Andrew Sullivan

The Down’s Spectrum, Ctd

Yes, there is a spectrum. My 16-year-old son, James, has Down’s. We knew that before he was born. We also knew that there was a problem with his esophagus. As it turned out, he was born with no esophagus at all. After several months in the NICU, he was operated on and the surgeons created an esophagus. We have to be very careful about what he eats. Happily, he is devoted to yogurt and hot cereals, which do not get stuck.

He is also very developmentally delayed and has some autistic tendencies. He has a few words but knows how to communicate his needs. He is very social and his receptive language is very good. He is the happiest person I know.

He has two older siblings, now 20 and 23. My wife and I recently talked to them about the decision that we made, including for them, when we decided to have James. They acknowledged that at some point they will be his care givers, at least to some extent. But, when we started to essentially apologize to them, they looked at us like we were crazy. “What are you talking about? He’s our brother.”

It has been hard, but none of us regret the decision we made. The commenters who are looking in at families like ours from the outside should think twice, because they have not experienced firsthand the joys that come with the difficulties.

Another mother of a disabled son shares her story:

Parental care of a medically and developmentally disabled child is sufficiently stressful that it has been found to inflict damage on the parents’ own DNA. This leaves the main caregiver (usually the mother) vulnerable to lethal diseases, shortening her genetically determined lifespan by an average of 13 years.

I am the mother of one such child, now in his thirties, whom my husband and I care for at home. Our son functions at a two-year-old level. He requires frequent surgery (over 20 major operations since his premature birth). He has been diagnosed with autism, cerebral palsy, severe vision loss, hydrocephalus, and retardation. He has had to endure horrible pain throughout his life. Most recently, he has become oxygen dependent again, much as he was following his preterm birth.

I am in my mid-sixties and nearing the end of my “three-year life expectancy” following a cancer diagnosis. Both literally and figuratively, we are asking parents to sacrifice their lives when abortion is banned in afflicted pregnancies or when sick, disabled newborns are medically “rescued” and handed over to their family for life-long care.

Another reader:

My brother, born in 1966, had Down Syndrome and was profoundly disabled, so he was in that 3% to 12% of children with Down’s who are unable to be without assistance. When he was born, his stomach was not attached to his intestines, and his heart had a “hole” in it. My parents were counseled to leave him at the hospital after his birth. They did not, and they chose surgery for his stomach, but not for his heart. When he died at age 17 months, he had never even lifted his head himself. He had not spoken, or crawled. He did not recognize his name, or respond much to others.

I’ve often wondered how I would be different if he had lived; I was raised as an only child. I do know, though, that were he still alive, and as disabled, I would be responsible for his care, as my parents are both deceased. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to care for him at home, and I truly wonder what kind of life he would have had.

After my brother died, my parents didn’t talk much about him – it was too painful, I assume – but my dad did tell me once that a friend of his was so moved that he, the friend, donated a substantial sum to research that led to amniocentesis. So maybe, because of my brother’s life, other parents can have vital information about their own children. Had abortion been an option, I have no idea what my parents would have done, but when I was pregnant, my father was adamant that I be tested. And my perfectly healthy son is named for my brother.

“I’m a black man. I’m happy to be black, and anybody that is not happy to be black will point around and ask for that kind of sympathy. But the thing is, let’s not ask nobody for no more sympathy. Let’s get together ourselves and support ourselves.

It doesn’t make sense to me. That kind of divisiveness is not necessary at a time when we’re supposed to be unifying. That’s what happiness is all about, and if you look at my “Happy” video, I had everybody in there: fat, skinny, gay, straight, purple, polka-dot, plaid, gingham print, houndstooth, alien. I fuckin’ had dogs in there! I had children in there! I had kids in there! I’m the most indiscriminate person that there is! I believe in equality.

So which is it? Is President Obama black or not? Since you’re so mad: Is he black or not? Come on, man! We ain’t got time for that. We are black people. This is the new black. Oprah Winfrey: That’s the new black. She’s a black billionaire. President Obama: He is a black American president. Regardless of what you think about him, this is his second term. That’s the new black. LeBron James: the first black man ever shot on a Vogue cover, a black man. Me: a guy that’s written a song at 40! Nominated for an Oscar, four Grammy awards—at 40! That’s the new black! And by the way: a song that has transcended my lyrics, my own intention, and has become a movement and helped cancer patients. That’s the new black! Black ain’t a color: Black is a spirit, and it is ubiquitous. In fact, there’s more black out in space than there is stars. We have nothing to be insecure about,” – Pharrell Williams, GQ.

