disrupters have done more than just reveal that what democracy needs now is calm, logical debate. They have also shown us how dishonestly politicians can behave. Rather than taking on the challenge of making their own healthcare proposal, many Republicans are trying to make Americans scared of change and afraid of Democrats. If they truly cared about their constituents, they would come up with their own solutions for the problems that exist in our current healthcare system, and "quit makin' stuff up" about the Democrats' proposal.

(This post refers to the "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009", which can be viewed here.)

"Country First"

2009-08-11T21:47:00.003-04:00

These protests tend to come in waves, don't they? First we had the teabaggers. Now it's the birthers and other town-hall disrupters.

The left is criticizing the latter group in particular for its attempts to stifle discussion in town halls by means of shouting down representatives, attempts which have on occasion grown violent. You can watch video here of a town hall in Austin where Rep. Lloyd Doggett was shouted down; here, of one in Tampa where Rep. Kathy Castor was unable even to get through her opening remarks; here, of one in Syracuse where Rep. Timothy Burton eventually had to be escorted to his car by police.

It's not hard to find conservatives complaining about this criticism and oh-so-cleverly commenting that dissent was patriotic when it was liberals doing it. It's also not hard to find those same conservatives, one or two or four years earlier, saying that people like Michael Moore should be tried for treason.

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Even putting aside the contradictions (and all the death threats), this draws a false equivalence between the current batch of protesters and former liberal protests. The event being protested in these videos is one with the point of bringing a representative to her constituents to discuss the issues. The town hall meeting, by its nature, is intended to accommodate the positions of both sides. But that's not what the "dissenters" are doing when they shout so loudly and so continuously that even people who agree with them cannot make their voices heard, or cause congresspeople to stop holding meetings out of fear for their lives. Nor are they merely bringing an alternate opinion to a venue that is meant to propagate only one. They are derailing discussion in an open forum. They are Internet trolls in real life and in large numbers.

This is not a speech. This is not a photo-op. This is a question-and-answer session, but the protesters are not interested in asking questions, nor receiving answers.

--

Returning to "dissent is the highest form of patriotism." We've covered the right's position on this before; they obviously don't believe it. What, then, to make of what they're saying now?

It's easy enough to dismiss this as hypocrisy, and that's certainly part of it. But we're dealing with a particular brand of intellectual dishonesty here: specifically, that only one message should dominate, whether by being in power and stifling dissent or by being out of power and stifling discussion, and that this message should dominate because it is "American" and the opposing message is "un-American" or "anti-American."

This is, to some degree, only a step or two up from normal political rationalization; if someone's arguing a position in good faith, it's because they think it's the better position for America and Americans. To argue that the position opposite yours is anti-American, all you need to do is believe that your opponent is arguing in bad faith and does not honestly think that their position is better for America and Americans. Both sides use the terms; they're a part of common parlance in this country. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer just had an op-ed in USA Today calling the town hall protesters un-American for their tactics of suppressing debate. What they didn't do is call for their views to be silenced.

This is that step or two up. Because, whether or not the left thinks a position is un-American, our belief in free speech means that we support the right to express it. Conservative commenters are taking advantage of this now when they whine that "liberals are hypocrites!" - they are intentionally conflating the message and the medium.

When you read about and watch these protests and town halls, the protesters don't say they're speaking for "Americans who don't want the public option," or "Americans who don't think Barack Obama is a citizen," or "Americans who want lower taxes." They say they're speaking for "Americans." And it makes sense when you realize that to these people, America is the Republican Party. As I commented during the election, "Country First" is a much more logical slogan if you exclude all the parts of the country that you don't agree with. Suppressing dissent just lends the illusion of reality to the total identification of the country with the party.

--

The Rachel Maddow Show has been covering the protests regularly; you can watch at http://rachel.msnbc.com, at http://www.youtube.com/meggion, and at http://www.youtube.com/newspoliticsnews along with other reports, or hunt around for blogs that have embedded clips.

Breaking: Sotomayor Confirmed

2009-08-06T15:41:00.002-04:00

The title says it all. For my analysis of Sotomayor's judicial philosophy, see Scouting Sotomayor.

Facepalm

2009-08-05T15:06:00.005-04:00

I think the title of this post sufficiently sums up the story reported in this article from CNN.

Here's the gist of it: A graduate of Monroe College is suing the school for the amount of money she spent on tuition plus a few extra thousand dollars. So, why's she suing? Apparently, she thinks it's unfair that her degree hasn't enabled her to get a job since she graduated in April. Among the spectacular things this student had achieved in college were a 2.7 GPA and a "solid attendance record." Additionally, she believes it's unfair that the school more effectively helps students with 4.0 GPAs get employment.

I think I've just lost faith in humanity.

Breaking: Hate Crime in Tel Aviv

2009-08-02T11:57:00.007-04:00

Two of my oft-discussed subjects coincide today as a man with an automatic rifle kills two people and injures at least fifteen more, several of those critically, at a gay center in Tel Aviv.

Let's start with some of the headlines.
Gunman kills 3, injures 11 at gay club in Tel Aviv (Associated Press)
Gunman opens fire on gay club (Herald Sun)
Gunman kills 2, wounds 12 at Tel Aviv gay club (CBC)
Gunman attacks gay club in Tel Aviv (Al Jazeera)
Two shot dead in attack on gay club (Scotsman)
Gunman opens fire in Tel Aviv gay club for teenagers, killing 3 and wounding 11 (Daily Mail)
Two killed in Tel Aviv gay bar shooting (Guardian)
Gunman kills three in Tel Aviv gay nighclub [sic] (Telegraph)

Several articles go on to describe the club as "a basement club...that caters to gays" (Herald Sun), "a popular meeting place for the gay community" (Scotsman), "a popular hangout and basement club...frequented by the gay community" (Al Jazeera), and "a club night for gay youths" (Daily Mail).

These headlines and excerpts range from misleading to outright lies (thank you, Telegraph! Ever a bastion of journalistic ethics. Guardian, I expected better of you), because the "club" in the basement of the Tel Aviv Gay and Lesbian Association building is a support group for gay youth. A support group.

"These were teenagers," Yaniv Weisman, chairman of the Israeli Gay Youth organization, told The Jerusalem Post.

With tears in his eyes, Weisman added, "they came to this center from across the country to talk to one another and receive help. This was supposed to be a safe place for them. Someone knew what they were doing when they came here. This is not a pub or a club."

So why did these news sources feel that it was necessary to give the impression that the shooting did, in fact, take place in a pub or club?

The reporting on this story is, admittedly, terrible at the moment. Café Noir is being misreported as the name of the support group when, according to Ha'aretz, it is the nearby café from which an eyewitness heard the first shots. A lot of newspapers and channels are getting their information from the Associated Press report rather than from the local newspapers. (Ian Deitch, the AP writer, is based in Jerusalem.)

But this does not answer the question: Why is the location of the attack being widely reported as a gay bar?

I'm guessing one of two reasons:

1. Sex sells. A shooting in a nightclub, with drugs, loud music, and promiscuous sex, is glitzier than one in a gay support group.

2. To make the victims less sympathetic. Suppress their ages, change their location to a nightclub (a gay bar!!) with the accompanying drugs, loud music, and promiscuous sex - and suddenly, who outside the gay community cares?

I'm interested in seeing how this story will develop.

--

Moving right along.

The gunman is suspected to be Israeli, possibly motivated by anti-gay statements made by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, who have released a statement condemning the attack. It has been described variously as "most likely a criminal attack and not a terror attack" and as "criminal rather than nationalistic." It is unclear from current reporting whether or not the second statement, like the first, came from Micky Rosenfeld, the foreign press spokesman for the police, and whether the discrepancy is a translation difference or a later correction.

Because that difference is crucial. If a Palestinian with a machine gun had walked into a coffee shop and opened fire with the intention of killing as many Jews as possible, it would absolutely have been described as terrorism. It would not have been just a "criminal" act.

This is terrorism. It's not nationalistic, but it is politically motivated violence against civilians. It doesn't escape that label because the perpetrator is Israeli and the victims were targeted because of their sexual orientation instead of their religion, ethnicity, or nationality.

--

If you want to read more about the attack, the best sources at the moment are the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz, YNet News, the New York Times, and the BBC.

EDIT, 6 August: The Guardian has corrected its headline to read "Two killed in Tel Aviv gay support centre shooting" and added a retraction at the foot of the article. The Telegraph hasn't even corrected the typo.

Cults of the Right Wing

2009-07-29T16:01:00.004-04:00

Fannie posted last week about a particular article at WorldNetDaily which purports to be a super-awesome takedown of teh feminism, except for the part where the writer doesn't know anything about a) feminism or b) reality.

It contained this quote: "They [teh Feminists] hate femininity (which they see as weakness) and loath [sic] women who choose traditional roles."

As I said in a comment over there:

We do not hate femininity. We hate the cult of femininity.

Anyone who's seen me dress up for a concert or an opera, for example, knows full well that I, a feminist, do not hate femininity. I like wearing pretty dresses. I like looking at women in pretty dresses. I like to bake and do needlepoint. I sing soprano. My wallpaper has flowers on it. But I object to the idea that this is all that my life should consist of or that it's what every woman's life should consist of.

Nor do I hate women who choose to work in traditionally female occupations. I don't think that by doing so they are reversing women's progress. I think that Patrice Lewis (author of the article), Phyllis Schlafly, Jennie Chancey (founder of Ladies Against ~~Women~~ Feminism, and Sarah Palin - writers, activists and politicians, but one who advance anti-woman positions - are reversing women's progress.

The cult of femininity, on the other hand, does believe these things. It believes that all women not only like dresses and homemaking, but are biologically determined to, and that those who do not are freaks or denying their true nature. (See Fannie's post for excellent explanation.) In the cult of femininity, my dress-wearing, baking, flowery self would not be welcome because I have a purple belt in jujitsu, like war films, and kick the figurative asses of most of the guys in my local Quizbowl league. Oh, and I don't think that my sex makes me weak or subordinate. Of course, you'll hear advocates of this cult say that they think both women and men are people - they're just fundamentally different! Women are supposed to complement men! Ah yes, I say, a lot of complementing was I doing at the dojo today when I threw four guys to the ground or the wall repeatedly. Guess I'm just a freak.

Someone who believes in the cult of femininity does not believe that women and men are people, with sex coming secondary to the qualities that make them a person. Sex comes first and foremost.

Not only that, but this cult does see homemakers as reversing women's progress - and they think that's a good thing. Women who choose to stay at home, however feminist they might be, are held up as mute examples by people who would like to take away their opportunity to choose it by making it their only option. The idea of individual choice - a choice that affects you and maybe your immediate familiars, but not other people - doesn't seem to exist here. (You'll recall that these are the same people who try to argue that gay people having sex is affecting society in some nebulous way.)

We do not hate babies or embryos. We hate the cult of babies and embryos.

Personal disclosure: I have a baby cousin. She is only three weeks old and very soft and cute and I love her already. I have been told, in fact, that I'm a natural with babies. Yet I'm to the point where there are large corners of the Internet where seeing a picture of a baby makes me flinch because I know it's going to be an anti-choice ad.

I'm sure a lot of the people who put up these ads don't see an overlap between feminists and women who have abortions, since, you'll remember, feminists are evil man-hating unsexed freaks and women who have abortions are coerced since all real women want babies. Even the moderate narrative holds that women who have abortions just don't want children. This is incorrect. 61% of women who have an abortion already have children. 66% plan to have children later in life. Obviously it's not about hatred of children. Some feminists (gasp!) even have them. But the embryo-cultists have never let little things like facts stop them.

This is another arena where the concept of individual choice seems to be absent. The idea that a woman might not want children for herself and still support allowing others to have them is unthinkable, as is the converse - a rabid pro-choice activist who has ten children is Bringing Society in the Right Direction even if she's going to raise them all to be rabid pro-choice activists.

The same people that love to scream about LGBT people getting "special rights" (like marriage equality, protection from terrorism, and the right to work - rights that everyone else has) view embryos - babies, if they prefer, since whether or not the embryo is a person is irrelevant - not as equal to born human beings, but as more than born human beings. It's had to be stated too many times, but evidently it still needs repeating: bestowing personhood on an embryo would not give it the right to use another person's body without her consent, because no person has that right.

As anyone who spends even a little time looking at American politics is surely aware, it is the Christian religion that dominates right-wing politics in this country. This is the same Christian religion that, depending on where you like to start your story, began with an all-powerful deity using the body of a woman without her consent. In trying to give to a "baby" a power that, in their religion, is the province of God, the religious right is literally deifying the embryo.

We do not hate "traditional marriage." We hate the cult of "traditional marriage."

"Traditional marriage." Used to mean so many different things. Are we against those things? Read on!

Many feminists are straight or bisexual. Many of those feminists have opposite-sex partners. Many of those feminists are married to their opposite-sex partners. Do feminists hate opposite-sex marriage? No.

Many feminist women are homemakers. As discussed above, when it's about individual choice and not a position forced on a woman by society, we don't really have a problem with it. Do feminists hate opposite-sex marriage where the wife is a homemaker? I don't think so.

On the other hand, we do hate the movement that puts "traditional marriage" on a pedestal in order to deny other people the right to marry, and implies that domestic violence and child molestation are water under the bridge because the most important thing is for a child to have parents of different sexes. (Which is essentialist, see above, etc.)

The other oft-used synonym for "traditional marriage" is "Biblical marriage," and that strikes closer to the heart of what these people are really going for. Because "Biblical marriage" refers to opposite-sex marriage, yes. But does it refer to marriage between "one man and one woman"? No. It refers to marriage that is a relationship between a man and his property rather than a relationship between two people who love each other - a relationship where the female partner has no rights, whether they be to property, to her own children, to protection from rape and beating. Do feminists hate that? Yes, we do. And so, I'm sure, do a lot of the people who claim to be in favor of "traditional marriage."

One of the progressive movement's greatest obstacles, whatever the specific cause, is that the market of ideas is dominated by conservative euphemisms and lies. From abortion rights ("90% of abortions are done days before birth because the girl wants to fit into her prom dress!!1!!!" - and "pro-abortion" too, in case you needed a reminder about the idea of individual choice not existing) to taxation ("socialism"), one often has to make an effort just to speak neutrally about the issues because the buzzwords are part of common parlance. Don't let "traditional marriage" be one of them.

--

In entirely unrelated news, why did I not know about this? (Read also: David's post here, making the excellent point that while President Obama's made some progress disengaging from the Israeli right, he hasn't linked up in any way with the Israeli left, which has kept it ineffective.)

Rachel Maddow 1, Pat Buchanan —1,000,000

2009-07-21T20:03:00.001-04:00

Remember last week when Pat Buchanan ranted on the Rachel Maddow about how America was built by white people?

Well, yesterday on the Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel Maddow, very politely and with several appeals to journalistic ethics, smacked him down. And I just had to post it.

I do wish she'd pointed out why exactly 100% of the people who signed the Declaration were white men, but you can't have everything, and this is beautiful.

I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying

2009-07-20T23:44:00.002-04:00

A while ago, this blog featured a post on how various organizations issued statements following the murder of Dr. George Tiller, a doctor well-known for his willingness to perform late-term abortions. In that post, I spent a lot of time focusing on Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, a pro-life organization. The problem I had with this man was that he was claiming to take the moral high ground by supposedly trying to protect the "sanctity of life," yet when he discussed Tiller's death, he took the attitude that Tiller was evil, so any actions taken against him were justified. However, the second that such actions included murder, he immediately tried to distance himself, arguing that just because the killer had the same motives and ideology as Operation Rescue doesn't mean that the two could possibly be connected in any way:

This type of attitude is a way of rationalizing events people like Terry contributed to and encouraged, but without actually having to take personal responsibility. Accomplishing this form of assholishness is done with a very simple technique comprised of 4 easy steps:
1) Have a clear enemy or target.
2) Mention a harmful action to be taken against this target.
3) Imply that you have no control over this harmful action.
4) Assert that since you can't control the harmful action, it must be the other person's fault.

Here's a very straightforward, somewhat humorous example of this technique to demonstrate how it's used and it's lack of logic:
In an episode of "The Simpsons" entitled "Lisa on Ice," Bart and Lisa resent each other because of a rivalry between their respective hockey teams. (step 1 fulfilled)
The two get into an argument and Bart, when asked to leave Lisa's room, says "OK, but on my way, I'm going to be doing this: [starts swinging arms violently] (steps 2 & 3 fulfilled) If you get hit, it's your own fault. (step 4)"
In response, Lisa says, "OK, then I'm going to start kicking air like this. [kicks] (step 2) And if any part of you should fill that air, (step 3 implied) [kicks] it's your own fault. (step 4)"
Bart and Lisa end up punching and kicking each other, with neither of them taking responsibility for their own behavior. (Additionally, Homer later uses the 4 aforementioned steps to blame a pie for being eaten by him.) As you can probably tell, the characters weren't punching and kicking as an inevitability of being angry. They were just trying to find a reason to hit each other without having to seem like bullies.

So, why am I even talking about Terry and a 4-step program for becoming an asshole? The reason is that Terry recently gave several press conferences in which he criticized the idea that abortions could be covered by the government's healthcare program. Here are his words:

It is clear that many elements in the pro-abortion congress and White House want to force Americans to pay for the murder of the unborn in their 'healthcare' program.

If that happens, it is tantamount to the government putting a gun to taxpayers' heads to pay for the brutal murder of an innocent child. This is tyranny and evil of the highest order.

Please understand: neither I, nor any thinking person wants the convulsions that would inevitably come from such a government policy -- the decision to force Americans to pay for the murder of their neighbor.

Nevertheless, the sheer horror and frustration of such an evil policy will lead some people to absolutely refuse to pay their taxes. And I believe -- if my reading of history from America and around the world is correct -- that there are others who will be tempted to acts of violence.

If the government of this country tramples the faith and values of its citizens, history will hold those in power responsible for the violent convulsions that follow.

