Month: June 2011

Two staggering pieces from Kathryn Jean Lopez and George Weigel. K-Lo quotes a reader:

Are the fears of our founding fathers mere fantasy, or is care for legal protection against the tyranny of the majority an actual real-world concern?  Is the vote of a democratically elected body necessarily not tyranny?  To dismiss the N. Korea analogy as beyond the pale is to deny the rational of the founding fathers, to deny any appeals to right and wrong that extend beyond positive law.  Tyranny is capricious law, based upon the will of one, few, or many in a way that gravely contradicts the common good and the traditional laws for securing that good.

But laws which kept 3 percent of the population from having basic civil rights because 97 percent found them icky … there was never any question of a tyranny of a majority then. And look: this was not even a court decision; it was a legislative decision after years of debate and back-and-forth. That is like North Korea? And, yes, I realize she was quoting the Archbishop of New York. But he too has lost his marbles if that is his analogy. As Mike Potemra Kevin D. Williamson rightly puts it:

A church with more confidence in its own doctrine would not need to lean upon the law.

Imagine a church that reacted by saying that it disagreed, but that Christianity was the real counter-cultural force and it would rededicate itself to encouraging, nurturing and helping opposite sex married couples in its own pews as role models for the rest. Since gay marriage is obviously a sham, it will surely die out and we are confident enough in our own doctrines to be indifferent to, if saddened by, it. Instead, the Church hierarchcy actually called a conscientious decision by elected law-makers in both chambers and by the governor, after years of debate, an act analogous to the vilest, cruelest human rights abusers in the world. Now from another planet in the same distant galaxy, George Weigel:

The gay-marriage movement is thus not the heir of the civil-rights movement; it is the heir of Bull Connor and others who tried to impose their false idea of moral reality on others by coercive state power.

A humane society will find ample room in the law for accommodating a variety of human relationships in matters of custodial care, hospital visiting rights, and inheritance. But there is nothing humane about the long march toward the dictatorship of relativism, nor will there be anything humane about the destination of that march, should it be reached. The viciousness visited upon Archbishop Dolan and other defenders of marriage rightly understood during the weeks before the vote in Albany is yet another testimony to the totalitarian impulse that lurks beneath the gay marriage movement.

Yes, I am Bull Connor, unleashing violence against a people long held down by slavery and segregation: my own family, and every heterosexual married couple I know. The equation comes from a mindset so circular, so rigidly set, so incapable of political discourse on this subject it doesn't even come as a surprise.

I have a confession. The night after it passed, I slept for twelve hours; the following night for fourteen. Last night, a mere ten. And I still feel tired this morning. I guess my unconscious has decided that this fight has passed a critical landmark and I can relax now. Mercifully, others weren't in a victory coma. Matt Yglesias:

It’s inspiring to see these victories for justice and equality, but I also do think it’s worth pausing to acknowledge that the specific form the victory has taken is an interesting affirmation of the conservative streak running through American life. LGBT rights advocates and their allies really haven’t wanted to tear down traditional family structures, they’ve patiently, insistently, and effectively demanded access to them.

And that is why it is so doubly tragic that so many alleged conservatives have fought this. It was and is such a conservative movement for stronger families and a less balkanized nation. Margaret Talbot:

[T]he vote and the lead-up to it showed us something … we ought to see often, but don’t: the spectacle of politicians changing their minds. That, in fact, has been one of the singular benefits of the same-sex marriage debate overall. On most issues, partisanship and the fear of being labelled a waffler effectively discourage politicians from publicly wrestling with conscience and contradiction. But same-sex marriage has been different. Public opinion on this issue has shifted fast in the direction of approval and party affiliation has turned out to matter somewhat less than other factors: generation, whether somebody has gay friends or relatives, gut feelings. President Obama can say that his views on whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry are “evolving”—and in this context, as in few others, “evolving” doesn’t by itself carry a political cost.

Alex Pareene:

If anything, this victory makes action in Washington even more urgent. Some massive number of gay and lesbian couples will now have their relationships recognized by one state, but DOMA is still allowing other states to ignore them. State recognition of same-sex marriages is wonderful, but without federal recognition, many of the rights and privileges afforded heterosexual couples are still denied to gays. Even New York's new law figures to be tied up in the courts for years, with various parties suing over its language and religious exemptions.

I do not believe that other states should be forced to recognize the legal validity of these marriages and do not believe that DOMA made that possible. It was not possible before DOMA. The full faith and credit clause does not apply to civil marriages or any other civil licenses, like a law license. Different states can have different rules. But why the federal government should insist on recognizing some but not all marriages legal in a given state remains an anti-federalist outrage. Ta-Nehisi Coates:

People who seek to ostracize gays, must always countenance the potential for disappearing their very  family members. It's not like red-lining black people into ghettos. Homophobes must always face the prospect of condemning their own flesh and blood.

Surely there are those, who, with depressing regularity,  rise to the occasion. But democracy in America is fundamentally optimistic in that holds that a critical mass of the electorate is persuadable. I've long been skeptical of this implicit assumption. But as I've aged, I have come to see it as quite brilliant. In the present case, I don't know of a more powerful tool of democratic persuasion than the prospect of losing family.

Doctor Science:

I can't find the link to a conservative Catholic blog I came across during our last marriage go-round where the guy was arguing that marriage equality was bad because equality makes people be unnaturally uniform and boring, but I think he couldn't have been more wrong. Equality is the life-partner of Diversity, not sameness.

Amy Davidson:

Minutes after the New York State Senate passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, local television reporters for NY1 went out looking for love. “How long have you two been together?” NY1 reporters asked couples in Greenwich Village and Jackson Heights. … Two men had been together eight years; one had grown up on the Lower East Side, the other in Venezuela, and there had been immigration issues marriage would have helped with. Both of them were smiling, and the legal questions that had cost them years of worry and thousands of dollars seemed like the least of it, as crucial as they had been and remain; this was about love. “Wedding rings, wedding rings!” one of the men said.