I found it a helpful complement to this.

(Photo: Pharrell performs live at The Riverstage on March 12, 2014 in Brisbane, Australia. By Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images.)

What Can We Do For Uganda’s Gays? Ctd

On Sunday, the Obama administration finally followed the lead of European countries and NGOs by cutting aid to Uganda. In addition to withholding funds from Uganda’s Inter-Religious Council, which helps combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the US will suspend programs that might endanger gays and lesbians:

[B]ecause the law makes “promoting homosexuality” illegal, a U.S. funded study to help identify populations at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS has been suspended. The study, which was going to be conducted by a Ugandan university and the Center for Disease Control, has been suspended out of fear that both staff and survey respondents could be put in danger. [And] because any LGBT person or LGBT ally who now enters Uganda is at risk, money intended for tourism programs will be redirected. And finally, the Department of Defense had several events scheduled in the country later this spring and those will be moved to other locations.

Some worry that Obama’s escalating efforts this week to help Uganda hunt down the elusive warlord Joseph Kony sends a “mixed message” (NYT):

“Who wouldn’t want to get rid of this brutal rebel group?” said Sarah Margon, acting Washington director of Human Rights Watch, in a reference to the Lord’s Resistance Army, the guerrilla group led by Mr. Kony that has terrorized civilians in Uganda, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “But they’re not a direct threat to [Ugandan president Yoweri] Museveni right now, and what he gains by this is continued American support to his military, and legitimacy, just when he signed this [anti-gay] law.”

In a recent interview with Towleroad, Ugandan activist Richard Lusimbo discussed how tricky it’s been to cut aid to Uganda:

“If aid is just cut in general terms, the local person is going to suffer. This includes LGBTI people. It will promote the isolation of the LGBTI community and we will continue to be marginalized. People like David Bahati that have been promoting homophobia are going to go on the radio and say, ‘Look, people are dying because of the homosexuals. We can’t have medicine in hospitals because of homosexuals. We can’t have good water because of homosexuals.’ These are government responsibilities but because our economy hasn’t reached a point where President Museveni can support this, we are still depending on foreign aid.”

Lusimbo added: “We need to look at sectors where the government will feel a direct pinch. If that funding that the US gives to the army, if that were stopped, then that would have a direct effect. Donor countries should rethink and go back to the drawing table and look at how they could actually fund.

The concern is if aid is cut due to the anti-homosexuality bill, the pinch could have a trickle down effect on Ugandan taxpayers, Lusimbo said. “We have seen billions disappear in scandals. The money sent through the prime ministers office to support the development of Northern Uganda, didn’t go to any work, it was just swindled away. Ugandan taxpayers money was used to pay it back.”

Previous Dish on how to help Uganda’s gays here and here.

A Poem For Tuesday

“Tuesday” by Jim Moore:

Some days, I am capable

only of caring about my new chestnut-colored shoes
with the red laces, which in Italy
seem demure, but in Minnesota
will give off the faint whiff
of a clown gone overboard, drowning
in his own ridiculous sea.

Previous poems from Moore here and here.

So Why Do Employers Make Our Insurance Choices Again?

As Hobby Lobby arguments continue, Margaux J. Hall takes issue with the status quo:

[F]or decades we have allowed our employers virtually unfettered freedom to make all health coverage decisions – not just those related to contraceptivess – on behalf of employees and, in many instances, their family members. Why? Isn’t it time to rethink how we got to this place and whether we should do something about it?

Americans often fail to notice that a striking imbalance exists in health insurance purchasing: Although health insurance belongs to the employee, the employer gets to decide what that insurance will cover and under what terms. While contraceptives are the current lightning rod for controversy between employers and employees, tensions have emerged over the years around a whole range of health services, including treatments for autism spectrum disorder, in vitro fertilization, and bariatric surgery.

Why does health insurance actually belong to the employee? Because the employee pays for it – directly and indirectly. Though both employees and employers generally co-finance insurance premiums (in 2012, employees reportedly paid an average of 18 percent of individual plan premium costs, and 39 percent of family plan premium costs), employees functionally fund 100 percent of premium payments.

Russia Loses Its Seat At The Table

Russian wire agency runs with the following headline: "Member of the G7 ended their membership in the G8." via @KSHN https://t.co/tR9zS1pNJ4

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) March 24, 2014

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/448423006843703296

Ioffe calls the G8’s transformation into the G7 “a clarifying moment”:

Russia insists that it is a European country, and insists on maintaining its membership in various Western clubs and treaties, but when it is accused of violating post-War European norms—guess which government faces the most suits in the European Court of Human Rights?—howls about Russia’s uniqueness and European chauvinism and double standards.