Let's go through the steps again:
1) Terry's target is obviously proponents (specifically in congress) of a government health insurance plan that covers abortions.
2) He suggests that some people may refuse to pay taxes or engage in violent protest.
3) He says that people will be led to these behaviors by the policy itself and that it's the inevitable course of history.
4) Terry states his lack of responsibility in the last sentence of the quote.

In short, Terry's encouraging violence to intimidate members of congress, but, at the same time, he's suggesting that people would only be violent because they couldn't help themselves. After all, it's not like using violence to intimidate people and obtain political change is anything remotely similar to something bad like terrorism.

Update: I found an embeddable version of the Simpsons clip I mentioned earlier.

NIMBY Parents

2009-07-15T01:32:00.005-04:00

There are different kinds of people.

There are people who are accepting of others' sexual orientation, to the point where it doesn't matter to them whom one is interested in.

There are people who rant and rave that homosexuality is a sin, in spite of the concept being unknown in biblical times, and who think it's the job of the government to stop people from getting married. We all know and love them.

And then there are the people who say they're accepting, until they have to deal with it.

This post is about how to deal with them.

---

I call them NIMBY parents. "Not In My Backyard" - the acronym used for people who are all in favor of a new power plant or homeless shelter, as long as it's not near them. They are straight, liberal, understand legal and moral arguments for gay rights, and can be argued with.

What they say	What you say
"Why are you doing this?"	"It's who I am, and I want you to know, because you're my [insert X affectionate diminutive of "mother" or "father"]." "If I could have chosen, why would I choose something that would make you look at me like that?"
"It's not normal."	"Neither is [insert X characteristic about yourself, e.g. height, love for classical music]." "Neither is [insert X characteristic about your parent, e.g. hair color, talent for cooking]."
"I want you to get married and have children someday."	"Then you should support [insert X marriage equality initiative in your state or country]." "Then it's a good thing [insert X state or country] allows same-sex marriage, isn't it?"
"I don't want you to have that lifestyle."	"It's not a lifestyle, it's how I am." "What, dating people? I thought you wanted me to date people." (fall in love, get married, etc.) "My lifestyle? Why didn't you tell me sooner that you had a problem with [insert X recreational activity e.g. soccer, basket-weaving, World of Warcraft]?"
"Is that why you're so gung-ho about gay rights?"	"Yes - wouldn't you be?" "Yes, but I would be even if I were straight and had a family member who couldn't get married [etc.]." "No, it's because it's a [civil / human] rights issue."
"It's fine that you're gay, but why do you have to be so open about it?"	"I'm no more open about it than [insert XYZ people here e.g. parent, sibling, friend] are about being straight."
"How did you decide this?"	"I didn't decide anything." "Probably the same way you decided you were straight."
"You'll change your mind."	"I didn't make up my mind to begin with." "When you realized you were attracted to a [insert X opposite sex of parent], would you have believed anyone who said you'd change your mind and be attracted to [insert Y same sex of parent]?" "If I 'change my mind' and date [insert X sex opposite to your own], I won't be happy."
"You'll break [insert X elderly relative]'s heart."	"I'm sure [insert X elderly relative] wants me to be happy."

It might work. It might not. But what you're trying to do here is overcome that kneejerk homophobia. Even people who support gay rights intellectually are often left with the emotional residues of the myths they learned growing up or from society, politicians or the mass media. They've got to reconcile two deeply held ideas - that gays are X bad thing, and that their kid is a shining star of wonder. It makes the process difficult initially - if my kid is a shining star of wonder, s/he can't really be gay, s/he's doing it to spite me, it's a phase - but it also means that they are likely to come round eventually and be more accepting of gays in general rather than deciding that you are not a shining star of wonder. That attempt to overcome internalized homophobia is why so many of the responses here try to equate your experience with your parents' as straight people and appeal to their desire for you to have the best.

Any other suggestions for either column are most welcome.

Megapost

2009-07-14T18:17:00.004-04:00

A lot has happened in the time since my last post, so I will (futilely) attempt to cover all the major political events that have occurred in that time. Enjoy!

Ricci v. DeStefano

This Supreme Court case was brought into the national spotlight following the nomination of Judge Sotomayor, who had previously heard this case. In a nutshell, the case dealt with a test taken by New Haven firefighters influencing who got promoted. Those who qualified for a promotion were disproportionately white. As a result, the city decided to disregard the test on the grounds that they feared a racial discrimination lawsuit. Ironically, there was a racial discrimination lawsuit, but it was filed by 18 firefighters, 17 of whom are white, who had originally gotten promotion-worthy scores on the test. The complaining party was led by Frank Ricci, a white firefighter who, due to his dyslexia, took extreme measures to ensure that he performed well, even going so far as to give up a second job to increase his studying time. The city, officially led by Mayor John DeStefano Jr., argued that the fire department was right in trying to avoid taking actions with a "disparate impact" on people of different races.

The law in question for this case was Article VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There really isn't much of an issue about the spirit of the law as a whole - it's clearly to deter discrimination in employment practices - but there is some debate about which kinds of specific actions qualify as discrimination. Personally, after looking at Article VII, I think that the Supreme Court was correct in its decision that the city's decision to throw out the test scores was an act of discrimination.

In order to determine if the city broke the law, let's look at some relevant sections of the previously-linked Civil Rights Act of 1964:

...nor shall it be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

The defendant in the case claimed that the test results were thrown out in order to avoid breaking any rules on discrimination. But based on this excerpt, changing its response to the test would only legal if there was sufficient reason to believe that keeping the test scores would have been discriminatory. So, was the original test discriminatory? Based on the racial discrepancies in the test scores, we are left with several possible answers:

1) No. The test was fair. It just so happened that the best candidates happened to be disproportionately white. Statistically, it's not at all unusual for one possible outcome to occur disproportionately more often than another. For example, if you were to flip a coin 10 times and it landed on heads 7 times, that would not prove that there was something wrong with the coin. Such a scenario would display a disproportionate number of heads, but it would not be sufficient to indicate that there was something wrong with the coin.

2) No. The test was fair. The white candidates just happened to be more more qualified due to factors unrelated to the specific policies of the New Haven fire department. It's very conceivable that a disproportionate number of white candidates lived lives better suited for learning information about being a firefighter. Perhaps the white candidates, on average, went to better schools as children, providing them with better study habits. If this were the case, then it would've been easier for them to learn relevant information, thus making them more qualified. Or perhaps more of the white candidates were related to other firefighters, thus exposing them to relevant knowledge from an earlier age. In this scenario, the white firefighters would be expected to be somewhat more knowledgeable, and therefore should have done better on a fairly-written exam. These circumstances are purely speculatory as I have essentially no background on the personal lives of these firefighters, but it is certainly plausible that the white firefighters were in an environment more conducive to learning about their job, causing them to know more, thus making them more worthy of a promotion.

3) Yes. The test itself was made in such a way that even if all the candidates were equally competent, the white candidates would have higher scores. I don't know much about firefighting, so I can't think of a particular question on a firefighting exam that would be biased. That being said, on tests in general, it's not unheard of for there to be a phenomenon known as "test bias," for which members of each racial group, when confronted with the same question, tend to provide answers most similar to those of other test-takers of the same race. This phenomenon could account for a racial discrepancy.

4) Yes. Regardless of what was on the actual test, the mere fact that such racial differences were exhibited could lead to a "disparate impact." As I'll explain in a in depth in a later paragraph, I don't believe that there is sufficient evidence that this was the case.

Based on these possibilities together, there does not seem to be a clear indication that the city of New Haven had a lawsuit on its hands had it kept the scores, suggesting that there wasn't much of a necessity to make the controversial decision to throw out the test.

But even if the city had a good reason for throwing out the scores, was the act of disregarding the scores discriminatory in and of itself? Here's what Title VII says:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for a respondent, in connection with the selection or referral of applicants or candidates for employment or promotion, to adjust the scores of, use different cutoff scores for, or otherwise alter the results of, employment related tests on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Based on this, it seems pretty clear that the city broke the law. After all, their decision, by their own admission, was based on race. Additionally, by throwing out the test scores, they were deviating from their already established system of deciding promotions. Since they made this adjustment "on the basis of race," their action constituted a violation of the law.

However, one argument I've heard against such a conclusion is that the city had a right act in favor of the minority candidates on the grounds that maintaining the test scores would have resulted in a significant deviation between the group of people in high-ranking positions and the demographics of New Haven. The problem with this assertion is that it's explicitly prohibited by Title VII:

Nothing contained in this subchapter shall be interpreted to require any employer, employment agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee subject to this subchapter to grant preferential treatment to any individual or to any group because of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such individual or group on account of an imbalance which may exist with respect to the total number or percentage of persons of any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin employed by any employer, referred or classified for employment by any employment agency or labor organization, admitted to membership or classified by any labor organization, or admitted to, or employed in, any apprenticeship or other training program, in comparison with the total number or percentage of persons of such race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in any community, State, section, or other area, or in the available work force in any community, State, section, or other area.

Another argument used to justify the city's actions is, as I mentioned earlier, the idea of "disparate impact." This term means exactly what it sounds like, and here's how it is used in the law:

(1)(A) An unlawful employment practice based on disparate impact is established under this subchapter only if -
(i) a complaining party demonstrates that a respondent uses a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and the respondent fails to demonstrate that the challenged practice is job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity...

There really wasn't much question about the reason for the city deciding to throw out the tests. By their own admission, it was based on trying to control the racial distribution of highly ranked positions. That certainly seems to suggest a disparate impact against the white firefighters.

But the issue isn't that simple. The city's motivation was to avoid using a biased test. Had the original test been capable of causing a disparate impact, then the city would be in the right on the grounds that they were undoing a discriminatory policy. So, at this point, the obvious question is this: Did the city of New Haven have sufficient reason to believe that the original test results would've caused a disparate impact? The answer is flat-out no.

So, how did I come to this conclusion that no such disparate impact would have resulted? The answer is the government's use of the "Four-Fifths Rule." (To see the exact wording, click on the link and scroll down to Section 4, Part D.) The gist of the rule is that if the selection rate of one ethnic group is less than 80% of that of another group, then the selection process is considered to have a disparate impact. However, there is an exception to the rule stating that a racial disparity is not problematic when the difference is "not statistically significant." As it turns out, based on the passage rates for the tests for Captain and Lieutenant, and applying them to the chi-square test, there was no statistically significant difference between the test scores of the whites and the other races. Therefore, when the city of New Haven created a disparate impact by revoking the test scores, it did not do so in a manner that would've prevented discrimination against minorities. So, to make a (very) long story short, it is clear to me that there wasn't a sufficient reason to believe that the tests were unfair and that by throwing out the test scores, the city of New Haven was discriminating against the white firefighters. As a result, I agree with the Supreme Court's ruling.

More SCOTUS

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a student who was strip searched under suspicion of possessing ibuprofen. Who could've seen that coming?

Even More SCOTUS

Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings have begun. When asked about abortion rights, she said that she considers these rights to be "settled precedent."

Another One Bites the Dust

Yet another politician was caught having an affair. This time, it was South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Personally, I don't usually care about politicians' marital infidelity. Don't get me wrong; it's a disgusting thing to do. However, it doesn't affect one's ability to function as a government official. But Sanford's situation was worse because he hypocritically argued that Clinton was incapable of being a politician following his affair.

But what really bothers me is that Sanford left his state without telling anyone. That, unlike cheating on one's wife, puts the entire state at risk. After all, what if there had been some sort of emergency while he was gone? Time would've had to have been wasted figuring out how to delegate control of the state's actions.

Also, it was probably a bad idea for Sanford to claim that he had gone to hike the Appalachian Trail on the same weekend as Naked Hiking Day.

The Iranian Election

Iran had its presidential election and incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner after 40 million votes were counted by hand... in 3 hours. That's right, Iran, which uses paper, hand-counted ballots, claimed to have counted all 40 million votes in a few hours. Oh, and that wasn't the only issue. Challenger Mousavi's supporters tended to be more tech-savvy, and there were internet issues throughout the country beginning on election day, reducing efforts to increase voter turnout via the internet. Voting patterns were irregular, showing that Mousavi didn't even beat Ahmadinejad in his home part of the country. Also, Mousavi's vote count was shown to have decreased for portion of election day. In other words, Mousavi was recorded as having received negative votes. But perhaps the most obvious piece of evidence suggesting that something's not right is that, according to the country's own government, many places recorded more votes than they had registered voters. (For some statistical analyses of the election results, click here.)

Coleman Concedes

Al Franken is officially a Senator thanks a Minnesota State Supreme Court ruling that he was entitled to the position, thus completing the elections of 2008. Don't you wish America could count ballots as quickly as Iran (minus the cheating)?

The State of Gay Marriage in America

Massachusetts is suing suing the national government over the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The basis of the lawsuit is that each state has the right to determine its own marriage laws. Massachusetts contends that since DOMA denies certain benefits to same-sex couples that are married under state law, the federal government is infringing upon states' rights and denying equal treatment to married people of the same sex. If successful, DOMA would be invalidated, but there probably wouldn't be any radical changes, i.e., gay marriage will still be illegal in most of the country.

Gay Exorcism

A video recently surfaced showing a man being given an exorcism to remove a "homosexual demon." Nothing says religious compassion quite like rolling someone around on the ground, yelling at him, and making him vomit.

She's Back Too

2009-06-17T20:33:00.003-04:00

First Sarah Palin called out David Letterman on questionable pretenses and now Michelle Bachmann is calling out ACORN on an even more questionable pretense. According to Rep. Bachmann, she has made the decision to only provide one piece of information on her census form, specifically the question about the number of people in her household. Why did Bachmann decide to do so? It's because she suspects that ACORN, one of the groups responsible for gathering data, is unreliable, accusing them of being engaged in efforts to submit extra, fraudulent census forms. At first glance, this seems reasonable, until one realizes that the data collection for the census doesn't begin until next year. In other words, Bachmann is accusing ACORN of being involved in a scandal in the future. I guess this proves that Bachmann is either psychic or psychotic.

She's Back

2009-06-13T16:19:00.004-04:00

When Obama was elected president, I assumed that it would be another 3 or 4 years before Palin would be back in the spotlight and up to her crazy antics. Fortunately, people like her just have a way of getting attention, and this week, she proved that to be the case by being involved in a controversy involving David Letterman. The controversy is based on several jokes told by Letterman on his T.V. show. One joke was made during one of Letterman's Top 10 lists, in which he said that while in New York, Palin bought makeup to "update her 'slutty flight attendant' look." As you'll see in a video clip later in this post, Palin took the joke with good humor and didn't make a big deal about it. However, Letterman offended her with another joke about the Palins' visit to New York. This time, he said that "The toughest part of her visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter." Personally, I don't see why this would be offensive to Palin since the butt of the joke is clearly Spitzer. Furthermore, the joke does not at any point suggest that in the hypothetical scenario, Palin's daughter was actually engaged in sexual activities, nor did it suggest that she invited such behavior. In other words, it's calling the former governor, and not Palin's daughter, a pervert. The last joke , which got the most attention was about Palin's daughter getting "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez during a Yankees game.

Letterman responded by pseudo-apologizing, claiming that joking about statutory rape is inappropriate, but that he did not do so:

Several groups, including NOW and the Palins themselves, have condemned the joke on the grounds that it targeted someone who is "off-limits," and that it made light of rape. So, did the joke cross the line? In my opinion, the answer is that the joke did neither of those things, so, while it's not exactly tame, it's not overly disrespectful. The reasons for this view were best expressed by another blogger by the name of Jason Zengerle, who said:

"...is it really so hard to believe that the joke Letterman was making about a Palin daughter getting 'knocked up' was about the Palin daughter who, you know, got knocked up? And when you consider that said daughter has decided to make herself a poster- (and cover-) girl for teen abstinence, then, by stepping into the media spotlight, she's exposed herself to the jokes (funny or not) of late night comics."

There's really no way to say it any clearer. The joke about a Palin daughter getting "knocked up" by a baseball player (who has been involved in his own sex scandals) was funny because it inferred "mechanical inelasticity" on the part of Bristol Palin. ("Mechanical inelasticity" is a term that refers to a humorous scenario in which someone repeats his or her normal behavior even though that behavior isn't well-suited to the current situation.) The joke would not make any sense in reference to any of Palin's other children since none of them have ever been "knocked up." Therefore, the joke had to have been a reference to Bristol. (Some people have contended that the fact that Willow was the daughter who actually attended the baseball game suggests that she was the unnamed daughter referred to in the joke. However, this is a weak argument since the whole joke is based on hypotheticals. The idea that Bristol was at the ballpark is just as accurate as the idea that either daughter had sex with A-Rod.)

As for the complaints that the joke made light of rape, that does not appear to be the case. The term "knocked up" refers purely to an unintended pregancy. It does not have a connotation suggesting that the pregnancy is from non-consensual sex. Therefore, considering my previous argument that 18-year-old Bristol was the target of the joke, there is nothing implying rape.

But despite what I think, plenty of people were took offence, including Palin herself:

As you can see, Palin articulated her concerns pretty clearly, showing genuine concern for her daughter and disgust for those who joke about statutory rape... until about 3:30 into the clip, at which point she nearly laughed at a joke she made about Letterman raping Willow.

Stay classy, Governor Palin.

More Domestic Terrorism

2009-06-10T15:42:00.009-04:00

Earlier today, there was a shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. A security guard was shot, and, according to CNN, he died a few minutes ago. The leading suspect is James Von Brunn. However, there isn't much doubt that he is the perpetrator, since security guards returned fire, eventually hospitalizing him. There really isn't much question that Von Brunn's motives were that of a terrorist given his history as a white supremacist. Von Brunn ran a racist, anti-Semitic website called holywesternempire.org, and has written an anti-Semitic book entitled Kill the Best Gentiles: A New Hard-Hitting Exposé Of The JEW CONSPIRACY To Destroy The White Gene-Pool. Additionally, Von Brunn posted many hateful articles online, such as Hitler's Worst Mistake: He Didn't Gas the Jews. It's been difficult to find other things he wrote, since his websites aren't loading right now. (I assume lots of people are also doing research on Von Brunn at this time.) Also, he spent several years in jail after attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve, who he believed were involved in some sort of Jewish conspiracy.

