Month: November 2008

A reader writes:

I am a Boy Scout leader.  It is probably true that officlal scout policy, including pursuance of unwise legal chimeras, is in part due to pressure from the Mormon Church.  However, there is a huge difference between official public Scout policy and Scouting as it actually plays out with boys in their own communities.  Everything, good and bad, that is in society can be found in scout troops, and nothing can change that.  But over the years, as a trained leader, I have never, in any troop, ever, not once, seen official scout policy against gays even mentioned by the organization in any training, much less enforced.

When boys have asked me, I just tell them that the Scout Law includes the points "Friendly, Courteous, Kind" and that that means to everyone.  When they asked me about the Supreme Court decision letting the Scouts do as they pleased, including discriminate, I said fine.  That decision says we can not be forced to do the right thing by the US Constitution, and it is the Constitution which it is the Court’s job to explain.    But our guide is the  Scout Law, and it is our individual responsibility, not the Court’s, to figure out what that means. 

I know for a fact that there are many scout troops that operate in just the way I am now describing.  I know, too, that there are others that would make you and me shudder. It is completely unfair to describe the Boy Scouts as a right wing or fanatical or even religious organization.  It is a loose grouping of thousands of small outfits that run the gamut.  I know that in my community, it is a positive influence on boys.

More than 100 military leaders call for the repeal of DADT. The public overwhelmingly agrees. But the Clinton legacy makes it impossible for Obama to act on it swiftly. So do what Clinton didn’t: set up a commission immediately to study the question. Give it time. And then end this awful thing once and for all.

DCist quotes David Catania. Dale Carpenter is skeptical.

A reader writes:

The suit against prop 8 centers around whether the action prop 8 takes can be considered an "amendment" as defined by California – and thus subject to the minimal threshold requirements that such amendments have – or whether the type of action that prop 8 proposes cannot be taken without "revising" the constitution, and thus passing the much more significant barriers that process entails. Again, this isn’t just about gay marriage, it’s about preserving the integrity of the state constitution and distinguishing it from just another piece of legislation. You can’t have fair play without a coherent set of ground rules.

Another reader is much more blunt:

The critical point that is put forward in every brief seeking Prop 8‘s invalidation is that Prop 8 stands for more than gay marriage: it stands for the premise that any minority group can suddenly be targeted by the majority for discrimination.  It essentially eviscerates the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution.  This because a) the Supreme Court has held (in  Perez, some 20 years before Loving) that marriage is a fundamental right and b) in the Marriage Cases, that homosexuals are a suspect class.  Unless Prop 8 somehow by implication reversed either of those, Prop 8 means that any time we wanted to be mean to some minority group, we could.

So, just to help you think about this a little more clearly: Prop 8 stands for the idea that we could put on the ballot tomorrow the question of whether Catholics could marry.  We could also put on the ballot the question of whether someone with HIV could vote or own property.  We could put on the ballot the question of whether mexican catholics can be discriminated against in housing or employment.   

You just don’t get, do you, up in your ivory tower, that the courts are the ultimate backstop for human rights.  Remind me, did desegregation come because of a referendum?  No, that was Brown v. Board.  Oh, and wait.  How about interracial marriage?  Nope, that was Perez in California and Loving v. Virginia federally.  And I will wager a year’s salary that in both cases, had the question been put to a vote, it would have come out completely differently.  And if it were put to voters today, I have no confidence that they would vote to sustain them.

That’s the point of the Equal Protection Clause.  (Aside–do you then also disagree with Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas?)  The rights of minorities aren’t subject to extinction by the majority’s fiat. 

Joyner doesn’t approve of Beau Biden taking Joe Biden’s seat, an idea that was floated by Beltway types:

Appointing family members to succeed politicians who suddenly die in office is a longstanding tradition, as is capitalizing on the family name to get a leg up in running for office.  The latter is at least a byproduct of popular will; the former is beyond unseemly.

This ugly act of nepotism has now been scotched mercifully. What does it say about both Bidens that they even considered it? Ugh.

A reader writes:

Go get ’em. Hubby and I used to be HRC Federal Club members, attended the dinners, schmoozed with the A-list fabulosities, and generally hated the whole scene but thought we were obliged for the sake of the community. Woke up finally thanks to MassEquality and KnowThyNeighbor, realized how giddily, well, stupid and pretentious the HRC people are (the leaders, not the grunts), and transferred our funding and efforts accordingly.

Another writes:

For me the day the music died with respect to contributing to HRC came in the early 2000s.  And it wasn’t just HRC.

It was all the organizations that I contributed to.  It started to feel like I was constantly being asked to pay for my civil rights. And I think that is at the heart of why the approach has not been successful. Non gay people viewed the movement as one that paid for high price layers to win court cases, and paid for lobbyists to petition legislators to legalize marriage. Thus, when the courts and the legislators (like in CA) made decisions to support gay civil marriage–people felt that they were bought.

Saturday’s protest in DC was what I had waited forever for.

People peacefully in the streets–not in court rooms or state house halls.   The young organizers realized that trying to buy our rights by donating to a group like HRC wasn’t working. They knew that those of us who are in our 40s and their parents age have been doing that since they were born.

Walking with them in the rain, following their chants, in a protest bigger than I saw for Matthew Shepard or any AIDs event in DC was wonderful.   But what was great, was walking along 17th Street, where the people in cars honked in support, rolled down their windows and waved or cheered.  Those bystanders viewed it as a civil rights march–because that is what it was.   Because they saw all the gay & lesbians marching.  But they also saw many str8s walking with them.  It isn’t a gay only issue now–a gay financed struggled anymore.   It’s truly civil rights.

Juicy but not acrimonious. Man, Obama is a decent guy. Really: beyond my capacities. Isn’t it great to have a president we’ll be able to look up to, in terms of character?

For abuse of prisoners. And some don’t believe God exists.

"I’m ambivalent. It’s been fun. It’s a lot of work. I have a lot of things going on," – Bill Kristol, discussing whether his NYT column should be re-upped.

A lot of work?