It’s been tough balancing act to maintain, one that Russians call “sitting with one ass in two chairs.” Today, the West and Japan provided a clarifying moment by pulling one chair away, ending the agony. And it’s about time. Russia, in insisting on its mystical duality, has been, increasingly, a thorn in the organization’s side—as well as its own.

Larison expects the move to accomplish little:

Since Putin now seems interested in appealing to a more nationalist audience at home, I doubt very much that keeping it out of G-8 meetings will “sting” at all. After all, being “banished” from the company of Western governments is what many of Putin’s supporters at home desire. … The other members of the G-8 are obviously free to exclude Russia from their meetings, but it is silly to think that this punishes Russia in any meaningful way. The more that Western governments try to ostracize Russian leaders, the easier it will be for them to ignore Western complaints and demands, which defeats the purpose of the ostracism.

Allahpundit suspects that Russia wouldn’t have to do much to get back in the club:

Given the EU’s palpable reluctance to alienate Russia’s energy sector — the price of natural gas just went up in Kiev, don’tcha know — and the continent’s wider terror at a new round of Russian military adventurism, how little would Putin have to do for the G-7 to pronounce him rehabilitated and to re-admit Russia to the group? They’re desperate to keep things on a “diplomatic track”; if Putin turned around tomorrow and said he’d pull Russian troops off the Ukrainian border and return to that track in exchange for western recognition of Crimea as Russian territory, would the G-7 go for that? If instead Putin made a move on eastern Ukraine and then, having occupied it, renounced further claims on the country, would that be enough to turn the G-7 back into a G-8? My sense is that there’s virtually no limit to the slack the west will cut him in return for putting his guns down, so long as he doesn’t make a move on a NATO country.

It’s OK To Bareback … On The Toilet, Ctd

Readers keep the very important thread going:

I wanted to share a useful tip for using paper toilet-seat covers (or “ass gaskets”, as they’re commonly known). If you deploy it the “normal” way, so that the flap hangs down and touches the water in the bowl, it quickly wicks up water and pulls itself partially off the seat before you get a chance to sit down. I’ve found that they work much better if you fold the center “flap” down and leave it outside the toilet bowl.

Another puts things in perspective:

Here’s the thing: the germs to fear in a public restroom are on your hands. So taking a paper cover and using your hands to fix it to the seat is significantly more disgusting than having germs on your outer butt cheeks. The last thing you need is your hands on the seat.

So if you want to avoid the germs of a public restroom, wash your hands thoroughly, then only touch the faucet and door handles with a paper towel. Try not to think about the germs from all those badly washed hands covering the doorknob as you go back out into the world.

Another woman’s strategy for avoiding germs:

My grandmother used to carry a full-size can of Lysol and spray the seat prior to use and then wipe with toilet paper. She rejoiced when Lysol came out with a purse size can so she doesn’t have to carry a huge pocketbook anymore. My sisters and I have also kept the habit. When my babies were young, I would Lysol the changing table and then dry with spare diaper just for that purpose. I also “cleaned” up after my kids when they “missed” aiming while potty training.

I found that if people care, they clean up after themselves. For example the public restrooms in Walmart are universally a mess whereas the ones in Target are generally clean. The cleanest public bathroom I ever found was at the African-American Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. The church ladies not only cleaned up but would scold anyone who “made a mess”.

Another notes a flawed technology:

I used to live in Chicago, which meant I used O’Hare airport with some regularity. At some point in the last 20 years, O’Hare switched from relatively normal public-type toilets to commodes with electric-eye-operated automatic toilet-seat-cover dispensers. Every time a person would enter (or leave, I guess), there’d be a little whirring sound and a fresh segment of plastic wrap would circle round the toilet seat. Voila! I can only image the cost of this system.

The only problem was that either to make the engineering functional or to save money on plastic toilet seat wrap, the bowl and toilet seat are shrunk to about 70 percent of their normal size and are perfectly round. This complete disdain for ergonomics (in a place one would hope they’d be paramount) means that using one of these toilets is akin to squatting over a cellophane wrapped coffee can. Not exactly conducive to the peace one hopes to attain through one’s Morgenscheisse (to employ a favorite Dish-found word).