It's been said a lot here lately, but terrorism isn't limited to fundamentalist Muslims from halfway around the world blowing stuff up (although it can be.) It can also be perpetrated by black Americans, Christian political extremists, white supremacists, or just about anyone else with an extreme political agenda.

Breaking: New Hampshire Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

2009-06-03T23:10:00.007-04:00

A good Breaking News this time: NH becomes the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage and the third state to do so through the legislature.

Governor Lynch, an opponent of same-sex marriage who nevertheless signed the legislature's bill:

"Today we're standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear they will receive the same rights, responsibilities and respect under New Hampshire law."

The downside: religious organizations are exempt from providing insurance or benefits to married couples if the partners are of the same sex. So, not entirely the same rights, responsibilities, or respect. But it's a step in the right direction.

Public Relations For Dummies

2009-06-02T17:44:00.004-04:00

Following the murder of Dr. George Tiller, many organizations whose causes are based on pro-choice or pro-life values have been releasing statements to express reactions to the recent tragedy, some of which can be viewed here. (Credit for finding that list of statements belongs to Rebecca.) Although it's nice to think that these statements genuinely reflect the sentiments of their respective oranizations, the simple truth is that these statements are carefully worded expressions of how each organization, be it pro-choice or pro-life, wants to be viewed by the public. In essence, a statement on this event is supposed to explain to its existing members, potential members, and opponents why that organization is still relevant at the current time. Fulfilling these purposes is very easy for pro-choice groups simply because a very influential figure was murdered, meaning that they have some sympathy to build on, and the fear of militant pro-lifers is now on the mind of the general public. These factors mean that all a pro-choice group has to do to release an effective statements is say that it is shocked that Tiller was murdered and that it will continue to fight for the cause he gave his life for. Simply put, making a statement should be effortless for any pro-choice organization.

For pro-life groups, making a statement on Tiller's death is much more difficult, simply because their opponents were victimized. Additionally, there is the issue that the whole concept of doing crazy things to "protest" abortion rights is not new to these organizations. These groups constantly organize rallies outside of health clinics and express their views in ways that blur the line between violent and non-violent protest. Although none of the large pro-life groups have directly organized anyone's assassination, it's rightfully difficult to separate the organizations that get people fired up and encourage them to release their anger upon health clinics and patients from the individual members who go a step further and bomb clinics or murder doctors. It's a very straightforward issue: You cannot encourage behavior that borders on violence and then completely distance yourself from those that are ever so slightly more extreme.

This difficulty is especially problematic for Operation Rescue, following the arrest of Scott Roeder, the main suspect in the Tiller murder, since records show that someone identified by the same name mentioned a desire to increase hostility toward the doctor through his involvement at church. Operation Rescue made a statement claiming that Roeder's relation to the organization was limited to commenting on their website. However, Operation Rescue's connection to Tiller wasn't limited to Roeder alone. In fact, Tiller was their most targeted enemy. For example, in 2006, after Tiller purchased a business called Central Women's Services, Operation Rescue purchased the building in which the business was located. There have been countless protests by members of Operation Rescue outside Tiller's clinic, and the organization led the accusations that Tiller was practicing medicine in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, a claim of which he was acquitted in court. The pro-life organization even went so far as to include a "Tiller Watch" on their website. To make a long story short, Operation Rescue has a bit of a connection to the main suspect and they have a history of harassing Tiller. This means that they can't get away with pretending to feel sad at this time and they have to be the most careful when wording their statements.

Here was Operation Rescue's statement:

We are shocked at this morning's disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller's family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

After reading it, it is apparent that the statement was designed not to call for peace, but instead to emphasize their hatred of Tiller. The first sentence essentially says the organization wasn't responsible for killing him. The next sentence serves to portray Tiller as a bad person, thus giving the impression that he was a criminal (despite the fact that Tiller had been found not guilty of any such charges). The next sentence just restates the whole "don't blame us" idea. And the final sentence is designed to emphasize the organization's religious beliefs, specifically emphasizing that these beliefs are (in their minds anyway) Christian and Christian alone. Additionally, referring to the victim as "Mr. Tiller," instead of "Dr. Tiller" is again a way to re-emphasize their belief that Tiller should not have mainatained his ability to practice medicine. (Again, all such accussations were disproven in court.) Although their statement has a few issues, it's OK in the sense that it got the message across that Operation Rescue denies responsibility for the attack and isn't overjoyed by the news.

But even a carefully crafted statement like that is meaningless if the founder of the same organization says what's really on his mind:

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder. Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

This quote is from Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue. Without going into the details of his statement, Terry's message is terrible for the simple reason that it shows support for Tiller's murder. Obviously, there are a lot of problems with suggesting that you're proud to see your enemies dead and that you'd like to see more of the same.

After seeing statements like these, I am very disappointed. As someone who is pro-choice, I feel obligated to reach across the aisle, and give some pointers on how to make a public statement that won't damage an organization's reputation:

DO

-condemn violence; If you look at the aforementioned list of public statements, one thing that stands out is that nearly every one of them begins with a sentence along the lines of "Our organization is saddened by news of Tiller's death and is disgusted by the actions of his killer." There's a reason why they all begin this way: because it distinguishes between the murderer and the organization. Additionally, expressing disapproval of murder is a universally accepted value. If an organization does not express condemnation of the murder, it gives the impression that the organization is involved in terrorism against abortion providers.

-emphasize the need for peaceful protests; Although it had a bunch of problems that I'll address late, the best example of this was in a video by the National Director of Priests for Life. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the idea that violence is against their beliefs and is less effective than peaceful means. This is a good thing to talk about because nobody on either sides wants to be associated with a violent cause or fight against a violent cause.

-express legitimate concerns; In the video from Fr. Pavone and in Terry's statements, there are expressions of fear of retaliation. Neither of these men addressed these fears in a manner that would make anyone feel sorry for them, but there's nothing objectionable about calling for peace in and of itself.

-use neutral terminology; Using terms like "pro-abortion" and "mass-murderer" is always a cheap shot. It's even more disgusting when discussing a murder victim.

-use accurate terminology; Recall that the Operation Rescue statement included the phrase "Mr. Tiller," instead of "Dr. Tiller." You don't get sympathy from your opponents by looking like you don't fully understand what you're talking about.

-conclude with a sentence showing sympathy; If you look at the list of statements one more time, you'll also see that they tend to end with a sentence expressing condolence.

DO NOT

-praise violence or show indifference to the loss of life; It should go without saying, but any organization that emphasizes the phrase "sancitity of life" should not express joy over someone's death, particularly if it's the result of politcally-motivated violence (a.k.a. terrorism).

-speculate; Speculation was used in Fr. Pavone's video and in Randall Terry's statement. Both complained about violence and restrictions against pro-life groups that could happen in the future. While there's nothing wrong with expressing concern about these things, it's not appropriate to act like you're the victim of persecution if nobody has had time to react to the event.

-stretch the truth; Each of the pro-life groups emphasized continuing non-violent protest. However, it's not 100% true to say that these groups have continually been non-violent. As I mentioned earlier, many of the tactics employed by these organizations are borderline criminal.

-outright lie; Distorting facts is always wrong. Accusing Tiller of crimes of which he was never found guilty is wrong. Saying that it's common for abortion providers to be attacked by previous victims or competing doctors is wrong. Giving deceptive information about abortions in general is wrong.

-use event as an excuse to demonize pro-choice people; A man just lost his life because of his support of abortion rights. Common sense suggests that a repsonse to his death should not be filled with pro-life talking points.

-use the "no true Scotsman" fallacy; According to the Kansas Coalition for Life, "Although at the time of this writing, it is not known who killed Abortionist Tiller, we do know for certain that this crime was NOT the work of any true proLife person. A true proLife person respects human life as a gift from God, and leaves all life and death decisions to God Himself." This kind of attitude is deceptive because the pro-life position is based purely on one's views toward abortion rights. While most pro-life people wouldn't support killing abortion providers, those that do support killing abortion providers support the pro-life cause.

-describe victim deceptively; Tiller was a doctor, so calling him a doctor is objectively true. Calling him "Mr. Tiller" is inaccurate, just as it's inappropriate to call him a criminal despite his history of performing abortions legally.

Breaking: Dr. Tiller Murdered

2009-05-31T20:50:00.009-04:00

I really have nothing to say other than "oh shit." Just go and read about it now.

Edit - from commenter amandaw at Feministe:

It’s one of those moments when you realize, they’ve been attacking him for how many years now but he always survived and pushed on, and you just always thought he always would.

Scouting Sotomayor

2009-05-30T02:20:00.008-04:00

Since President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the judge's philosophy has been among the top stories on every news program. Her judicial history has been of so much interest that CNN has even replaced its news crawl with a scrolling description of Sotomayor's decisions during her time as judge. All that everyone wants to know is where she stands on various issues and whether or not she will shift the political leanings of the court. So, in an effort to stay in line with everyone's interests, here are a few links to summaries of Sotomayor's rulings as an appellate judge:

Appellate Opinions in Civil Cases (The most useful link in my opinion.)
Opinions with Dissent I
Opinions with Dissent II
Opinions with Dissent III
Opinions with Dissent IV

I'd advise you to read through the links on your own and form your own opinion, but, based on my perspective, it seems that Sotomayor is not heavily predisposed to either the left or the right. After looking at some basic biographical information on another reliable website (just kidding; it was Wikipedia), it seems that Sotomayor has had an appropriate education in law for a Supreme Court Justice. The most recently appointed justice, Samuel Alito, for example, went to Princeton University (with membership in Phi Beta Kappa) and then Yale Law School. Sotomayor graduated from Princeton with not only membership in Phi Beta Kappa, but also summa cum laude distinction. Then, like Alito, she graduated from Yale Law School. However, Sotomayor became an editor for the Yale Law Journal, which is a very impressive achievement. In terms of experience, Sotomayor was a judge for a federal district for 6 years and spent nearly 11 years in an appellate court. Another recently appointed justice, John Roberts, spent only about 2 years as a federal district judge. In other words, Stomayor's educational and judicial experience are sufficient when compared to those of the judges appointed under Bush.

Since Sotomayor has the education and experience necessary to be a Supreme Court Justice, the only thing left to check is whether or not her judicial philosophy is desirable. After going through the previously listed links, only 2 things stood out to me:

1) She has never directly handled a case about the extent to which the government can restrict abortion rights. The only relevant case she dealt with was Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush, which was based on whether or not the "Mexico City Policy", also known as the "Global Gag Rule," was constitutional. Sotomayor ruled that the policy would not be overturned on the grounds that the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy was acting on behalf of foreign groups, rather than itself, and that the federal government is allowed to use spend money on "the anti-abortion position" if it so chooses. This decision, though, seems to be based more on foreign policy rights than with abortion rights. Based on that case, one probably couldn't figure out whether or not she is pro-choice, but I'd have to assume that she was asked about her position prior to being officially nominated or that she will be asked directly when she is questioned by the Senate.

2) She seems to favor plaintiffs in cases where the plaintiff is suing based on what he or she perceives as discrimination. This relates to the whole issue of empathy vs. pure legal interpretation. However, there have been a fair number of instances where she has rejected allegations of discrimination against the defendant. This gives the impression that she displays this "empathy," but she isn't going to rubber stamp every claim of discrimination.

Even though this post is already starting to get a little lengthy, I still haven't covered the other issue that's been getting lots of attention: Sotomayor's race. Sotomayor is, of course, Hispanic, so this could influence whether or not she gets confirmed. Based on her race, her upbringing as the daughter of immigrants, and her time spent growing up in an area with a large Hispanic population, one would expect her to be able to perhaps understand the problems of people who aren't able to protect their rights, an attribute Obama showed interest in during a previous debate. This ability would be desirable and it could add some diversity to the court.

However, when all is said and done, Sotomayor's background is unimportant when one looks purely at which judge would be best for the court. After all, if ethnic background does, in fact, influence the way in which a judge rules, that influence should be present in her past judicial rulings. Therefore, in the ideal world, nobody would even pay attention to a nominee's race when deciding whether or not he or she is the most appropriate judge for the Supreme Court. Rather, the decision should be based on whether or not past rulings have reflected the traits that one would have wanted (or not wanted) in a nominee. With regard to Sotomayor, this means that a Hispanic woman would be expected to empathize with women and minorities, but the veracity of this expectation can only be based upon her past rulings, not just by looking at her ethnicity.

That being said, outside of official government business, I have been a bit shocked from the racism I've seen from both sides of the political spectrum. I've seen people from the left essentially use the race card to defend the selection, essentially calling it racist whenever someone criticizes Sotomayor. For example, one blogger wrote, "The argument that [Sotomayor's] 'stupid' is both gendered and racialized — no white man with her legal pedigree would be called 'stupid,' but you can bet that a man of color would." Essentially, this blogger's argument is that calling a political figure "stupid" is racist and that such an insult is reserved for minorities. The obvious flaw with this logic, other than the use of speculation, is that this term is constantly used for white men. For example, George W. Bush attended Yale University, Harvard Business School, and spent 6 years as governor of Texas before becoming president, and I can assure you that I'm not the only one who calls him "stupid." I'm not going to list every single example, but the general message I've gotten is that many on the left are blindly dismissing concerns from the right as racist. In reality, criticizing Sotomayor can be racist, but criticism of her is in no way inherently racist, as some have implied.

Meanwhile, on the right, there have been legitimate cases of racism. Some have called Sotomayor an affirmative action appointment. But as I explained in my earlier, Wikipedia-based description, she has an educational and judicial background that's at least equal to that of other Supreme Court justices, so such claims are clearly unfounded. The other type of complaint coming from the right deals with sound bites, specifically refusing to understand anything about Sotomayor beyond a single sound bite. Take for instance the whole idea of wanting a justice with empathy. Many conservatives, including Michael Steele, head of the GOP, have used sound bites like this to justify their belief that Obama wants someone who's empathetic without any regard for that person's knowledge of the legal system. The problem with this view is that it's just an example of either willful ignorance or intellectual laziness. The fact is that Obama does care about one's understanding of law as well, as shown by the same sound bite when shown in context.

The second way in which conservatives are using a sound bite to justify disapproval relates to Republicans' constant fear of Activist Judges^TM. According to conservatives, there's nothing worse than a judge who overturns pre-existing political philosophies. If a judge ever does his or her job by overturning unconstitutional laws, that judge is, in their minds, single-handedly controlling the legal system, removing power from the people. (These judges are not to be confused with Socially Responsible Judges^TM, who are identical to Activist Judges^TM except that they rule in favor of conservative policies.) So, what's this have to do with sound bites? As it turns out, many conservatives are complaining about a comment Sotomayor made back in 2005, as shown in this video. The problematic sound bite was, of course, "...court of appeals is where policy is made." This quote gives the appearance of judicial activism, but if you clicked on the link and saw her say the line, it's very obvious that she didn't mean that literally. After all, the context of the speech seemed to be a situation where she was explaining why her job is a fulfilling career option, a situation where any speaker would be expected to exaggerate the perks slightly. Furthermore, if you listen to what she says immediately after saying the line, it's incredibly obvious that she understands that her off-the-cuff remark wasn't well-worded. With that in mind, the argument that Sotomayor is an unfit judge because of a statement she made 4 years ago doesn't make much sense.

The final way in which conservatives are criticizing Sotomayor is based upon a comment she made while speaking at Berkeley Law School in 2001: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life." There is no question in my mind that this statement, when standing alone, is unquestionably racist on the grounds that it asserts that the culture surrounding a Latina woman makes her better than a White man when it comes to judicial decision-making. Anytime one asserts that people from one culture and/or gender are inherently superior to those of another, that statement is prejudiced. Quite frankly, it's disturbing to see otherwise liberal people refuse to admit that the comment in and of itself was inapproprate. (To be fair, when taken in context, which means in response to an assertion that a man and a woman would be expected to come to identical conclusions and then going on to clarify her own statement, Sotomayor's comment is somewhat less offensive. But that does not excuse those who don't present the quote in context and still argue that there's no way it could be construed as offensive.) At the same time, it's absurd that conservatives are claiming that this quote alone is reason enough to categorize Sotomayor as a racist and discount the entirety of her legal career. (Seriously, go to any conservative blog with an entry on Sotomayor, and if there are a decent number of comments, there'll be several people expressing this sentiment.) In essence, their claim is that because Sotomayor made this single, isolated comment, it somehow proves that she is a racist. Even a somewhat respected politician, Tom Tancredo, admitted on air that he wanted to see Sotomayor get rejected without even bothering to look at her judicial history, purely because she made a single gaffe. Now, if a former congressman is too lazy to look up her credentials, and instead chooses to rely on a single line the judge said, how much research do you think the average American will do?

But all things considered, I expect Sotomayor to be confirmed. Democrats will support their own president's decision and Republicans cannot afford to reject her out of fear of a more liberal nomination or of alienating Hispanic voters. So, if my predictions are correct, race will end up benefitting Sotomayor in the Senate confirmation process. As for the sound bite issues, they won't be a huge deal. After all, if Clarence Thomas could get by with the whole pubic hair on a Coke can incident, surely Sotomayor can get by with 2 poorly worded sentences.

Breaking: CA Supreme Ct. Upholds Prop 8, Existing Marriages

2009-05-26T15:48:00.013-04:00

The California Supreme Court today announced its decision to uphold Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that passed in November. The court ruled 6-1 in Strauss v. Horton that H8 was not, as supporters of marriage equality argued, a revision to the fundamental principles of the constitution that would require a two-thirds vote by the legislature, although they ruled one year ago that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples was a violation of the state's equal protection guarantee. (Equality is apparently not a fundamental principle.) However, marriages conducted since the previous ban was overturned will still be valid, and sexual orientation remains a protected class under strict scrutiny. The opinion goes on to say that same-sex couples continue to enjoy the same rights as opposite-sex couples, just without the word "marriage." Oh yeah, because separate but equal worked so well in the past. (This is not to say that the ruling hasn't made the anti-marriage side angry. Oh, they are. Because it's never been just about the word "marriage.")

