Month: July 2006

A reader comments on the accelerating social impact of the reform – on heterosexuals:

What the Herald doesn’t mention is that many Massachusetts companies had domestic partner benefits for both heterosexual and gay couples, and many of those have been terminated on the grounds that everyone can get married. Gay marriage has not only put financial pressure on heterosexual couples to marry, but it has created social pressure as well. "Why aren’t you married?/When are you getting married?/You should get married" became a socially acceptable comment even in the most liberal of circles, and those opinions started getting air time. At my former employer the first year of gay marriage, I felt like we had some sort of wedding shower every other week – the gay couples got married and then all the straight ones started planning weddings too.

And so marriage as an institution is strengthened by this, rather than weakened. As I have said now for almost two decades, anyone who really cares about marriage and the family should back the inclusion of gay couples. It’s the true pro-family position.

Joe Gandelman weighs in:

Just as the Republican party in recent years has shrunk the size of its tent, some Democrats seek to shrink the size of theirs, too. You’d think that in 2006 — a year when it appears that with a semblance of party unity, cohesive message, and careful organization Рthe Democrats could take back one or more houses of Congress, what do we see? Some Democrats declaring Lieberman and his kind as the first priority political enemy. Dilemma: if Lieberman trounces them in the primary, how does he get their votes during the election? And if they beat Lieberman, how will Democrats get the votes of the so-called Reagan Democrats (which in some cases were JFK Democrats)?

Peter Berkowitz has a typically elegant and insightful review-essay up at RealClearPolitics. It’s about the elitist democrats who created the American constitution. Peter grapples with the paradoxes of "gentlemen revolutionaries" and notes one aspect of them in particular:

[Historian Gordon] Wood concedes that there was something unlikely in Washington’s attainment of heroic stature in his own lifetime. He was not a learned man, he was not a military genius, he was not a great orator, and he was not a brilliant statesman. Rather, "he became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation." Washington stunned the world a first time after leading the Continental Army to victory. Even as many of his countrymen would have welcomed a military dictatorship under his command, and to the astonishment of Europeans who could not conceive of a victorious commander doing anything other than seizing political power, Washington resigned his commission and returned to his beloved Mount Vernon. He stunned the world a second time, and for a similar reason: After having twice won election to the office of what many in the United States and Europe were prepared to view as a constitutional monarch, Washington announced that he would not seek a third term as president of the United States. In both of these acts of splendid renunciation, Washington confirmed his own public virtue as well as the principles of popular sovereignty and liberty under law for which his soldiers had fought and bled and died.

This capacity for restraint, for embracing the limits of power rather than its ends, is at the core of constitutional democracy (and, I would argue, conservatism, properly understood). I wish our current leaders grasped it better. Sharing power is often more powerful than trying to size and horde it. Trusting the constitution is often wiser than feeling the need to bypass it.

"It was bad enough when the left argued for the erosion of press freedoms, but it’s incoherent for conservatives to go down this road. Conservatives are supposed to be skeptical about unchecked power for the federal government. It is one of the principles that binds together a coalition of home-schoolers, federalists, gun owners, and tax cutters – the view that while the federal government may be necessary, its power should be checked at every available opportunity.

Yet if conservatives get their way, enormous new powers will be delegated to the federal government. If the executive branch starts prosecuting the recipients of leaks on a wide scale, then Americans would be trusting the people who make national security policy to determine when the rest of us – without clearances – are allowed to know when they make mistakes. Forget for a moment the problems this poses for the First Amendment. What about the values of good government the congressional Republicans who captured the House in 1994 have all but forgotten?" – Eli Lake, New York Sun, as quoted by Robert A. George.

The fight for the soul of conservatism continues.

"Georgeous mulatto bodies," in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s words from an ancient video of a trip to Rio for Carnival. He rhapsodizes about his "favorite body part." Yes, it’s Arnold in his early days. The man knows how to party. (Warning: there are boobies in this video.)

Of course, the voters of Massachusetts should have the right to decide if they want to vote to amend their state constitution following a court decision granting marriage rights to all citizens. The attempt by some gay activists to prevent the legitimate constitutional process from going forward is lamentable and misguided. The legislature should decide, according to the established procedures, whether to place the measure on the ballot. I feel confident that if it were on the ballot, equality would win – especially since, here in Massachusetts, public opinion has swung so quickly and favorably toward equality in marriage in the wake of thousands of gay weddings. This proposal, moreover, is so draconian it will struggle to gain minimal acceptance. It would not only rob gay couples of the right to marry, but of the right to a civil union or a domestic partnership. It actually helps expose the bigotry of those behind it. And yes: denying gay couples any rights at all is, to my mind, an expression of bigotry. Fair-minded people can agree to disagree on support for marriage or civil unions. But denying gay couples any civil protections is on its face hateful. So why so defensive?

"Andrew Sullivan considers himself an opponent of torture. But he’s not. He’s against the war in Iraq, which has ended a great deal of state-sponsored torture, not to mention state-sponsored rape, state-sponsored executions, and all the other inhumanity unleashed by maniacs like Saddam Hussein," – Mark Levin, at National Review.

So now I’m not only not a conservative, I opposed the war against Saddam. In the unhinged world of the Republican far-right, anything is possible.

I’m awaiting the firestorm of blog-fueled criticism against Republican Pete Hoekstra who received classified information from a leaker about one secret anti-terror program kept top-secret by the president. Where are you, Ms Malkin? No outrage at the whistle-blower’s treason, Mr Levin? It’s perfectly clear by now that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney do not regard merely the American press as the enemy of their anti-terrorism efforts; they also regard lap-dog Republican members of the relevant intelligence committees as foes. Today, we find that Hoekstra was informed of programs kept from Congress by an inside informant. He tells the NYT:

"This is actually a case where the whistle-blower process was working appropriately. Some people within the intelligence community brought to my attention some programs that they believed we had not been briefed on. They were right."

What we’re seeing in the multiple leaks both to the press and now to congressmen shut out from oversight of administration policies is a widespread government revolt against its political leaders. It’s not that hard to be a journalist in Washington right now. Just sit there and countless troubled, angered and concerned soldiers, CIA agents, State Department officials will track you down and tell you how out-of-control the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld clique has become. This isn’t just sad; it’s dangerous. The Bush policy of seizing power from Congress and the courts, breaking the law, violating treaty obligations and ignoring the settled procedures for intelligence-gathering and detainee treatment has actually led to more leaks and less secrecy than if they had played by the rules. Once again, the rank arrogance of these people, which is connected in many cases with rank incompetence, has made us less, rather than more, secure. And it has forced many loyal competent concerned government professionals into releasing secrets they would have kept under a more rational and law-abiding executive.

Ideological purism is on the march – against Democrats like Lieberman who favor an aggressive fight against our enemy and against conservatives resisting the new fundamentalist authoritarianism of the GOP. A reader comments on the parallels:

Hardcore leftists – like, for instance, most current leaders of GLBT-rights organizations – apply ideological "purity tests" to their members.  When I was a committed leftist, I failed one of these purity tests (I didn’t think America deserved the 9/11 attacks) and suffered the wrath of my comrades for such heterodox thinking.

The problem with today’s conservatives is that in their desire to present a united front at all costs, they’ve begun to act just like the leftists they claim to despise. I don’t have a solution for this quandary, and I suspect there may not be one. Perhaps the allure of political influence makes true freedom of thought impossible.

But the blogosphere makes it more possible.

Urbana, Illinois, 5.30 pm.