Toilet-seat covers are a boondoggle, and I’m glad I now live near Boston, whose Logan Airport has normal shitters.

Update from a reader:

No reader has addressed the most criminal flaw in public toilet technology: the auto-flush that flushes when you are mid-stream, spraying god-knows-what onto your nethers. This is far more distressing than any germy seatcover could ever be.

Will Christianity Empty The Churches?

That’s the point made by my friend, Damon Linker, who’s been writing up a storm at his perch at The Week. He recently made the strong case that liberal and conservative ideas about human equality have deep roots in Jesus’ universalization of the call to love and forgiveness. And that very powerful idea has indeed propelled women’s and gay rights in this century. I’ve never made an explicit connection between my Catholicism and my support for gay equality – but it’s probably, along with my own self-respect, the key driver for my activism. But as modern Western society embraces gay and female equality in principle and increasingly in practice, the churches that remain implacably opposed to full equality for men and women in the church are beginning to feel the strain.

Damon thinks Mormonism (currently fast-growing worldwide) and Catholicism (currently in deep flux) are the primary victims. And the most glaring fact about them is restricting priesthood for men and men alone:

Think about it: Men and women in the pews now live in a world in which nearly all obstacles to women’s equality have been torn down. Where once women were relegated to submissive and subservient roles in the family, now domestic gender egalitarianism is the norm. Where once women were excluded from participating in politics — including denial of the vote — such strictures are now unimaginable. Colleges and universities that were once all-male have become coed. Just about every career that once excluded women is now open to them — including that most traditionally masculine occupation, military service. And so forth.

I should say that by far the biggest influences on my faith have been women: my mother and grandmother. Richard Rodriguez and I spoke about this at length when discussing religion and civil rights:

I find the arguments for a male-only priesthood to be as weak as Damon does. Just because Jesus’ 12 disciples were men? Please. From everything we know about the early church, it was unusually filled with women, just as Jesus refused to abide by the idea of excluding women. Only women and his beloved John were at the foot of the cross; it was to women that the risen Christ first revealed himself. Ed Morrissey offers another theological reason for the exclusion of women from the altar:

The belief in the actual presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Eucharist as a connection to the one sacrifice at the eternal wedding feast forms the substantial argument for ordaining only men to the priesthood … However, it’s at least a fair point to admit that many Catholics never hear this teaching, for reasons of poor catechism at home or in churches and schools …

Furthermore, the Church’s role isn’t to change with the times anyway. It’s to defend what it teaches as revealed truth, and to spread the truth rather than take polls. That may indeed produce an impulse for congregants to leave, but that may be a symptom of poor catechesis rather than a refusal to change doctrine to suit the modern temperament. If an exodus occurs, that would be the cause, not a refusal to rewrite doctrine.

Seriously? A theological metaphor that sees all Christians as women and Christ as our groom? I know the theology but find it as weak as mere recitation of precedent. And the argument here is not that the church should bend with the times, but that the church should always be considering and reconsidering whether what it does is fully in the spirit of the Gospels. Excluding women is something Jesus never ever did. Why shouldn’t the church follow his example?

(Painting: Detail of Mary Magdalen kissing the feet of the crucified Jesus, Italian, early 14th century. Via Wiki.)

What To Expect From Hobby Lobby

As Sam Baker sees it, “the legal battle over Obamacare’s contraception mandate is essentially tied as it heads into Tuesday’s Supreme Court arguments”:

Both sides have suffered some bad losses in lower courts, and the weaknesses that hurt them before could spell trouble again on Tuesday. The Court has combined two cases on the birth-control mandate – one the government won, and one it lost. Both challenges were filed by for-profit companies that say the mandate violates the religious beliefs of their owners. Five federal appeals courts have heard such challenges, and their rulings are a mess of conflicts. The courts not only disagree with each other, they’re also divided internally. As judges agreed on one question but disagreed on another, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals cobbled together four different majorities in one ruling against the mandate. (That case, filed by Hobby Lobby, is one of the challenges before the Supreme Court this week.)

In other words, there are good reasons why each side might lose at the Supreme Court.

Tom Donnelly considers the conundrum facing Chief Justice Roberts:

On the one hand, Roberts is confronting the ACA for the first time since the conservative firestorm over his decision largely upholding the Act. There’s little doubt that he’ll be tempted to throw conservatives a bone, siding with Hobby Lobby and against the ACA.

On the other hand, a vote in favor of Hobby Lobby requires the chief justice to do at least three things that threaten major disruptive consequences and present serious downstream risks for the Court as an institution.