The only dissenting judge was Justice Carlos R. Moreno, who had been on the short list for Justice David Souter's seat on the US Supreme Court.

"The rule the majority crafts today not only allows same-sex couples to be stripped of the right to marry that this court recognized in the Marriage Cases, it places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities. It weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority. I therefore dissent.
...
Promising equal treatment to some is fundamentally different from promising equal treatment to all. Promising treatment that is almost equal is fundamentally different from ensuring truly equal treatment. Granting a disfavored minority only some of the rights enjoyed by the majority is fundamentally different from recognizing, as a constitutional imperative, that they must be granted all of those rights. Granting same-sex couples all of the rights enjoyed by opposite-sex couples, except the right to call their “ ‘officially recognized, and protected family relationship’ ” a marriage, still denies them equal treatment.

Commenter roro80 at Shakesville does make the point that the extreme ease of drastically changing the state constitution has its advantages: time is on our side. In 2010, when this will be on the ballot again, the majority will have flipped, and the bigots will never again have enough votes to take those rights away. (Also, then Nate Silver would be right.)

Check Day of Decision to find out about protests near you.

Bill Maher: Maverick Fail

2009-05-25T20:12:00.004-04:00

(warning: long and rambly. summary: people have too narrow a definition of terrorism, and American conservatives exploit Jews.)

Picked up Bill Maher's When you ride ALONE you ride with bin Laden: What the Government SHOULD Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism in the bookstore the other day and flipped through it. Now, Mr. Maher prides himself on his political incorrectness - I mean, he hosted a show called Politically Incorrect - so even with almost no knowledge of him I wasn't surprised to find that he supports racial profiling in airports. Since all the attacks against the United States have been made or attempted by Muslims, says Mr. Maher, it makes sense to search only Muslims, sensitivity be damned! It's the only real way to protect America, and besides, he's tired of having to take his shoes off.

Except it's really not that easy. The only way to narrow your desired targets into the category of, not only Muslims, but people who are visibly "Muslim" - that is, Arab- or South Asian-looking - is to willfully ignore terrorism that doesn't fit your chosen definition of terrorism.

The OED defines "terrorism" as "the use of violence and intimidation in pursuit of political aims"; the US legal code as "premeditated politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents"; the UN as "any action...intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." Nothing in there about Islam or brown people. Yet so many people have associated terrorism with Arab or South Asian Muslims that that's become a part of their definition. "terrorism: when brown-skinned Muslims blow things up." It's a No True Scotsman fallacy - since only brown-skinned Muslims commit terrorism, it's not terrorism if the perp isn't a brown-skinned Muslim.

This chance find comes at a particularly interesting time given the recently foiled attempt to bomb synagogues and military planes. Follow that link. Look at the terrorists. They're black. They have "American" names. How far is Mr. Maher willing to take that political incorrectness?

Unless, of course, blowing up synagogues isn't terrorism. After all, Mr. Maher, in the same book, uses an image of Jesus and Muhammad in a boxing ring to represent the "clash of civilizations." Where does terrorism against Jews fit in?

Mr. Maher likes to paint himself as a maverick, but he's falling right into the conservative definition of terrorism - not only that it's only terrorism when it's done by brown Muslims, but it's only terrorism when it's done to Real Americans™.¹ That's why the Knoxville Unitarian Church shooting, the Dayton mosque chemical attack, abortion clinic bombings, and white supremacist plots don't get called terrorism. This attempt is being more widely branded as terrorism, but would it have been, if the terrorists had been white or Christian? Are Jews only provisionally Real Americans™, to be accorded victim status when we share an enemy (Muslim PoC, at the moment) with white, conservative Christians?²

American conservatives like to go on about the country's "Judeo-Christian heritage," which is a nice way to try to look inclusive while campaigning to put Jesus (whom Jews don't worship, remember?) on public buildings. Yet as late as 1944 one quarter of the American population believed Jews were a "menace," and you just try suggesting that major Jewish holidays get the federal treatment the way Christmas and Easter do.

In the same vein, they take Israel as their cause célèbre not out of a hatred for the killing of innocents (witness their cheering of Operation Cast Lead) or a sympathy for Jews, but usually either out of a rightist-Christian belief that they've got to help bring about the Apocalypse, or because Israel represents "Western" ("Judeo-Christian") values in a sea of brown Muslim countries.

Bill Maher hasn't made any public statements about the bomb plot. Maybe he really does think it's terrorism, and I'm wildly extrapolating. Maybe I'm using his earlier comments as a jumping-off point for my own thoughts. But if he does classify this attempted bombing by black Americans as terrorism, that only makes it necessary to repeat my question:

Mr. Maher, how far are you willing to take that political incorrectness?

James Cromitie. David Williams. Onta Williams. Richard Reid. John Walker Lindh. José Padilla. (To say nothing of Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, Ted Kaczynski, etc.) None of them Arab or South Asian. None of them with Muslim-sounding names. Yet all were terrorists or attempted terrorists.

Wouldn't it make more sense just to search everybody?

Oh wait, that would mean Bill Maher would have to get searched.

1. And, when in Israel, to Real Israelis™ - so illegal settlers attacking left-wing activists, Israeli soldiers trying to close settlements, or Arabs is by definition not terrorism.
2. Likewise, a soldier or a left-wing Israeli killed by a Palestinian is, of course, suddenly a Real Israeli™.

Edit: And look at that. The shooter at the Holocaust Museum hated Christians.

Edit 2: CaitieCat at Shakesville posted on a similar topic, making the excellent point that there have been far more rightist terror incidents planned or perpetrated in the U.S. than Islamic terror incidents. This leads me to two reflections:
1. Conservatives focus on the number of people killed rather than the number of incidents, and (because?) this makes it seem as if rightist terror is less of a threat.
2. Much in the same way that stories with POC protagonists are "about race" or rape is a "women's issue," a lot of these incidents fly under the radar (and are dealt with by regular law enforcement rather than DHS or anything like that) because their perpetrators are white and Christian. Because they are members of the majority, they have the privilege of not being defined by their race or religion, meaning both that their entire race/religion (unlike Islam) is not tarred with the brush of their crime, and that they are less likely to be called terrorists to begin with, since another part of that definition of "terrorism" is "violence in the service of an ideology" and ideologies are for brown people.

He's a Uniter, Not a Divider

2009-05-24T01:52:00.002-04:00

As you're probably aware, earlier this week, President Obama provided the commencement address for the University Notre Dame's graduation after the school invited him to speak there. Obama's appearance sparked controversy due to the differences between the president's views on abortion and those of the the Catholic Church. Common sense would suggest that Obama should have given a speech without mentioning the issue of abortion, which would allow his speech to be uncontroversial, and therefore appealing to everyone. However, he instead took the issue head-on and discussed the debate directly. But amazingly, he did so in such a way that he was able to convey a somewhat profound message without abandoning his views or offending those that disagree with him, even getting approval from a Vatican newspaper.

I tried to find a good sound byte from the address, but it ended up lasting several minutes. Here's the most interesting part of Obama's speech (specifically 1:20 to 7:50):

Obama's speech had a very simple, yet very important message: As much as your convictions may differ with those of someone else, that person believes in their views as much as you believe in yours. Therefore, it is best not to view opponents as faceless, mindless beings whose opinions are intended to be hurtful. Rather, one must realize that everyone wants to better our country and our society. The only difference is the way in which one feels it is best to go about doing so.

Isn't that a great, universal message? Haven't we all had times when we've reduced our opponents down to stereotypes in our own minds? I don't know about the rest of you, but I can recall plenty of times when I've gotten into debates - or perhaps pointless arguments would be the better phrase - about things like abortion or gay marriage and I've caught myself thinking, "This guy's such a moron. He probably doesn't understand the issue at all and is just repeating what some pundit or religious nut told him to believe." Whenever an argument comes down to that sort of thinking, it never seems to get resolved, and quite frankly, it leads to nothing more than "mental masturbation". In other words, it serves no purpose except to convince oneself of one's own intellectual superiority.

This kind of thinking, where one stereotypes an opponent, is particularly evident in the abortion debate. We've all heard the terms pro-choice and pro-life. People divide themselves into these two, distinct categories all the time, and what does that accomplish? All it does is associate people with the extremes on either side. (e.g. All pro-choicers support the ability to perform a partial-birth abortion if the woman wanted a baby of the other sex and all pro-lifers oppose the ability to perform an abortion if the woman was raped by a relative and it was discovered that the pregancy would result in the woman's death.) This thought process leads to another idea Obama mentioned, that we should "speak about this issue in fair-minded words." Pro-choice and pro-life aren't accurate terms. Non-pro-choice people don't want to stop women from all decision-making. On the same token, non-pro-life people don't want infants to be killed. (And don't even get me started on what's wrong with the term pro-abortion.) Perhaps our country would be less politically polarized if everyone could just express opinions without dumbing it down to "for or against" or "liberal or conservative". And, as an added bonus, if everyone stopped focusing purely on semantics, that would instantly solve the whole issue of gay marriages vs. unions.

So, what's the message to take away from all of this? It's that there's no issue that's black and white. (If an issue were that easily resolved, then it wouldn't really be an issue, would it?) And it's also that Obama speaks to audience in a way few other politicians do. Specifically, he speaks to the audience as adults.

RANDOM STUFF
-Fun Fact: The Obama administration chose to include the interruptions by hecklers in the official transcript of his Notre Dame speech.

-Another Fun Fact: The phrase "Mental Masturbation" returns about 76,700 hits on Google.

-Sometime this week (I think Tuesday) I looked at the ads in the New York Times on the same page as the crossword puzzle and one of them caught my eye. It was an ad for a book and the text said something along the lines of, "When President Obama was asked which book he is currently reading, he answered [name of book]. Enjoy the same book the president is reading." It's not the most effective ad, but it's amazing in the sense that such an ad would have been funny while Bush was still in the White House.

-Michael Steele, the head of the GOP, argued against gay marriage on economic grounds by describing a world with gay marriage:

Now all of a sudden I [a small business owner have] got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for. So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.

The problem with Steele's argument: It argues against "opposite marriage" too.

-From the party that brought us Barack "That One" Obama comes Chuck "That Jew" Schumer.

-Republicans' plan to help America: Debate whether or not to refer to Democrats as the "Democrat Socialist Party". I don't know whether to classify this as name-calling or McCarthyism.

-James Harrison, a player on the Pittsburgh Steelers, refused to join the rest of the team as they met with President Obama, following their championship season. As was the case when the team got to meet with President Bush in 2006, Harrison refused to meet the president. When asked about his decision, he replied that if Obama really wanted to meet the team, he should do so when they aren't necessarily the champions, and that "As far as I’m concerned, he would’ve invited Arizona if they had won."

Russell Howard vs. NOM

2009-05-23T23:10:00.005-04:00

Forgot to put this video in my earlier post about NOM (nom nom nom!)'s ad about children and same-sex marriage.

From Mock the Week.

Edit: The old video was taken down, so here is another copy of the same video at a lower quality. Sorry.

I'm Confused Too

2009-05-19T21:57:00.018-04:00

Apparently, same-sex couples getting married confuses small children.

(h/t Shakesville)

And small children should never, ever be confused. But why stop at banning same-sex marriage?

Don't have your children meet their grandparents, or have a pet. You might have to explain death to them some day, and it might confuse them.

Don't allow air travel. Children might be confused by how airplanes stay up.

Don't send your children to school. They might learn things that will confuse them, like that people used to think their black classmates weren't people, or the difference between ionic and covalent bonds.

Don't homeschool your children. They might learn things that will confuse them, like negative numbers, or that "c" and "h" put together make a sound that sounds like neither "c" nor "h."

Don't encourage your children to do their civic duty, whether it's voting, reading the newspaper, anything. The mind-blowing array of political issues might confuse them.

Don't expose your children to any culture. They might be confused by actors and actresses playing people that they're actually not, or by people singing or dancing when in real life they'd be speaking or walking, or by abstract art.

Don't let anti-abortion activists protest in public. Graphic pictures of miscarriages might confuse children.

Don't talk about wanting the government out of your life. Children might become confused if they try to reconcile that idea with their parents attempting to get the government to ban something so they don't have to do their job as parents and explain things to their offspring.

Don't teach your children about God or the Bible. The idea of a being they can't see who controls everything and who cares about the sex of the person they marry might confuse them.

God Damn It!

2009-05-08T02:22:00.005-04:00

I may not be a religious person, but there are some aspects about faith that I sometimes think I understand better than the devout themselves. One of these tenets of faith is that you're supposed to behave in a way that is endorsed by the Bible. If you don't, then you probably shouldn't be going around talking about how infallible your holy text is and how great you are for adhering to its teachings. Somebody should probably deliver this message to several people who have been in the news lately.

Exodus 20:16

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

This line is the ninth of the Ten Commandments. In other words, I'm not pulling out a random, obscure biblical verse to prove a point. This is about as well known a biblical line as there is. So, why is this quote relevant? The answer: Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean, violated it. Prejean is involved in controversy because she showed opposition to gay marriage in her response to a question posed during a recent beauty pageant. Since then, she has been speaking for various anti-gay marriage organizations. One point she has emphasized repeatedly is that she acts the way she does because of her Christian faith. However, she may be stripped of her title as Miss California because she did, in fact, bear false witness. When entering the Miss USA Pageant, Prejean signed a contract in which she agreed not to give any public appearances following the pageant. She violated this agreement by giving these anti-gay marriage speeches. But what's gotten even more attention is that Prejean violated another part of her contract by lying about having never been in any partially nude photos. You can't violate the ninth commandment any more directly than that...
On second thought, Prejean has been defending herself from these allegations of fraud through the use of a public relations representative, despite the fact that hiring such a representative is also a violation of the contract.

Matthew 6:5-6

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

What a beautiful sentiment. Pray freely, but don't do so for the purpose of proving to others how pious you think you are. It's too bad that those that take the Bible most literally seem to leave this part out. This is best evidenced by yesterday's celebration of a National Day of Prayer, for which President Obama signed a proclamation honoring the holiday. That will appease the evangelicals, right? Well, not really. Evidently, conservative religious groups aren't happy that Obama didn't join them for a public prayer session, instead opting for private prayer. I guess the Bible just isn't compatible with the views of Bible thumpers.

This one doesn't need a Bible verse.
A few days ago, a piece of legislation was passed in Washington D.C. allowing for the recognition of same-sex marriages performed legally in other parts of the country. The bill passed 12-1. The one dissenter was Marion Barry. As he explained in this speech, he opposes gay marriages because he thinks it goes against his belief that people should be led by "moral leaders." He proclaimed "I am a moral leader." Ironically, Barry is best known for getting caught in a sting operation in 1990 in which he was caught using crack. Since then, Barry has been in trouble with the law for further drug use and failing to pay his taxes. Perhaps Barry has very loose definition of morality.

Breaking: Maine Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

2009-05-06T15:33:00.004-04:00

I love copying and pasting the phrase "Breaking: _______ Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage" into the text box that reads "Title."

Maine has just approved a bill making it one of five states with legal same-sex marriage. Maine's Governor, John Baldacci issued a statement on the decision to approve the bill, explaining:

In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.

He went on to explain that churches would not be forced to recognize same-sex marriages, so this piece of legislation is not only consistent with the concept of equal protection under the law, but also with separation of Church and State.

Full text of the statement here.

Chemistry Fail

2009-04-28T21:39:00.004-04:00

Michelle Bachmann is back in the news for yet another gaffe. See for yourself:

First of all, carbon dioxide is actually .04% of the atmosphere, not 3.0%. Bachmann was off by a factor of nearly 100. That's as inaccurate as saying something like America's population is 30 billion people or the average newborn weighs over 700 pounds. It's a significant amount of error.

The second problem is very obvious: Lots of stuff in nature is dangerous. Poisonous animals are natural. Bacterial pathogens are natural. Cyanide is a natural component of apple seeds. Plenty of plants produce toxins to ward off predators and that's all natural. I think you can see where I'm going with this. There's plenty of stuff in nature that can kill you.

Finally, I'd like to address Congresswoman Bachmann's assertion that there is no evidence that carbon dioxide is "a harmful gas." There is a belief within the scientific community that increases in carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, could amplify the greenhouse effect, leading to global climate change. This belief is very widely accepted amongst experts in relevant fields of study. Furthermore carbon dioxide has direct effects on humans. For one thing, carbon dioxide helps to regulate blood pH and signal to the body how often to breathe. (If the air were 3.0% carbon dioxide, humans would be gasping for air nonstop.) Additionally, the potential hazards of carbon dioxide are very well documented. As anyone who has ever worked with chemicals (not counting those ultra-diluted solutions one uses in high school) knows, each chemical delivered to a lab comes with what's known as a material safety data sheet (MSDS). The MSDS lists the potential dangers associated with the corresponding chemical. According to the MSDS for carbon dioxide produced by Airgas, carbon dioxide at high enough levels can cause asphyxiation and mild irritation to bodily organs. It may not be the most toxic substance on the planet, but all I had to do was Google the terms "MSDS" and "carbon dioxide" to find information describing the nature of carbon dioxide as "a harmful gas." Maybe Michelle Bachmann should do a little research before she speaks to Congress

UPDATE: I just found another stupid, scientifically-challenged comment by Bachmann. Enjoy:

Breaking: Specter Switches

2009-04-28T13:38:00.006-04:00

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, one of the three Senate Republicans to vote for the stimulus bill, has changed his party affiliation to Democratic. When Al Franken of Minnesota is finally seated, the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority.

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

Mr. Specter would have faced a challenge in the 2010 Republican primary from Pat Toomey, a more conservative Republican, over his support of the stimulus package. It's interesting to note that, without changing any of his positions, he sees the mere fact of being a Republican as an electoral liability.

In related news, conservatives are starting to claim that the Democrats are inflating the danger of swine flu in order to get Gov. Kathleen Sebelius's nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services, which they'd been planning to filibuster becauseshe is pro-choice, through the Senate. Yeah, the entire world is on pandemic alert just so that the administration can get one nominee through. Sure. It's not as if President Obama is ever going to appoint someone who opposes women's health to HHS - so wouldn't it be a good idea to drop it so that we can have someone in charge right now?

