Month: November 2006

If you need to get spiritual for an extra keg, why not?

"Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest ideals, hold dear. It degrades everyone involved ‚Äî policy makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation’s most cherished values. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable. Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed?

Let America abolish torture now — without exceptions," Рan editorial in Theology Today.

It will indeed be a test of the Democrats. They have a chance to revisit the military detainee bill, and amend it to show the world that there can no longer be any doubt that the U.S. does not torture anyone anywhere; and to declare that torture means what is has always meant, legally and morally: "the infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering" to get information. If the religious right wants to rehabilitate its tattered reputation, this would be a good place to start.

K-Lo gets all aflutter. It would make the choice easy, though, wouldn’t it?

They could do with some good Kazakh jokes right now:

I’m constantly asked about it, for some reason. Here’s an exchange in the new MW interview that may help clarify things:

MW: Given the case that you make in the book about the Republican party being taken over by fundamentalists who are so hostile to gays and lesbians, is there a point where it becomes ethically or morally wrong to be gay and Republican?

SULLIVAN: Having never been institutionally in the Republican Party, I never had to face that dilemma, but I’ve seen people who have. I was very proud of Log Cabin for not endorsing Bush in 2004. I think Patrick [Guerriero] did a spectacular job under insanely difficult circumstances.

I don’t know how gay Republicans can exist today unless they are actively out and actively fighting the forces within their party that are aligned against us. There is no space for, ‘I’m just going along to get along.’ No. We’re at war with these people, and they’ve made that very clear. The Mary Cheney option is contemptible at this point. Either you fight back from within – and I mean fight back from within, which is an honorable position to take – or you leave and fight from outside for the principles you believe in. But the coward option, I think, has to be called by its name. It is that. You’re enabling these people. At some point it’s sick. It becomes masochistic.

I’m never going to force that decision on anybody else, because I’m not judging anybody. But I’ve seen a lot of gay people in the Republican Party – just go to the Duplex Diner on Thursday night, it’s not like it’s a mystery. I know the strain that this has put on a lot of them and I know good people torn up about this. I just call them to stand up for themselves. That’s all I’m doing. We can sit here and we can judge and we can condemn, but as gay people we’ve been judged and condemned. Maybe we should be a little forgiving of one another, but at the same time, urging people to come forward and fight. It’s not easy. It’s never been easy. Our lifetime as gay men has been bewildering, to be honest.

But we dealt with it through this terrible plague as well, this hideous illness that struck so many people down. And the current younger generation I don’t think even understands what we went through, what we witnessed. For me that’s the fuel. The ashes of all the people I loved who are dead keep me going. I promised one of my best friends that I would not give up. And that’s still very much a part of my identity. I am a child of the plague and I will never, never forget that. For some of us, that changed us forever. It gave us a sort of intensity and drive that the younger generation cannot know because they are lucky enough to have escaped it.

(Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP.)

"It seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every administrator finds the chief reward of his labour and efforts.  Whle the sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, holding on with a boat-hook to the ship of the people and himself moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding on to.  But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible.  The ship moves independently with its own enormous motion, the boat-hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the adminstrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, feeble man," – Leo Tolstoy, "War and Peace."

(Photo: Haraz Ghanbari/AP.)

We have news of the first attempted prosecution of the defense secretary for authorizing torture. You could see this coming. At least, I did, and Bush did. The case is coherent, as I pointed out last July. Rumsfeld had better not travel abroad for a very long while; or he could be arrested.  Same goes for Gonzales and the other war criminals in this administration.

Another reader dissent:

While I understand your point about the desirability of a popular vote to finally reject efforts to overturn gay marriage rights, I disagree that the legislature has somehow acted improperly or that its action somehow taints the result.  The state’s constitution spells out clearly how to amend the constitution: approval of the amendment on the ballot for two sessions by the legislature followed by a popular vote.  There is a clearly defined role for both the legislature and the populace and an obligation by both to use their independent judgment in weighing changes to the constitution.  Yesterday the state legislators, constituting a duly elected body representing the people of Massachusetts, decided by a majority vote that, in their judgment, the proposed constitutional amendment was not one they could support.  The only way to see this result, in my opinion, is as legislative ratification of the state constitutional right of gays to marry.

As with any other bill or constitutional amendment, the proponents of the gay marriage ban are free to campaign to "throw the bums out" the next time they are up for election and try again with a new set of legislators.  That this effort is doomed to failure by the fact that only the opponents of gay marriage rights, not the supporters of such rights, seem to lose popular elections these days, while an enjoyable fact, is of no account in this analysis.

What was Elton thinking?

The rumors are flying.