Juliet Lapidos criticizes Senator Ruben Diaz, the sole Democrat who voted against the law:

I find it rather shocking that a family-values type would attack U.S. law so brazenly by advocating the Bible’s take on marriage, which after all includes polygamy. Lamech had two wives and so did Jacob, Esau had three, David had lots more, Solomon had hundreds. Or was Diaz thinking of that charming bit from Deuteronomy, which specifies that if a man rapes a virgin not yet spoken for, and he’s discovered, he must marry his victim and pay her father fifty silver shekels?

(Image via The Daily What, which asks of the morning-after front pages, "Can you spot the subtle differences?")

News from the future.

"Do not be so quick to dismiss the North Korea comparison, Mike. We are witnessing tyranny today that is fostered by a false sense of freedom, a tyranny that faux tolerance ferments," – Kathryn Jean Lopez, on the passage of a marriage bill through the New York Assembly, GOP-controlled Senate, and governor's office.

Even her colleagues are aghast – and put through the woodshed.

A reader nails our sentiments on the subject:

Can you explain to meet what the goal of this new campaign is?  Smoking rates in the US are about 20% right now, down from my parents generation where the rate was about 40%. So are we trying to eliminate smoking altogether? I honestly don't get it. My parents' generation at least had a real grievance against the tobacco industry for covering up the long-term health implications of smoking. I get that, and I say all the taxes, truth in labeling and money they pour into educating people not to smoke is an indication that that particular pound of flesh has been extracted.

But my generation? C'mon.

We've been told everything about it and have absorbed as much as we care to hear. At this point, cigarettes are more stigmatized than they've ever been in history. We treat cigarettes with more hostility than we treat marijuana, alcohol and obesity (ironically, all of which show increasing rates of occurrence over time).

Now, do I think that cigarette smoking is good? Not at all. But I do think it can be enjoyed by a responsible adult just like a joint, a beer and a good pizza from time to time.

So I ask again, what's the goal? Do we want 15%? 10%? 0%? Is this just a passive-aggressive way to make cigarettes illegal? Because we've already pulled all the levers on economics, education and the social and physical environment in which you are able smoke. Could it be that the remaining 20% enjoy smoking – that they don't do it "because they think it is cool" – and that perhaps a coffee and cigarette after a hard day, or a fatty meal, is the most zen-like experience that most of us have the potential to reach during a day?

A hidden-camera show duped David Masello into helping a girl in a wheelchair across the street:

[The show creators] don't know New York and its people. They don't know that the phenomenon of New Yorkers readily coming to the rescue of others is a common occurrence. Lacking the powers of imagination or insight, they have embraced the wearingly stereotypical notion of the city as an indifferent, selfish place, absent of feeling and empathy. To them, an act of kindness — a stranger helping another stranger in need — is so ludicrous as to make for a joke. As a genre, reality TV runs on cruelty, strife, coarseness, humiliation — but in fact, what they were documenting was a simple act of kindness.

Jonah Lehrer bursts our dieting bubble:

Let’s imagine, for instance, that some genius invented a reduced calorie bacon product that tasted exactly like bacon, except it had 50 percent fewer calories. It would obviously be a great day for civilization. But this research suggests that such a pseudo-bacon product, even though it tasted identical to real bacon, would actually give us much less pleasure. Why? Because it made us less fat. Because energy is inherently delicious. Because we are programmed to enjoy calories.

It actually works:

[S]aying sorry got you nothing if you were driving only 10 m.p.h. over the limit, but at 25 m.p.h. the fine dropped greatly. (By contrast, those who brought out excuses when caught for going just 10 m.p.h. over actually saw their fine increase by about $27.) Still, in the end, Canadian speeders who offered an apology had a 64 percent likelihood of receiving a fine (as opposed to a warning) at 18 m.p.h. over the limit, while 88 percent who showed no remorse got a ticket.

Insert stereotypical “Canadian police officers are probably nicer” comment if you must, but when [psychologists Martin Day and Michael Ross] studied American drivers they discovered the charm of apology held true.

A new study ponders the political fortunes of tough females (pdf):

The conventional wisdom is that female politicians are greatly constrained by a toughness-related double bind: if a woman fails to demonstrate toughness, she confirms a stereotype that women are not strong enough to lead; yet if she demonstrates toughness, she will be disliked for violating gendered expectations. … Contrary to the conventional wisdom, female politicians do not suffer a disproportionate penalty for acting in a tough manner; in fact, this analysis shows that tough women benefit on several key measures relative to tough men.

That study tested toughness as reported in print only. Joshua Tucker looks toward radio and TV:

It would be interesting to see if this finding holds up when transferred to audio-visual media, which is likely to be the primary way in which most voters become acquainted with Ms. Bachmann. One could imagine that these kind of gender stereotypes in terms of behavioral expectations would be more easily offended by visual cues than by print media.

Our cereal consumption peaked in 1994 at 14.8 pounds per person annually; it’s now around 10 pounds a person. Greg Beato looks at the insane sugar levels:

Consumer Reports found that 11 popular brands are more than 40 percent sugar by weight, and even brands that at first glance may seem relatively healthy include some surprises in the fine print of their nutrition labels. For example, one cup of Cascadian Farms Organic Oats and Honey Granola contains 348 calories and the same amount of sugar (19 grams) as a standard-sized Hershey bar; once you add a half cup of 2 percent reduced fat milk, it has roughly the same amount of fat (11.5 grams) as a McDonald’s Cheeseburger.