The Divided Nations

2009-04-26T00:05:00.003-04:00

I'm sure you've heard by now about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism. (Full text here.) It's not really what I want to talk about here - there's much to be said about his remarks on Israel, which went far beyond criticism of its policies and into full-on anti-Semitism, but instead I'd like to discuss the role of the U.S. in this conference, or rather the lack of a U.S. role in this conference.

The United States, along with Israel and eight other countries, boycotted the conference, which took place earlier this week, because of statements in the draft resolution regarding Israel's treatment of Palestinians¹ and because of the hostile atmosphere of the last UN racism conference in Durban, South Africa in 2001, which singled out Israel for criticism and described Zionism as racism. (Delegates from 23 other countries later walked out during Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech.) According to President Obama, "our participation would have involved putting our imprimatur on something that we just don’t believe."

There are two ways to interpret this statement. One, the one he meant: we do not wish to lend legitimacy to the statements of people like Mr. Ahmadinejad. The other: we do not believe in the legitimacy of such conferences.

I honestly believe that he intended the first. As a candidate and as president, he's already shown more willingness to resolve things by diplomacy than by war. But there's a subtext that I don't like that's closer to the second. American opinion of the UN is very, very mixed, and particularly among conservatives, one common opinion holds that we should not participate at all. (Most recently, this attitude has manifested in the opposition to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - lovely irony when these are the same people going on about protecting unborn children. See also: War in Iraq, to say nothing of the Convention Against Torture.)

It's not an exaggeration to say that America is by far the most powerful country in the world. Doesn't it seem reasonable to suggest that instead of boycotting an important UN conference, we attend and support Israel? Isn't it at least plausible that if the U.S. attended, American diplomats could, you know, exert pressure on the other members to treat Israel even-handedly?

Because really, how does boycotting help? The Soviet Union boycotted the Security Council in 1950 and lost their chance to dissent from the unanimous vote condemning Communist aggression. The United States boycotts in 2009 and makes the consensus for Israel and against anti-Semitism that much weaker. It doesn't change anyone's opinion or anyone's policy because it's not a contribution to the discussion - it's a lack of one. It just shows an unwillingness to carry on a dialogue with other countries. And that's a conservative position that I don't think the president wants to or ought to take.

1. Brian has already written about another troubling aspect of the draft. Also note that neither of these statements made the final resolution.

This Week in Sexuality

2009-04-25T18:03:00.004-04:00

One of the biggest stories of the last week was what happened during the interview segment of the Miss USA Pageant. Miss California's question came from Perez Hilton who asked “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?” Miss California's answer:

Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you very much.

In response, people on all sides of the gay marriage issue have been commenting on whether the question and/or answer was appropriate. Personally, I don't think either person said anything unusually improper. However, I do believe that this incident shows that those demonizing either the contestant or the judge are just making a mountain out of a molehill and are, quite frankly, making themselves look like assholes.

One school of thought is that Perez Hilton's question, despite being approved in advance by pageant officials, was inappropriate. Personally, I think such an assertion cannot be made without abandoning all traces of logic. The interview portion of the pageant, as I understand it, is intended to get the contestants to express their opinions. If a very open-ended political questions is too extreme, what else could the judges ask? Either they would have to ask a question with an obvious answer (e.g. Do you think recycling is a good or bad thing?) or a question that provides minimal insight into the contestants' minds (e.g. What's your favorite color?). Considering that something along the lines of "What's your opinion on same-sex marriage?" is open-ended and can result in more than one response, there's really no reason why it should be condemned as inflammatory.

Despite what I think, there are always people there to cry wolf. According to the Family Research Council, the whole Hilton question was a set-up. The group alleges that the competition was rigged so that Miss California, who had previously quoted bible verses in her Miss USA competition biography, was intentionally asked this question for the sole purpose of insulting her. This argument wouldn't be all that unreasonable had it not been for the fact that contestants' questions were determined randomly by drawing names out of a bowl by the contestants themselves. In other words, there was no way to guarantee that she would be the one to receive the gay marriage question. The Family Research Council went on to complain about the contestant's rights being violated because she was insulted by Hilton following the competition. You know, for a group that complains so often about being persecuted and unable to express its views, the Family Research Council sure does a lot to try and stop its opponents from talking.

In addition to complaining about Perez Hilton, some people have also complained about the answer provided by Miss California, Carrie Prejean. But when you think about it, did she really do anything wrong? After all, she was asked what her view was on gay marriage. The correct thing to do was to answer the question. It's just that simple. I may not have agreed with her answer, but there isn't anything that outrageous about someone opposing gay marriage. Furthermore, she did provide a reason for her perspective. (Granted, opposing gay marriage because that's what she was told to believe as a child isn't a strong argument, but it's at least an attempt at justification.) Compare her performance to that of her competitors, like Miss Arizona. (I'm starting to get the impression that Miss South Carolina from the 2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant wasn't all that unusual.) To put it simply, her answer wasn't great - it certainly wasn't profound enough to warrant any honors - but compared to the typical answer one would see in a beauty pageant, it wasn't all that bad.

But regardless of this particular incident at the most recent pageant, there is still one issue left to be addressed: Why does an interview portion of the competition even exist in the first place? Maybe it's to reveal the contestants' personalities and intellect, but such an effort is clearly misguided. After all, nobody comes out of the interview segment without making themselves look like a fool. The way the segment is currently set up seems merely designed to showcase the aspects of the contestants that are least impressive. As one saying goes, "It is better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."

But perhaps the biggest flaw is simply that not many people actually watch beauty pageants for intellectual reasons. Watching 51 women strut around in bikinis is interesting because of sex appeal, not because it presents an opportunity to better understand the intellectual issues they can handle. I can assure you that if anyone says something like "Wow! That Miss New York is incredible. Check out the size of her... um, brains," that person isn't thinking about any contestant's politcal stances. Simply put, having the contestants give pathetic answers to stupid questions just makes it easier to believe the stereotype that beauty pageant contestants are bimbos who can only get through life because of their bodies. So, as counterintuitive as it sounds, I think the best thing that the Miss USA Pageant could do to avoid contributing to this problem would be to eliminate the Q & A and go back to showcasing the T & A. Beauty pageants are just competitions of who's the most physically attractive, so why pretend that it's something more progressive than that?

Giant Gay-Repellant Umbrellas

From the makers of Prop 8 - The Musical comes a new video, this time in response to the National Organization for Marriage's "Gathering Storm" ad:

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

The anti-gay marriage campaign being targeted was called 2M4M, an acronym for Two Million for Marriage. However, the website 2m4m.org has been bought by a group calling themselves Two Men for Marriage. Additionally, the term "M4M" is generally used as a term meaning "man looking for a man". Now that is irony.

NY Governor Introduces Bill to Allow Gay Marriage

2009-04-16T17:34:00.003-04:00

The title just about says it all.

This is not the first bill introduced to the legislature intended to legalize gay marriage, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that this bill has the potential to get ratified, particularly since the state senate, the bill's biggest obstacle, has a slight Democratic majority. It's safe to say that the bill isn't threatened elsewhere since the state assembly (the lower house in New York's legislature) is made up of over 70% Democrats (a comfortable margin if I do say so myself) and the only other person who could prevent the bill from becoming law is Governor Paterson, the man who introduced it in the first place. All things considered, there is reason to be optimistic.

More details here.

Also, here's just a random thought that came into my mind: Isn't it weird that New York's flag is comprised of none other than two people of the same sex? Perhaps that's a good omen.

The Teabagging Orgy

2009-04-15T03:01:00.007-04:00

Today's April 15th, the deadline to pay taxes. While most people understand the necessity of taxation (I'd hope), it is not unusual for one to get angry at the thought of giving up so much of one's own money. But how many people are angry enough that they'd teabag another person over economic policy? The answer may surpise you.

So, what is teabagging? According to urbandictionary.com, the word "teabag" refers to the act of inserting one's scrotum into the mouth of another person, often someone who is sleeping or passed out. (I've also heard that a "teabag" can be defined as a pouch of herbs that when placed in water produces a flavored beverage, but who would ever use it in that context?) With this slang definition in mind, one thing becomes painfully obvious: Anyone who refers to themself as a teabagger probably won't be taken seriously. Then again, some people's views are hard to take seriously to begin with. A great example of this Tea Party Movement. Here's the best description of the movement I could find (by which I mean the one with the most double-entendres):

So there you have it. A bunch of people led by conservative groups are planning to protest government spending by imitating the Boston Tea Party, an event whose participants were trying to promote the idea of following the laws set forth by one's own representatives, rather than a foreign government. Considering that the Democratic majority was elected months ago by the people and for the people, and that much of America's budget is being wasted on Republican-initiated wars, wouldn't the philosophy closest to that of the original Tea Party protestors be to support the Democrats?

Edit by Rebecca: Here is my favorite video on teabagging.

Edit by Rebecca: The video has been taken down, but trust me, it was awesome.

Protect Marriage in Iowa (for realz)

2009-04-13T14:47:00.008-04:00

(I apologize if you have a kneejerk reaction to the subject line. I really need to write that post on the co-option of language by the right.)

Anyway. Opponents of marriage equality have lost no time in trying to get an amendment out that would ban same-sex marriage in Iowa. Fortunately, the process is more difficult than was the one in California - the proposed amendment must pass the legislature in two separate years, then pass in a general election - and is probably not going to succeed three years from now when people have seen that TEH GAYZ!!1! are not breaking into their houses in the dead of night to force them into shotgun marriages with others of their own sex. However, inertia is inertia, and the best way to stop the ball rolling is to keep it from starting. Contact these nine Democratic representatives, whom the Republicans in the House are counting on to back this amendment, and urge them to vote NO on HJR 6. (E-mail addresses, phone numbers, and my letter to the representatives, which you may use if you like, below the jump.) You can also write to Iowa Governor Chet Culver using this form.

Representative Brian Quirk – brian.quirk@legis.state.ia.us, 515-242-6436

Representative Mike Reasoner – mike.reasoner@legis.state.ia.us, 515-281-3238

Representative Kurt Swaim – kurt.swaim@legis.state.ia.us, 515-242-6417

Representative Larry Marek – larry.marek@legis.state.ia.us, 515-242-6442

Representative Kerry Burt – kerry.burt@legis.state.ia.us, 515-281-7342

Representative Wayne Ford – wayne.ford@legis.state.ia.us, 515-281-4061

Representative Nathan Reichert – nathan.reichert@legis.state.ia.us, 515-281-7332

Representative Paul Shomshor – paul.shomshor@legis.state.ia.us, 515-281-7325

Representative Phyllis Thede – phyllis.thede@legis.state.ia.us, 515-281-7336

Dear Iowa Representatives,

I'm writing to urge you to vote against HJR 6, an amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in Iowa. The State Supreme Court made the right decision when they ruled that the existing ban was unconstitutional; as they explained in their ruling, arguments against same-sex marriage are discriminatory and religiously based, and pseudo-scientific arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. I fervently hope that you will do the right thing and vote NO on HJR 6 to ensure equal treatment for all your constituents. Friday, April 3 proved that Iowa continues to be a pioneer in the fight for equal rights - don't let that victory be erased by bigotry.

Rebecca [last name]

Hat tip to Queers United for the action alert, and to "Protect Marriage" (the anti-marriage organization that backed Prop 8 - thanks for the help, guys!) for the phone numbers.

Conscience Vigilance

2009-04-08T23:12:00.001-04:00

Something you ought to know about me: I have a little masochistic streak that leads me onto the website of my local paper and onto the blogs of the worst kind of religious nutjobs, to argue abortion and gay rights with them. I don't know why I do it. Maybe to pass the time. Maybe it's that when my self-esteem is low, I like to go somewhere where I know I'll be right. Whatever the reason, I've both been banned from some of these blogs and stormed out when the bullshit got too thick to wade in.

But anyway. Brian's post about Feminists for Life, and our discussion of it in comments, made me figure that I might as well do a post on a common theme in my arguments with anti-abortion folk. We usually hash out the normal, logical arguments, by which I mean I put them forth and the fetus-worshipers froth at the mouth about Jesus, but even from fairly sane anti-abortion people I hear the argument that the organ donation argument is invalid because "killing isn't the same thing as letting die." (This to excuse themselves from not donating kidneys or liver lobes to sick people while trying to make women donate their entire bodies to their embryos.)

These people split into two camps: those who decide that this means it's OK to remove the uterus and let the embryo die on its own, and those who splutter about how this is somehow different and how women should have to stay pregnant anyway. (NB: The first group is actually imaginary. The nearest anyone gets is Catholics who think that it's OK to remove the entire Fallopian tube in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, damaging the woman's fertility for the sake of an embryo that can never be born.)

Let's ignore the second camp; they're the only one that exists in real life, but their arguments are illogical and easily demolished. Instead, let's talk about the first camp, or about the limit as scenario approaches real life of the first camp.

Even if you assume the best of motives on the part of these anti-abortion people - they don't want to control women, they just want to protect the babies! - then the position is ridiculous at best and selfish at worst. Because it comes back to what I was talking about in my post on the nine-year-old Brazilian girl. The baby, if you wish to call it that, will die. Whether it's the normal pregnancy ended by hysterectomy in the imaginary scenario or the tubal pregnancy ended by salpingectomy according to Catholic doctrine in the actual scenario, the baby will die. That's not the question. The question is whether the woman's fertility will be partially or completely destroyed, or not. No lives are being protected by hurting women. The person who argues this actually thinks it's more important to protect his precious conscience from thinking that he allowed an abortion than to protect life or health. Yeah, he actually prioritizes his conscience over other people's health. Which, as I explained in the other post, makes one wonder what his morals are, if protecting someone's health, with nothing in the other pan of the scale, goes against them. Besides making the person a selfish bastard.

I've created a new tag for this mentality, "conscience vigilance." (Yes, I have read all the Harry Potter books. Don't ask me about the last one.)

Breaking: Vermont Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

2009-04-07T15:04:00.001-04:00

Details here.

Faux Feminism?

2009-04-06T22:32:00.003-04:00

At the risk of losing some of my anononymity, I'd like to reveal where I am right now. Currently, I am a student at Cornell University. I mention this because my school recently hosted an event that seems very relevant to this blog, especially considering its goal of "examination of feminist and political issues, discussed mainly from a student perspective." Here's what happened:

I first found out about it last Monday. As I always do, I checked my mailbox and went through the various flyers distributed by various campus organizations and clubs. As was the case a couple of times in the past, I got a flyer from the Cornell Coalition for Life (CCL), a pro-life student organization. (Please be aware that I will be referring to both sides of the abortion debate as "pro-choice" and "pro-life," rather than terms like "anti-choice" or "pro-abortion." I feel that all the available terms are clear examples of political framing, so it would probably most accurate to refer to each side by the phrase it uses for itself.) The CCL's flyer was advertising an upcoming lecture by a woman named Karen Shablin, who was described as a former "card-carrying member of NARAL" turned pro-life advocate and speaker for Feminists for Life (FFL). That's an interesting name for an organization. I had read plenty of articles about abortion rights and its relation to feminism. Although I was under the impression that the founders of the feminist movement opposed abortions, I could not recall seeing any opposition of abortion from a modern feminist source. This got me thinking: Is the pro-life position compatible with modern feminism?

My ultimate conclusion in a nutshell is this: Opposing access to abortions does not inherently go against the principles of feminism. However, the reasoning used by FFL does run counter to feminist ideals, and is, quite frankly, dishonest.

Let's begin by looking at what feminism is. I am by no means an expert on the topic, but the gist of it is the idea that women deserve rights equal to those of men. Based on this simple idea, one can derive the feminist position on bodily integrity. Specifically, if one assumes that a woman is as capable of decision-making as anyone else, then, logically, she has at least as much of a right as anyone else to make decisions that affect her alone. Therefore, from a feminist perspective, if a woman is pregnant, she unquestionably has the right to terminate the pregnancy provided that termination will not affect another person. (Another note regarding my terminology: When I talk about personhood, I am referring to the state of being as valuable as any born human being. In other words, I mean the point at which destroying it would be considered murder. Some people would argue that one achieves personhood at conception. Others say at birth. And some would say somewhere in between.) Based on this idea, if one believes that the zygote/blastocyst/embryo/fetus has not yet achieved personhood, then it would be wrong to deny the woman the option to terminate the pregnancy, since she should be able to make decisions affecting her body alone. If, however, one believes that a zygote/blastocyst/embryo/fetus has achieved personhood, then it wouldn't be inconsistent with feminist beliefs to suggest that it's immoral to allow pregnancies to be terminated under the pretense that it's immoral to allow a person to die. (I would argue that the premise that personhood begins at conception is illogical, but if one does accept said premise, regardless of its accuracy, then it would not conflict with one's acceptance of feminism.) To summarize, feminism could be compatible with pro-life beliefs if one accepts the premise that personhood is achieved while still inside the potential mother. Likewise, one who doesn't accept that premise could have a pro-choice position without going against the principles of feminism. Therefore, feminism does not limit itself to one particular position regarding reproductive rights.

Despite my conclusion that one does not necessarily have to be pro-choice to be in line with feminist ideals, the particular line of reasoning used by FFL does conflict with the feminist movement. I'll admit that I was unable to attend the lecture I mentioned earlier, but I did read a summary of the event in the school paper and I looked at information on the organization's website, both of which provide some insight into the organization's beliefs. After taking a look at them, two things are apparent: FFL is not feminist and much of its information is flat-out inaccurate/misleading. Let's first look at the information from the campus newspaper. (The Cornell Daily Sun is good about keeping its non-editorial articles relatively unbiased, so I'm going to assume that it's mostly accurate.) The first thing I notice about Shablin's lecture is that she distorts the meaning of the term "choice." In context, "choice" is the ability to decide whether or not one should get an abortion. Even if a woman maintains her pregnancy, she is still using her right to choose to decide to continue the pregnancy. Shablin did not appear to understand this, saying, "Look to your right, and look to your left... These people [may not] be here if their mother had exercised her choice.” Is it really so hard to believe that given the option, some women wouldn't choose to abort? Later, she said that she had an abortion because “there was no choice except [pro]-choice.” Again, if pro-choice was the only option, that would not mean that she was forced into aborting. Shabln's inability to grasp this concept makes me wonder how well she actually understands her own position.

One point made by Shablin was that science confirms her belief that life begins at fertilization, explaining, "I believe when an egg meets a sperm, a human being is formed... Politics influences science, and it’s rarely the other way around. However, my place in the world is based on science." Really? That's an interesting assertion considering that no such conclusion was ever reached within the scientific community. In fact, as any scientist can tell you, science does not make moral judgements. It can provide information that can be used as a basis for a moral argument, but it doesn't provide the argument in and of itself. In other words, one can scientifically say that a blastocyst contains undifferentiated cells with complete human genetic sequences, but one cannot scientifically determine that the moral value of this entity. It's not like you can hook up a bunch of cells to a machine and get a reading on its moral standing. I understand that many people consider fertilization to be the start of personhood, but the reality is that this view is based on one's opinions, not on emprical scientific as Shablin would have you believe.

Shablin went on to say that “...abortion is not just a medical procedure... No epidectomy [sic] sticks with a woman like an abortion does.” By saying this, her point seemed to be that women tend to regret their decisions to get an abortion. This argument, however, is incredibly flawed and anti-feminist. For one thing, it implies that pregnant women don't know what's best for themselves and that these women are less capable of accurately assessing and affecting their own lives than Shablin. Shablin, evidently, regretted her choice, so she somehow infers that every other woman on the planet would feel the same way. In addition to the condescending nature of this assumption, there is also the problem that some women don't feel so bad after their abortions. If you go FFL's website, you can see videos of various speakers from the organization giving lectures on abortion. According to the video of Shablin, not even the speaker herself has reason to believe that that's the case. As she explains, one thing that caused her to become pro-life was her experience working with Medicaid in New Jersey, where she was shocked to see that numerous patients had gotten multiple abortions, some as many as four in a year. Now, think for a second. If there's nothing unusual about women getting multiple abortions, isn't it very plausible that some women are not filled with regret after the procedure. If abortions were as scarring as Shablin seems to think they are, I doubt repeat-patients would be as common as Shablin had seen.

Another thing to note on the video is a phrase said at about 1:20 into the video. The quote again deals with the appendectomy analogy, but according to Shablin, when she was pro-choice, she was fine with the procedure because "...if something was legal, how could it be wrong?" Really? That's the type of thinking that gets an otherwise pro-lifer to be a member of NARAL!? Do I even have to explain what's wrong with that?

Toward the end of the Cornell Daily Sun article, it is reported that Shablin stated that 45% of all women in college have at least one abortion. This statistic seems exageratted when compared to data from more reliable sources, which suggest that one in three American women will have abortions in their lifetimes. If Shablin's figure is accurate that would mean one of the following must be true:
1) Non-college women (who are probably worse off socioeconomically than college students) have much fewer abortions. I doubt that this is the case, but if it is, then it would debunk one of Shablin's main arguments: that women get abortions purely because of lack of resources available to them.
2) The number of women above college age who have had an abortion is much lower than 45%, offsetting the high number of abortions for college students. This isn't the case either. As you can see by the most recent link I included, abortion rates have decreased over the past 30 years, so older people were probably more likely to have gotten abortions.
3) Some women have had negative numbers of abortions. This would enable the numbers to fit together perfectly, but it's impossible.

So, how can we reconcile Shablin's data with more credible data? Easy. We just have to assume that Shablin pulled that 45% figure out of her ass.

Another thing to note from the Time article I linked to earlier is that it says that the majority of women who seek abortions are those who already have kids. If that's the case, it completely decimates Shablin's argument that women are "coerced" into terminating their pregnancies on the grounds that they lack the resources to become parents in the first place.

That about sums up the argument set forth by Karen Shablin. She argued that any woman who chooses an abortion is incapable of making such a decision under her own free will and that pro-lifers somehow know better than the women themselves about what choice is best for each individual. Although, as I explained earlier, I do not consider the pro-life position to be inherently anti-feminist, I believe it's clear that Shablin's position goes against feminism and, at times, reality. Additionally, if you look at the other video recordings of speakers on FFL's website, you'll see that all of the arguments seem to be based on another anti-feminist argument. Essentially, the women in the videos say something along the lines of: "I or my mother nearly terminated a pregnancy but ended up not doing so, and everything worked out for us in the end. Therefore, nobody else should have an abortion either." The whole idea of the pro-lifers knowing more about each woman's personal situation than the woman herself is a clear example of the kind of anti-feminist attitude that can be found throughout FFL's message.

Breaking: Iowa Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

2009-04-03T17:41:00.004-04:00

Go Iowa!

Not only did the court unanimously rule for marriage equality, they also upped the standards for laws that discriminate against gay people to strict scrutiny because gay people are a historically oppressed minority and that homosexuality is not a choice. (Their rationale for overturning the marriage ban was what you'd expect - that any arguments against gay marriage are utter BS with no scientific or legal basis.)

Vermont and New Hampshire must be secretly a little disappointed at not getting the bronze medal for marriage equality. (We do not speak of California.) But they'd still be the first to do so by legislative vote, so that's OK. (Both have passed both houses of the legislature and await the governor's signature.)

Bigotry Through Tolerance

2009-04-01T17:46:00.002-04:00

The U.N. Human Rights Council recently adopted a non-binding text intended to discourage acts of religious intolerance. Sounds good, right? Who wants to be subjected to hatred and persecuted because of their religious convictions? But wait a second. There's one detail I forgot to tell you: This resolution focuses not on violence due to bigotry or differential treatment of different people, but on "defamation of religion." In other words, the goal is to encourage restrictions on making inflammatory statements about religion.

Now, this idea may seem well-intentioned at first, since its intent seems to be to end religious intolerance. However, the story behind the resolution suggests otherwise. The resolution was not devised by a group of representatives from varying religious groups. Rather, it was created solely by Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a group of 57 Muslim countries. Although unilaterally designing a text isn't inherently discriminatory, you do have to question how well the resolution would address non-anti-Islamic forms of discrimination. Furthermore, designing the text alone violated a goal of OIC. According to the OIC's website, the organization should "protect and defend the true image of Islam, to combat defamation of Islam and encourage dialogue among civilizations and religions." Personally, I don't think working without the help of non-Islamic countries and proposing a ban on criticism of religion qualifies as "dialogue."

Another issue with the resolution is that it provides institutions, rather than indivuals with human rights. Whereas other human rights are designed to protect individual people from the institutions that control them, this resolution does the exact opposite, empowering those who are already in power. Perhaps most troubling is that such a restriction of "defamation of religion" could very easily be used as a justification for more intense limits on freedom of speech, particularly as it applies to criticizing/questioning religious authorities.

One example provided to demonstrate the need to end intolerance was the series of Danish cartoons that sparked riots back in 2006. Although I didn't think the cartoons were particularly entertaining, tasteful, or insightful, I don't see how that would qualify as a justification for protecting religion particularly when the act of defamation was dwarfed by the religious response. Quite frankly, I think it's pretty obvious that the OIC is just trying to use a universally-liked value to complain about the west and deflect criticism from some of their own offensive practices.

I have no title

2009-03-24T20:02:00.010-04:00

An airline pilot who crashed and killed 16 people as a result of praying instead of following emergency procedures has been jailed. I suppose he's never heard the proverb "God helps those who help themselves."

Texas prepares to make their master's degree in science officially worthless. This by allowing a creationist institute to award a science degree. No matter how you couch it - "finding flaws int he theory of evolution," whatever - the fact remains that creationism is not empirically verifiable. Not science. Needless to say, creationism is not science. Eugenie Scott, head of the NCSE, put it best: "I mean, all you have to do, it looks to me from the bill, is start a non-profit organization, don’t take any federal or state money, and then offer degrees in any fool subject you want.”

The Vermont State Senate has legalized same-sex marriage 26-4, and the bill has more than enough votes to pass the House as well. Gov. Jim Douglas is a Republican and has said he won't sign it; however, he may very well be overridden if he vetoes it. So here's best wishes in advance for all the couples who'll be taking skiing holidays for their marriages.

Labour's joined the coalition, after a lot of debate and a very close vote. I'm not sure whether I like this or not - whether this will, as party leader Ehud Barak said, "prevent the formation of a narrow right-wing government," or whether he's knuckling under. The party could split, too - it's already gone down somewhat what with taking fourth place in the elections. (Shas already joined.)

The Federal District Court of NY has struck down the FDA's prohibition on dispensing emergency contraception to 17-year-olds, and advised that they revise their rules to make it available to younger people as well.

Citing depositions, Judge Korman wrote that agency officials had improperly communicated with White House officials about Plan B. And, he said, F.D.A. employees sought to influence decisions by appointing people with anti-abortion views to an independent panel of experts reviewing Plan B for the agency.

The agency also departed from its normal procedures, the judge wrote, by ignoring favorable conclusions about the drug by an advisory panel as well its own scientists and officials who found that the drug could be safely used by women at least as young as 17.

Such “political considerations, delays and implausible justifications” showed that the F.D.A. had acted without good faith or reasoned decision making, Judge Korman wrote.

My Big Fat Gay Marriage News Post

2009-03-23T21:16:00.009-04:00

Here's Portia De Rossi, Ellen DeGeneres's wife, "apologizing" for her marriage on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Excerpt:

When I got married all I was thinking about was my own joy at committing to love my partner for the rest of my life. I didn’t think about all the people that I was hurting by getting married. That was selfish.

So, I want to apologize to all those people whose lives have been affected by me getting married.

To Elaine Sutler, who suffered painful and debilitating paper cuts from holding up her simple message of intolerance.

To Amanda Milch, who came down with pneumonia while protesting my marriage in the rain.

To George Binder, whose mind was so tragically blown by the idea of gays getting married, he has to spend the rest of his life wearing this hat.

Via Shakesville.

And here's New York's other senator, Chuck Schumer, supporting same-sex marriage and the repeal of DOMA. Mr. Schumer was the last holdout among NY's statewide elected officials to prefer civil unions instead of marriage, after junior senator Kirsten Gillibrand's views "evolved." Now let's hope that the State Senate will get something done so NY can have marriage equality already.

Not long after a California judge declared DOMA unconstitutional, Rep. Barney Frank has expressed his hope that it not go to the Supreme Court yet "because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court." Sadly, he's right; Justice Scalia has always preferred ruling against people's rights over actually interpreting the Constitution, under which DOMA is very obviously unconstitutional. But it's good to have it out in the open, and I look forward to seeing a response in which the justice says he's not a homophobe, he just thinks that gay people are dirty inferior creatures acting against the will of God.

News Roundup

2009-03-21T23:48:00.004-04:00

I expect you've all heard by now about the incident over in Brazil - a nine-year-old girl was raped by her stepfather and impregnated with twins, and when she obtained an abortion, her mother and doctors were excommunicated.

Yes, nine. Yes, twins.

I think we can safely assume that she would not have survived to give birth to those twins. I think we can also safely assume that the twins would not have lived either.

So, even if you pretend the twins are people/lives/whatever it is you value:

abortion → 2 deaths 1 life

no abortion → 3 deaths

Now, we all know that the god-botherers aren't very smart, but I think even they know that two deaths are fewer than three deaths. (What a morbid math lesson that would be.) So we must conclude that her not having an abortion is actually more important than saving her life. Essentially, they'd rather let the girl die than have an abortion on their conscience. Which is massively self-centered. Prioritizing your conscience over someone else's life? Now, really. Not to mention that it raises questions as to what their morals actually are, if letting someone save her life would weigh on their conscience. Except better bloggers than I have already answered this one - controlling women's bodies is much, much higher up on their list of priorities.

--

My mother is angry over a pair of contrasting op-eds on the Gaza situation in the latest issue of the school paper. Her words, verbatim: "[Palestinians] really just need to take some personal responsibility." I kid you not. The only way for her to be more of an Israel-Republican would be for her to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage in Israel ~~so that Jews would catch up to that demographic threat~~ because God says so.

In other Israel-related news, Israel has banned the celebration of Arab Culture Day in Jerusalem. Seriously, guys? Seriously? Wielding the banhammer like that is just idiotic. There is no reason to ban Arab Culture Day (unless, of course, you're a racist asshole, which doesn't count as a reason). This dilutes the very idea of banning things. If Israel is going to use its police power to pop kids' red, white and green balloons, how can it expect to be taken seriously if it has a real reason to ban something?

The actual explanation given is that the celebrations violate a ban on Palestinian political activity in Jerusalem. This is a problem to begin with, but by shutting down the celebrations, police are arguing that performances of traditional music and dance are inherently political. And, you know, some of them probably are political. It's common enough for an oppressed people to use a traditional language, religion, mythos, or what have you as a form of resistance. But that doesn't make all of them political. I think it's terrible how this conflict politicizes religion and culture - not only how a cultural celebration basically analogous to the St. Patrick's Day parade is seen as political, but how Brian can become an Israeli citizen in the blink of an eye (Brian, I'm using you as an example because I realized that using myself as an example is stupid - I could become a citizen because my mother is Israeli, not just because I'm Jewish), how we're expected to support Israel unconditionally - how must it feel to be an Israeli Muslim and know that observing a religious holiday or wearing hijab will be taken as a statement against the government?

...Oh, and Lieberman's in the coalition.

Other news:

President Obama creates a White House Council on Women and Girls.

"The purpose of this Council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy," said President Obama. "My Administration has already made important progress toward that goal. I am proud that the first bill I signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. But I want to be clear that issues like equal pay, family leave, child care and others are not just women’s issues, they are family issues and economic issues. Our progress in these areas is an important measure of whether we are truly fulfilling the promise of our democracy for all our people."

and

"It's up to us to carry that work forward, to ensure that our daughters and granddaughters have no limits on their dreams, no obstacles to their achievements -- and that they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers never dreamed of."

I love this administration. (Video here - Mr. Obama talks about the women in his family.)

Interesting article here about a campaign in Saudi Arabia to change the policy on lingerie shops. Currently, because women are discouraged from working, these shops are run pretty much exclusively by men; though a 2006 law allows women to run them, it's not really happening because of the influence of rightist Muslim clerics.

Great BBC Magazine article on portrayals of women in the media, and such.

Random First Family cuteness: Malia and Sasha get a swing set.

Some Bad News as Usual

2009-03-20T23:53:00.002-04:00

It's March 20, 2009, the sixth anniversary of the beginning of the current war in Iraq. It's so comforting to know that the guys who planned the war were so well-prepared for possibility that it would last this long:

Some Good News for Once

2009-03-20T23:41:00.007-04:00

These articles speak for themselves:

"The Obama administration on Wednesday formally endorsed a U.N. statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, a measure that former President George W. Bush had refused to sign."

"Vermont legislators are holding hearings this week on a measure that could make the state the third to allow same-sex marriage."

New Jersey likely to end plans to enforce ban on the bikini wax.

Get with the Times, Conservatives

2009-03-19T01:33:00.004-04:00

Wow! It's been over 2 weeks since the last post on this blog. After such a long wait, I'm sure that you readers are expecting a huge blog post, something so monumental that it will immediately be evident why so much time was needed. Well, this is not that kind of post. But the spacing between posts does have a lot of relevance to what I'm going to be discussing. Specifically, I'd like to talk about timeliness and people who are little bit "chronologically-challenged."

Selling the Case for War
This Friday will mark the 6th anniversary of the commencement of the current war in Iraq. We all know by know the many rationales used to justify the war. One of these rationales was the possibility Saddam Hussein might have had some sort of involvement with the 9/11 attacks. Back around the time when the war was just getting started, such an explanation seemed plausible, but now we know better, right? We've all moved on from the "OMG! Saddam Hussein has WMDs that he's going to fire at America" excuse to the explanation that Saddam Hussein was a bad enough dictator that it was somehow necessary for us to get involved and destabilize the country at the expense of our own nation's resources. The new excuse may not make a lot of sense, but at least the "loyal Bushies" were consistent with it once it became apparent that Saddam Hussein did not possess WMDs. The old excuse was dead and gone, with no more lying about Saddam attacking us on 9/11. Well, not so fast. Last Wednesday, in an interview with Chris Matthews, Ari Fleischer, Bush's press secretary at the start of the war, gave his take on the purpose of the war, saying, "After September 11, having been hit once, how could we take a chance that Saddam might not strike again?" (Quote from about 16:10 into this video.) Again? He didn't exactly get involved with the 9/11 attacks like Osama bin Laden (who's still on the loose). You'd think that now that the Bush administration has had enough experience analyzing the war in Iraq that they could figure out what they were fighting against. Then again, perhaps it's fitting that even after they've left office, members of the Bush administration are still impressively incompetent.

8 Years Meaningless, but 2 Months Monumental
As previously mentioned, Dick Cheney has been talking lately about problems he has with the Obama administration, including his belief that terrorism will increase during Obama's term in office. However, with economic issues becoming increasingly problematic, Cheney has turned his attention to complaining about Obama's take on the economy. Of course, the last 8 years were a period of such economic growth. Listen to Cheney's explanation for the economic problems that took place while he was the vice president. He essentially says that the economic situation was not bad because of America was not attacked since 9/11. I can understand saying that foreign policy was unexpectedly expensive. What I don't get is the idea that this somehow means that the Bush administration was somehow succesful at helping the economy. Yes, you can say that the U.S. took actions to effectively deter terrorism (though that's disputable), but that doesn't change the state of the economy. Regardless of the result of the "war on terror", the fact remains that under Bush, the numbers for unemployment, poverty, national debt, Dow Jones index, Nasdaq index, etc. were characteristic of a poor economic environment. And regardless of what Cheney thinks of the past 8 years, it would be foolish to suggest that Obama could possibly end the recession in just the first 2 months he's been in office. Perhaps being honest and simply admitting that the economy didn't do well under Bush would show more accountability than saying "stuff happens."

Pope Leading Followers Forward into the 1920s
When it comes to reproductive decisions, I've never been one to rely on the pope for guidance. Maybe it's because I'm not Catholic or that I don't think a celibate guy thousands of miles away knows what's best for others' sex lives, but I never seem to agree with the pope. Regardless of my views, Pope Benedict XVI recently stated his position on condom use as it applies to HIV prevention in Africa. His explanation sounded reasonable at first. As he explained, condom use alone won't single-handedly end the AIDS epidemic. Rather, people should reduce risky sexual behaviors. Specifically, married couples shouldn't have sex outside of their marriages. Overall, the pope's explanation was a bit too abstinence-only-ish for my liking, but it definitely made some sense. But the pope didn't stop at just supporting abstinence. He blasted condom use, saying, "You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms... On the contrary, it increases the problem." So, according to the pope, condoms aren't woorth using in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We've got a device that can stop HIV from spreading during sex and the pope is suggesting that it not be used in the interest of stopping HIV. I'm fine with the endorsement of abstinence. It's effective when used. But urging people not to use condoms could result in the epidemic spreading to more people, leading to more and more deaths. It's OK to sometimes look to one's religion for guidance (even though the bible never really deals with contraception), but people's lives could be saved with an endorsement of responsible condom use. If the pope is so concerned with the "culture of life", perhaps he should protect his followers rather than bear false witness by misrepresenting condom use.

Lots of tags beginning with "R"

2009-03-02T00:45:00.002-05:00

You may or may not remember that the very day of the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo around the executive branch to put a freeze on the implementation of Bush's midnight regulations. Well, the regulation that angered us feminist bloggers the most was one that would have prevented healthcare providers from "discriminating" against employees who wouldn't do their jobs if said jobs involved women's healthcare. And the administration is officially going to rescind it.

There's a catch: the administration says it will consider replacing the rule with a new rule that will clarify what providers can "reasonably refuse." We can only hope that what providers can reasonably refuse isn't, well, what people need.

More good news on the reproductive rights front: family planning funding is in the 2010 budget after getting cut from the stimulus package.

---

Joe the Idiot is at is again. Except this time he's suggesting that anyone who criticizes the troops should be shot.

"[I'd slap] pretty much anybody that’s stood there and said anything bad about our troops, pretty much anybody who sat there and talked treasonous talk about America...Back in the day, really, when people would talk about our military in a poor way, somebody would shoot ‘em. And there’d be nothing said about that, because they knew it was wrong. You don’t talk about our troops. You support our troops. Especially when our congressmen and senators sit there and say bad things in an ongoing conflict."

Oh, wait, that's not just criticizing the troops...that covers all of us who think that sending those troops into mortal danger was a bad and stupid idea! So really it's anyone who criticizes Republicans that should be shot. (When in our history, exactly, did anyone ever get shot for criticizing the troops anyway?)

For the fifty billionth time: it is not anti-American to criticize the government. America is founded on criticizing the government.

(New tag for this mindset: "republicanism.")

---

Reading Heart of Darkness for class. Yes, classmates, I realize that it was written in a different time. Yes, I realize that Marlow is actually a decent guy relative to most of the other characters and that he condemns imperialism and the oppression of the Africans. This does not make his comparison of the African fireman to a dog on its hind legs wearing clothes and a funny hat any less incredibly racist by our standards. Idiots.

(I feel more uncomfortable reading this than I did Huck Finn, though the content is comparable...I think it's because I know Mark Twain's opinions differ from Huck's opinions, whereas as far as I can tell, Joseph Conrad thinks Marlow is such a great guy because he sees blacks as human. What a great leap of compassion.)

Jindal Proves He's Not the Next Obama

2009-02-28T21:39:00.004-05:00

Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, has been a hit with conservatives. At only 37, he's the youngest governor in the country, not to mention that he is the first minority to govern Louisiana. With these facts in mind, combined with conservatives' hope in this man's political future, it's no surprise that some Republicans refer to him as "the next Barack Obama." However, the similarities between the governor and the president end after the afforementioned facts. For one thing, Jindal is very conservative, opposing gay marriage, stem cell research, and access to abortions. The other difference is that Obama is widely recognized for his ability to deliver powerful speeches. A couple of nights ago, when Jindal delivered a rebuttal to Obama's address, he proved that he's not the speaker that Obama is. (Video of the rebuttal can be found here and a transcript is here.) Let's take a look at the gaffes made by Jindal:

The most obvious problem is Jindal's intonation. Throughout the speech, he sounds as if he doesn't actually feel that strongly about what he's saying. Rather, as a listener, it's hard to forget that there's was a prepared speech for him on the teleprompter. When a better speaker talks, it tends to sound less forced and the speaker's voice changes in tone at various parts. In other words, Jindal should sound happier when he's talking about the greatness of America and sadder when discussing problems in the rescue efforts for Hurrican Katrina.

The second problematic part of the speech is the anecdote Jindal tells about a visit he made to Sheriff Harry Lee, during which Lee was upset to find out over the phone that rescue boats weren't being sent because they had to be checked for insurance and registration. According to Jindal's account, the then congressman reacted by exclaiming, "Sheriff, that's ridiculous," prompting Lee to tell the rescuers to "ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people." Great story. But there's one small problem: It never happened. According to previous accounts Jindal didn't meet with Lee until several days after the boat incident. The two did discuss the problem with sending the boats, but they didn't do anything heroic or urgent. All they did was look at the situation in retrospect. Kind of takes the away the luster of the anecdote, doesn't it?

The next problem is that Jindal made lots of references to Hurricane Katrina. Although I understand that the governor wanted to discuss his moment of greatness, he didn't go about it the correct way. For one thing, it would've been appropriate to mention the event on a couple of occasions. Unfortunately, Jindal seemed to relate nearly every point back to Katrina, preventing the focus from being shifted to other issues. This is clearly not a winning strategy, as previously demonstrated by Giuliani and 9/11. But perhaps the worst aspect of the constant references to Katrina was that it is associated with a slow, ineffective response by the Bush administration. In a time when Americans are focused on ending the recession as quickly and effectively as possible, is that really the best image to give people?

Another problem with the rebuttal is that it criticizes the stimulus plan without hinting at a logical alternative. Jindal says that the government shouldn't be interfering with economic affairs on the grounds that anything the government does is inherently bad. (Evidently, anything that increases the role of the government terrifies the Republicans all of a sudden.) One specific complaint Jindal makes is that the stimulus plan includes pork that should be removed. That seems like a valid point... until he gives false descriptions of the targets of the spending. For one thing, Jindal mentions that $8 billion are set to be spent on a magnetic train from Las Vegas to Disneyland. In reality, the bill includes funding for railroad building, but there's nothing specifying that any particular route, such as one from Disneyland, will be constructed. The other example of pork provided by Jindal is $140 million for volcano monitoring. This spending is accounted for in the stimulus bill, but it's not pork. It's actually designed to monitor Mount St. Helens, an active volcano in Washington. You'd think that a man who mentions Katrina so much would care about natural disasters. In the words of Jon Stewart, "Who cares about lava? That's like a levee overtopping - it'll never happen." Based on what's actually included in the stimulus, I am tempted to say that this isn't pork, but an economics fail by Jindal.

So what is Jindal's economic plan? This is it:

"To solve our current problems, Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and not to just put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you, the American people. Because we believe that Americans can do anything."

This plan has two major flaws:
1. Jindal spends a lot of time criticizing government intervention and all of a sudden he expects the government to take the lead. It's hard to lead by doing nothing.
2. Jindal says he wants to empower the American people, but last time I checked, the people used their consitutionally guaranteed powers to vote for Obama and a Democrat-dominated congress. Empowering the people could best be accomplished by allowing those leaders elected by the people, for the people to take action.

So what else does Jindal have to say about the economy?

"Democratic leaders say their legislation will grow the economy. What it will do is grow the government, increase our taxes down the line, and saddle future generations with debt. Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need? That is precisely what the Democrats in Congress just did. It's irresponsible. And it's no way to strengthen our economy, create jobs, or build a prosperous future for our children."

After saying this, Jindal suggests that government cut taxes, something he says he has done for his state six times. Great plan: reduce the debt by cutting taxes. Nothing increases government revenue like reducing the amount of the money the government can collect. There's no flaw in logic there.

Later Jindal says, "We stand for universal access to affordable health care coverage. What we oppose is universal government-run health care." If the government is going to runing this health care system, who else will there be do it? You couldn't let a corporation do it because they'd have too much power and it would have a monopoly. The only other possible system would be to have lots of smaller companies control the insurance, but that would be closer to our current system than universal health care. In other words, there is no type of system that could possibly exist that meets Jindal's criteria for health care.

Toward the end of his rebuttal, Jindal talked about his politcal party:

"Tonight, on behalf of our leaders in Congress and my fellow Republican governors, I say this: Our party is determined to regain your trust. We will do so by standing up for the principles that we share, the principles you elected us to fight for, the principles that built this into the greatest, most prosperous country on earth."

That's a noble thought, but actions speak louder than words. Republicans had an opportunity to prove themselves and they failed to do so. I know I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to trusting politicians, but you can't screw up for eight years and then expect people to believe you've changed dramatically in five weeks.

And to finish, I'd like to use the phrase that Jindal repeats throughout his speech: "Americans can do anything." Actually, on second thought, I could probably use a shorter phrase that means the exact same thing: "Yes we can."

Quick Hits

-Remember how Rush Limbaugh said he hopes Obama's policies fail? Well, other conservatives, including Tom Delay, and Rick Santorum also hope that the country suffers for the next four years. How patriotic.

-In Ireland, police ticketed Prawo Jazdy 50 different times. Each time the driver was stopped, he was listed under a different address. Needless to say the Irish police were baffled. Recently, the reason for this phenomenon was revealed. As it turns out, the police had stopped 50 different Polish drivers whose licenses read "Prawo Jazdy" at the top. So what does this phrase mean? It's Polish for "driver's license."

Newly added quick hit:
-Michelle Bachmann spoke at CPAC and, as expected, said something that left me speechless. In reference to the government spending money via the economic stimulus, she said, “I just wondered that if our founders thought taxation without representation was bad, what would they think of representation with taxation?” I've just lost a lot of faith in humanity.

Bad news and a little good news

2009-02-20T15:13:00.005-05:00

The bad news first this time:

It's Netanyahu. Tzipi Livni has indicated that she'd prefer to lead the opposition rather than be part of the government, so one can suspect that the coalition (which must be formed within the next six weeks - time for a lot to change, you never know) might include Yisrael Beitenu, Shas, and United Torah Judaism. In other words, oh shit.

The North Dakota House has passed a bill defining a fertilized egg as a person. "Wait," I hear you say, "didn't that get smacked down in November?" Yes it did, my friends - as a referendum in South Dakota. I'll remind you that not only would such a law ban abortion, but it would also ban all forms of birth control that stop the blastocyst from implanting in the uterus and, because people don't know anything about science, most birth control in general. I eagerly await the provisions of the bill that would allow people to claim embryos in IVF as dependents for tax purposes and women specifically to prosecute their children for emotional distress or assault. With any luck the Senate will see it for the rubbish it is and vote it down.

(from comments to the above link) The Montana Senate has also passed a bill that would give voters the chance to amend the state constitution to specify that "the protection of unborn human life is a compelling state interest," voiding the section of the constitution providing for a right to privacy except in cases of a compelling state interest.

And a bit of good news:

Senior Bush administration people may be prosecuted, says Nancy Pelosi.

Ignorance is Strength

2009-02-17T20:15:00.005-05:00

Reading Joe Conason's It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush for class. In particular, the parts about how the war in Iraq was sold to the American people struck a chord with me, because I also just found in the back of a drawer the script for a mock political radio show that my group at day camp wrote five-odd years ago now.

Most of the show focused on the upcoming election (2004) and the ongoing war in Iraq. We were liberal kids in a blue state; we'd figured out by then that the war had been undertaken on false pretenses. In our show, we called it Operation Iraqi Liberation.

How naive we were.

How naive, to think that the worst thing that the administration had to hide was that they were killing people for oil.

I'd read 1984, sometime between that summer five years ago and now. But I don't think I ever consciously made the connection - that the Bush administration took us into this war as an excuse to keep the American populace subservient to the executive and the Republican Party, an excuse to strip people of civil and human rights - until I read Mr. Conason's book.

GW Bush and Dick Cheney were in our show. So were John Kerry and John Edwards and Donald Rumsfeld. Even Ralph Nader. But not Karl Rove.

A Really Sad Fail

2009-02-16T00:46:00.003-05:00

In 2004, Muzzammil Hassan founded Bridges TV, the first English-language, American TV station designed specifically for Muslims. Among the reasons cited for creating this station was a desire to eliminate the stereotype that all Muslims are violent by presenting the perspectives of those with moderate views. As Hassan explained, "...American Muslims are deeply committed to changing perceptions of Muslims around the world."

In 2009, Hassan beheaded his wife in his office outside of Buffalo, NY. Great job dispelling those stereotypes.

200 Years of Unevolved Opinions

2009-02-12T19:58:00.004-05:00

200 years ago today, a man by the name of Charles Darwin was born. Before I talk about Darwin further, I'd like to pose a question to the readers of this blog: "Can you tell me with which scientific theory Charles Darwin is associated?" If you answered evolution, you are correct. If you didn't guess that, then you are among the 45% of Americans that cannot answer this question correctly. Yes you heard me correctly, nearly half of Americans aren't familiar with Darwin's scientific accomplishments, according to a new Gallup poll.

The poll confirmed previously known trends regarding acceptance of evolution. For example, it concluded that frequent church attendance and lower levels of education are correlated with not accepting evolutionary theory. But perhaps the only thing that surprised me (No I'm not surprised that a dismal 39% "believe in evolution") was that 30% of those who incorrectly guessed on the theory associated with Darwin do not believe in evolution. (This doesn't include those who are undecided.) I can understand rejecting an idea after careful analysis and critical thinking, but rejecting a theory accepted throughout the scientific community without even knowing who Darwin was just seems like utter stupidity to me.

Considering that only 55% of Americans know who Darwin was and 39% actually believe in evolution, is it any surprise that America's students are lagging so far behind so many other countries when it comes to students' understanding of science. (Seriously, how are we losing to places like Estonia and Liechtenstein?) Then again, maybe the question we should be asking ourselves is, "Is our children learning?"

It's Livni Netanyahu Livni Netanyahu

2009-02-10T23:10:00.004-05:00

Quick hit: Results of the Israeli election are in. You thought the Coleman-Franken race was weird - in this election, all the votes have been counted and we still don't know who won. (See, Kadima, the center-left party of Tzipi Livni, won the most seats as a single party, but it's up to President Peres to decide who will form the coalition government, and the largest number of seats in the Knesset will be held by right and far-right parties such as Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu. The latter being the party that wants to make all Arab citizens sign a loyalty oath.)

I also find it funny that this blog, which is named for an explicitly Christian feminist text, is now blogged exclusively by Jews and increasingly about Israel. Heh. Whatever.

This Week In WTF

2009-02-09T23:21:00.007-05:00

Here's just a bunch of mini-posts of random stuff going on around the world. Let's start with what happened in the good ol' US of A:

Joe the Narcissist
There has been much speculation about whether or not Joe the Plumber will run for office anytime soon. In response, Joe said, "I don't know if the American public deserves me, but my son definitely deserves my time now." Although I think it's nice that he wants to spend time with his child, that response is incredibly condescending. If America isn't deserving of a schmuck like Joe, then we Americans have much bigger problems to worry about.

Dick Being a Dick
Dick Cheney has asserted that Obama's policies, such as mandating that Guantanamo be shut down, will lead to terrorist attacks being carried out against the US. Meanwhile, he also stated how proud he was that the Bush administration was so great at preventing terrorist activity. Is Cheney even aware that the deadliest terrorist attack in history occured under his watch?

World Shocked After Celebrity Caught Smoking Pot
Michael Phelps was caught using marijuana, leaving me to wonder, "Who cares?"

A-Roid
Alex Rodriguez, one of the greatest active players in baseball, admitted to having used steroids during his 2003 season with the Texas Rangers. Baseball fans are now complaining that A-Rod is a cheater for having used performance-enhancing drugs, conveniently ignoring the fact that the MLB didn't actually place restrictions on steroids until the following season. And with all this outrage, you'd think that the MLB would impose harsher punishments on those that used steroids than they would on those who pitch with pine tar on their hands.

Is That a Pigeon In Your Pants or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
Now onto foreign news: An Australian man returning from a trip was caught smuggling birds, among other things, in his pants. I believe the term "WTF" sums up that story very nicely.

Gazans Being Blockaded... By Hamas
One of the most common complaints I've been hearing regarding Israel's actions in Gaza is that Israel is depriving the Gazans of sufficient supplies. However, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, Hamas has been stealing truckloads of aid intended for helping the Gazans following the recent destruction in the region. So along with torturing members of Fatah, Hamas is doing such a great job of looking out for the Palestinians.

Venezuela's Pogrom Program
While I'm on the topic of Israel and the Gazans, I think it's important to point out the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Specifically, "Criticism of Israel’s actions is not, in and of itself, anti-Semitic." (I had to steal this quote from Rebecca's Justice, Justice article because I couldn't say it any better myself.) However, the anti-Israel sentiment that exists in Venezuela seems to have crossed well over the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism.

So, to all the people who are getting angry over the conflict in Gaza because of anti-Semitism or or Islamophobia, I have one thing I need to ask you: What The Fuck???

Justice, Justice

2009-02-06T21:50:00.002-05:00

My post is up at Feministe: Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue

And here's a quote from a friend of mine, that didn't quite fit into the post there, but that I found interesting:

I was struck after the movie [Milk], by the similarities between the struggle for gay rights and the situation in the middle east. It seems to me that a Jewish state is based on the same premise as having a safe haven for gays in the Castro: it avoids dealing with the worldwide discrimination against some people based on other people's fears, whether in Tblisi or Topeka (cities chosen randomly, purely for purposes of alliteration!). I have always thought Theodore Herzl was wrong -- the promised land is Miami! But all joking aside, striving to make a world where all are safe to be themselves regardless of race, creed, color, gender, orientation or other "difference" would stab at the heart of human misery. Claiming acreage as "ours" only reverses the problem.

The good news and the bad news

2009-01-29T13:57:00.004-05:00

The good news...President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, covered here.

Obama said he was signing the bill this morning not only in honor of Ledbetter, “but in honor of those who came before her. Women like my grandmother who worked in a bank all her life, and even after she hit that glass ceiling, kept getting up and giving her best every day...
“And I sign this bill for my daughters, and all those who will come after us,” Obama added, “because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams and they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers never could have imagined.”

The bad news...after House Republicans and President Obama himself pressured Democrats to remove aid to Medicaid family planning from the $819,000,000,000 (that's 819 billion) economic stimulus package and to stick in tax cuts - surprise! - not a single Republican voted for the bill. Not one. Some compromise. Some bipartisanship. Contact your senators to let them know that you want the family planning aid back in and the tax cuts out when the bill comes up in the Senate. The Republicans have shown themselves clearly unwilling to cooperate; there's no reason to give in to their demands.

Other quick hits:

Iceland's new Prime Minister, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, is the country's first female Prime Minister and the first openly gay head of government in the world. Go Iceland!

A reader poll at Savage Love has defined "saddlebacking," after Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, as "the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex in order to preserve their virginities."

Awesome liberal actor Matt Damon is going to debate conservative columnist Bill Kristol (who wrote his last idiotic column for the NYT the other day) after calling him an idiot. There's money on it.

PETA Loves Whoppers

2009-01-28T02:28:00.004-05:00

No, I'm not talking about Burger King's Whoppers. I'm referring to a total disregard for honesty and integrity. Recently, PETA submitted an advertisement to NBC with the intention of having it air during the Super Bowl, but NBC rejected the ad, citing that it was essentially too sexually explicit. (You can view the ad on PETA's website here or by typing in "Veggie Love" on Youtube. Pleased be advised that the ad is NSFW.) In case you haven't seen the ad, here's what happens: Various women are depicted in lingerie caressing, licking, and oiling up various fruits and vegetables, particularly a pumpkin, celery, broccoli, and asparagus. Throughout the commercial, a message is displayed a couple of words at a time, reading, "Studies Show: Vegetarians Have Better Sex." Toward the end, the woman with the asparagus shakes as if she's orgasming and the phrase "Go Veg" appears.

There are a number of things wrong with this ad. For one thing, it relies too heavily on sex appeal. I know that this complaint seems whiny because there are some people who complain whenever an ad for anything is shown with a seductive woman. However, PETA goes beyond the common lack of etiquette shown by objectifying women. Essentially everything it does, not limited to just this commercial, involves nudity in some form or another. (Go to Google Images and look up "PETA Protest" without the search filter if you don't believe me.) There are times when sex appeal can be an appropriate, or at least understandable, marketing technique, specifically when the product is sex-related or when the ad is designed to emphasize the product's attractiveness. Regardless of the words posted on the screen during the ad, I have hard time believing veganism warrants as much sexual content as was shown in the ad. Yes, the ad mentioned that veganism somehow improves sex, but actually rubbing phallical objects against one's pelvic region seems a bit excessive. I can understand using sex appeal in the occasional ad/protest or in certain situations, but if PETA wants to be taken seriously, it should stop treating its supporters like pieces of meat.

The second thing that bothers me about this ad is PETA's outrage over NBC's refusal to air it during the Super Bowl, a time when millions of people of all ages are watching. PETA has complained about how unfair it is that their commercial was rejected, complaining that the decision was based on bias against veganism, rather than sexual content. The Senior Vice President of PETA said, "PETA's veggie ads are locked out while ads for fried chicken and burgers are allowed, even though these foods make Americans fat, sick, and boring in bed." Does she really think that NBC has a grudge against vegetables and that the ad isn't inappropriate? I assume the answer's no and that this ad was just designed for shock value, but it really says something about PETA that it can't seem to attract followers without resorting to cheap, gimmicky tricks, like oversexualized commercials, blow up dolls outside KFC's, picketing naked, and drenching oneself in fake blood. (All actions mentioned on list come from January 2009 archive of PETA's blog.) Don't get me wrong; PETA has the right to do some of this crazy stuff. However, you do have to question the honesty and integrity of an organization that shies away from mannered dialogue with its critics.

The last problem I have with the ad is that it's message, that "Studies Show: Vegetarians Have Better Sex," is an outright lie. First of all, if you've ever read some of PETA's literature, it is incredibly clear that this organization supports veganism, not vegetarianism. It constantly talks about the alleged dangers of having cow milk and dairy. Second is the idea that vegetarians have better sex, which is unproven. If you reread the ad's message, it's careful to say not that vegetarians have better sex, but that there have been studies that have concluded that. This leads to an obvious questions: Are there two or more known studies confirming PETA's claim? According to PETA's website, eating meat is correlated with impotence. I figured this website would be a good way to find a source on the subject. However, to my surprise, no names of research papers were provided. Rather, two scientists, Neal D. Barnard and Dean Ornish, were mentioned briefly. According to the article on PETA's website concerning impotence, these two men independently of each other found that eating meat is correlated with higher levels of cholesterol. However, there is no indication provided showing that this meat-related cholesterol is related to increased chances of impotence. Therefore, PETA's claim that studies support their view is only partially true based on its website's information.

But what about information not on PETA's website? Is there perhaps a magazine article about this kind of research? I checked and there were a few sources that provided support, but they were all websites that were clearly associated with PETA and/or very pro-vegan/vegetarian. I did, however, find an article describing a study linking vegetarianism with a lower sex drive. (Abstract for study here.) After googling for a few minutes, I realized that it would probably be better to search journal articles about sex and vegetarianism. I found hundreds of articles and after reading their abstracts, something became very clear to me: There are studies showing that vegetarianism is good for sexual activity, but there are just as many that say the exact opposite, and there are also studies that show little difference based on eating meat. (I'm not sure if the studies dealt with sex drive or with impotence, since the articles tended to focus on sex hormone-binding globulin, a protein I am not familiar with.)

So, was the ad's claim dishonest? Yes and no. It's dishonest because there doesn't seem to be any sort of consensus within the scientific community about the impact of eating meat on sex. Furthermore, PETA supports its claims by discussing impotence, which is only a single factor in determining "better sex." There are plenty of factors besides erection quality that make for good sex. At the same time, the ad is honest because there have been studies that have suggested that a vegetarian diet has a positive impact on molecules that impact sexual ability. However, the fact that these studies' conclusions have yet to achieve widespread acceptance makes the ad's statement a half-truth.

God is Pro-Choice

2009-01-26T14:09:00.001-05:00

Lovely quote from commenter Karalora at Pandagon:

[Religious anti-choice nut Peter] LaBarbera’s got it all wrong. God isn’t anti-choice. She told me just the other day that She is adamantly pro-choice, partly because of how hard She had it when She was pregnant with the Universe, and partly because She aborted three Universes before She became pregnant with this one, for various reasons. One had a Planck constant too low to be compatible with the creation of stable matter. Another time, She didn’t have enough energy to produce a Big Bang and didn’t want to have a Universe unless She could provide it with all the space and time it deserved. The third time, She just didn’t want to have a Universe right then. If She had had any of those three Universes, She would never have gotten pregnant with this one--we owe the existence of everything we know to God’s freedom of choice! Thus, to oppose abortion rights is one of the gravest blasphemies, for in so doing, you imply that God’s decisions in when and how She created the Universe were wrong.

Why no, Mr. LaBarbera, I can’t prove any of that. Can you prove yours?

This Week Is Made of Win

2009-01-23T23:02:00.004-05:00

Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passes the Senate. It'll be the first piece of legislation that President Obama will sign.

(I realize that though I mentioned earlier that Ledbetter had passed the House, I hadn't explained. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear, 2007, a case where Lilly Ledbetter sued her employer for paying her less than her male co-workers, SCOTUS ruled that Ms. Ledbetter was not entitled to compensation because she did not sue within the 180-day statute of limitations after the first discriminatory paycheck. Never mind that she didn't know she was being discriminated against, or that subsequent paychecks were obviously also in violation of the law. In any case, the new law says a new statute of limitations will start with every paycheck, which actually makes sense.)

See Brian's post below on President Obama (OK, I just love saying it. President Barack Hussein Obama!) overturning the Global Gag Rule!

Edit - from Daily Kos:

I know that many people feel an incredible rush every time they hear the words "President Obama." That's nice, but it's not the one that does it for me. What gives me the chills is when someone says "the president" and I remember that they mean Obama, not Bush. It's not just that Obama is president, it's that Bush is not. That when the president is called upon to act, it will be Obama acting. And that we take it for granted -- we don't have to specify President Obama, we can say "the president" and everyone will know.

Global Gag Rule Reversed

2009-01-23T17:23:00.004-05:00

During the election campaign, Obama promised change. It's been 3 days and, so far, he has delivered. Two days ago, Guantanamo was set be to shut down. Today, President Obama (it's nice to finally say that) signed a bill undoing the "Global Gag Rule." Officially called the "Mexico City Policy", the Global Gag Rule prohibited the federal government from giving money to international organizations who either perform abortions or provide information relating to abortion. Among the consequences of this policy was that funding for reproductive health-related funding overseas decreased. This not only reduced access to abortion, but also reduced access to contraception, since the organizations that perform abortions tend to also be the ones who provide condoms.

It's nice to finally see someone getting things done. I know that we won't be seeing such impressive progress on a daily basis throughout Obama's entire presidency, but he's definitely off to a great start.

Blog for Choice

2009-01-22T01:21:00.033-05:00

Today is January 22 - the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. It's also Blog for Choice Day. This year's topic is:

What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?

Top pro-choice hope? How about FOCA, so that people aren't prevented from exercising their constitutional right not to have their bodies used as incubators, even if they're poor or under 18 or seriously ill? Scrapping those HHS regulations, so that a woman can have the same right to healthcare as any other citizen? Health coverage reform and comprehensive sex ed, to prevent unwanted pregnancy? It's so hard to choose.

Yeah, I don't really have a post. (Still putting together the one for Feministe and working on about three papers for school. Not to mention: it's not the most interesting theme since this is what we talk about all year, and my inspiration for posts tends to come at unimportant times.) But I thought I should mark the day. Happy birthday, Roe.

News from the Middle East:

As expected, the Israeli court overturned the Knesset's ban of Balad and United Arab List-Ta'al. They will run in the general election on February 10. On the other hand, the head of one of the right-wing parties that filed the motion to ban is quoted in the linked article as saying, "In the next Knesset, we will pass a citizenship law that will prevent the disloyalty of some of Israel's Arabs." I wonder what that law will look like.

On the other other hand, looks like Fatah's getting the sharp end of the stick.

Our New President is awesome: two days and already he's ordered Gitmo closed.

Look, a widget:

Day 2

2009-01-21T17:25:00.009-05:00

It's only really just starting to sink in that W is gone. Dick Cheney is gone. Michael Leavitt is gone.

Barack Obama is the president. Michelle Obama is the First Lady. Malia and Sasha are the First Daughters.

And they're already working to make things better.

In class yesterday, before we went to watch the inauguration, we listened to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream." And forty-six years and a walk down the Mall later, here we are. (Look at this cover for The Nation - brilliant.)

Now I'm really starting to cry.

We will harness the sun.

OBAMAAAAAAAAA

2009-01-20T16:25:00.005-05:00

All right, I took notes on the inaguration so I could make a decent blog post, but I can't really make a decent blog post out of things like "Oath of office FAIL" and "O HAI THERE RAHM EMANUEL." So I shall just repeat here what it says in the box for the 20th on my calendar - not "Inauguration" or "Last day of Bush" or anything but rather

OBAMAAAAAAAAAAAA

My favorite line of the inaugural address:

We will harness the sun!!!

Okay, it goes on from there and wasn't said in quite that way. Full transcript of the inaugural address here.

Oh, also, I've been asked to do a guest post at Feministe about the Gaza conflict. Keep an eye out; I'll link it when/if it goes up.

...President Barack Hussein Obama

Edit edit stop press: Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo to all agencies and departments of the federal government ordering a freeze on pending regulation until further review by the Obama administration. This administration is going to kick ass.

Obama Inaugurated

2009-01-20T12:05:00.003-05:00

Despite a bit of stumbling through the oath of office, Barack Obama is now officially the President of the United States of America. Awesome!!!

Mission Accomplished

2009-01-19T18:12:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire. Hamas responded by promising to stop firing rockets into Israel for the next week, provided that the IDF completely removes itself from the Gaza Strip. Following these events, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh gave a speech in which he announced that the Palestinians had achieved victory over the Israelis. Really, Haniyeh? This is what you call victory? Just a few days ago, Hamas was declaring that the amount of destruction, including over 1,300 deaths if you count militants, was a holocaust. You can't have your cake and eat it too, Hamas. I'll concede that any sort of truce is a victory for all sides, but you can't play the role of the victor the second you are no longer able to look like a victim.

Although the recent ceasefire may seem to suggest that we are ultimately getting closer to a solution of the problems between Israel and the Palestinians, it also appears that Hamas and Fatah aren't even getting along with each other. Apparently, Hamas suspects Fatah of conspiring with Israel against them. According to Hamas' Minister of Justice, Abbas is suspected of "giving a green light to the Zionist occupation to perpetrate the biggest holocaust in history against the Palestinians." (Again, note the word "holocaust" being thrown around.) I would assume, though, that this accusation is the result of either paranoia or an attempt to keep popular support away from Fatah. But how much hope can one have for a two-state solution if the potential Palestine is so politically unstable (not to mention the problems with Israel's political parties)? I guess we'll just have to wait longer for such a compromise to materialize. This conflict has been going on for millenia, so what's a few more decades of chaos and pain?

UPDATE: As it turns out, there have been more than just accusations against Fatah. Apparently Hamas has already taken the initiative of arresting, killing, and torturing supporters of Fatah.
I'll admit that I'm biased against Hamas, but in the past, I could always understand the reasons behind its actions, specifically its disapproval of Israel. However, this makes absolutely no sense to me. If Hamas wants to fight for what it considers to be justice for the Palestinians, it should follow a simple rule of thumb: Don't kill the people you're supposedly fighting for.
Even for Hamas, this is pretty low... and deserving of a faiiiiil tag.

Unrelated WTF of the Day

I stole this link from a couple of other blogs. It describes the controversy surrounding a nurse who has a "habit" of making mistakes involving intrauterine devices that prevent her patients from maintaining their birth control regimens (which conveniently conflict with the nurse's values). It's just one of those things you can't read without getting outraged.

Side Effects May Include Nausea, Sore Throat, and Loss of Constitutional Rights

2009-01-16T16:32:00.005-05:00

According to CNN, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving a 13 year old who was strip searched based on suspicion that she had violated her middle school's zero-tolerance policy on drug possession. According to the school, this teen was suspected after another student was caught with a drug that she claimed to have gotten from her. After hearing this, a vice-principal confronted the alleged drug dealer. The student, of course, denied the accusation, so her backpack was searched for drugs. When the bag was found to be clean, the student was sent to be strip-searched by the vice-principal's assistant and a school nurse (both female). The student stripped down to her underwear and "her bra was pulled out." No drugs were found.

So, what was this drug in question that was of such interest to the school? It was ibuprofen, the drug more commonly known as Advil or Motrin. As it turns out, the school's zero-tolerance policy applies to all drugs, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines.

With the help of the ACLU, the student filed a lawsuit against the school. A federal appeals court explained the situation well when it said, "Common sense informs us that directing a 13-year-old girl to remove her clothes, partially revealing her breasts and pelvic area, for allegedly possessing ibuprofen ... was excessively intrusive."

Safford Middle School has clearly faiiiiiled big time here. Going to these kinds of lengths to deal with something so trivial is just ridiculous. Perhaps it should spend less time worrying about ibuprofen and more time worrying about academics.

City of Ladies

Breaking: DADT Unconstitutional

Kagan Confirmed

BREAKING: Prop H8 Unconstitutional

You are responsible for what you do

The Undermedia

What the ever-loving fuck

Tarring and Feathering

Facts are stubborn things

it liiiives

Refuting the Pro-Life Position is Easy as ABC

A Last-Minute Entry for Fail of the Year

Whaaaat?

A Letter

Lots of Catching Up to Do

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Election 2009; Glenn Beck's Race Baiting

Interesting

Values Voters Minues the Values

Tosca and Torture

How To Save Yourself From Teh Gay

Another Democrat pwns

News Roundup

Ted Kennedy: Retrospective

Breaking: Senator Kennedy Dead At 77

Rep. Barney Frank Smacks Down Town Hall Protestor

Spotlight on Maine

"Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare"

"Country First"

Breaking: Sotomayor Confirmed

*Facepalm*

Breaking: Hate Crime in Tel Aviv

Cults of the Right Wing

Rachel Maddow 1, Pat Buchanan —1,000,000

I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying

NIMBY Parents

Megapost

She's Back Too

She's Back

More Domestic Terrorism

Breaking: New Hampshire Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Public Relations For Dummies

Breaking: Dr. Tiller Murdered

Scouting Sotomayor

Breaking: CA Supreme Ct. Upholds Prop 8, Existing Marriages

Bill Maher: Maverick Fail

He's a Uniter, Not a Divider

Russell Howard vs. NOM

I'm Confused Too

God Damn It!

Breaking: Maine Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Chemistry Fail

Breaking: Specter Switches

The Divided Nations

This Week in Sexuality

NY Governor Introduces Bill to Allow Gay Marriage

The Teabagging Orgy

Protect Marriage in Iowa (for realz)

Conscience Vigilance

Breaking: Vermont Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Faux Feminism?

Breaking: Iowa Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Bigotry Through Tolerance

I have no title

My Big Fat Gay Marriage News Post

News Roundup

Some Bad News as Usual

Some Good News for Once

Get with the Times, Conservatives

Lots of tags beginning with "R"

Jindal Proves He's Not the Next Obama

Bad news and a little good news

Ignorance is Strength

A Really Sad Fail

200 Years of Unevolved Opinions

It's Livni Netanyahu Livni Netanyahu

This Week In WTF

Justice, Justice

The good news and the bad news

PETA Loves Whoppers

Facepalm