First, he must conclude that corporations have the same rights to religious freedom as living, breathing humans – something that the Supreme Court has never done. Second, he must unsettle centuries of well-established corporate law practice – a move at loggerheads with the Roberts Court’s (and John Roberts’s own) pro-corporate leanings. And, third, he must extend unprecedented protections to a secular employer, therefore opening the floodgates to new religious freedom challenges to countless other laws. In short, a vote for Hobby Lobby means endorsing a radical departure from well-settled precedent—perhaps nowhere more strikingly than in the realm of religious freedom.

Beutler says the Hobby Lobby case may expose hypocrisy on the conservative arm of SCOTUS:

If Hobby Lobby et al. manage to successfully pierce the veil, to the end of avoiding the contraception mandate, the court’s ruling, if drawn broadly enough, could be used to expose shareholders to liabilities that incorporation is intended to eliminate. It stands to reason that this contradiction at least partially explains why major corporate trade associations have either remained neutral in this case or actually come down on the side of the government.

It also creates an interesting test for this particular court, which, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, has been remarkably solicitous of corporate imperatives, but has also been sensitive to those who claim their religious liberties have been threatened or curtailed.

Scott Lemieux adds:

Before tomorrow’s oral arguments, let me note again that people interested in the latest ad hoc legal challenge to the ACA should definitely look at Marty Lederman’s series of posts, helpfully collected here. We’ve already discussed one of his crucial points, namely that there is no contraception “mandate.” Hobby Lobby is not legally required to compensate its employees with health insurance at all. The regulations imposed by the ACA are on insurance plans, not on the corporations per se. What is erroneously described as a “mandate” simply means that if corporations choose to take advantage of the tax benefits for compensating employees in health insurance rather than wages, the insurance has to meet minimum coverage standards. As is often the case with specious religious freedom arguments, the corporation wants it both ways, to get the tax benefits without providing the full benefits to employees.

Lowry dissents:

The truth is that the Obama administration wants to bring Hobby Lobby to heel as a matter of principle. In its pinched view of religion, faith should be limited as much as possible to the pews. In its attenuated regard for civil society, it believes government should overawe any person, business, or institution whose beliefs run counter to officially sanctioned attitudes.

Meanwhile, Volokh responds to critics of Religious Freedom Restoration Acts who say that a lot of religious exemption claims don’t have any real support in the Bible:

The American law of religious exemptions is individualistic. The right to a religious exemption belongs to a particular religious believer because of his sincere religious beliefs, whatever they might be. Small denominations are protected, to the same degree as large denominations. The same is true for dissenting groups within denominations. It’s even true for idiosyncratic religious believers. One doesn’t need a note from one’s priest to prevail in a religious exemption case.

Moreover, American courts are constitutionally forbidden from determining what the Bible – or any other religious work – really means. Courts are forbidden from determining whether a belief is reasonable.

Noah Feldman insists the issues go beyond the ACA, religious liberty and contraception:

If all this weren’t enough for you, the fourth issue is arguably more important than the first three: whether corporations are people, too. In Citizens United v. FEC, decided in 2010, the Supreme Court held that free-speech rights should extend to corporations because organizing people to speak more effectively in concert was one of the functions that corporations serve. The case – which as interpreted by the lower courts gave us super-PACs – involved a nonprofit corporation, but it extended to for-profit companies as well. Criticized by Obama in the Supreme Court’s face during a State of the Union address, the decision has been a touchstone for those who would brand the Roberts court as activist and pro-corporation.

The Hobby Lobby case requires the justices to decide if the rule they announced for the free speech clause of the First Amendment applies to the free exercise part of the same amendment. For some liberals, this means an opportunity to reargue Citizens United. For conservatives, it’s an opportunity to depict the rights of corporations in a far more attractive light than corporate political speech. Many sincerely see no difference between a company’s owners and the company itself. Liability should be limited, they believe, but not fundamental free exercise rights.

And finally, Jason Millman suggests Hobby Lobby isn’t necessarily the case to watch today:

At the same time Tuesday morning, the District of Columbia’s Circuit Court of Appeals will consider whether Obamacare allows premium subsidies to flow through federal-run health insurance exchanges. That case has been called “the greatest existential threat” to the survival of the health care law by one of Obamcare’s staunchest supporters. … If we’re just thinking about what these cases could mean for Obamacare’s future, the cases related to federal subsidies are a much bigger deal. Opponents to the law are challenging the IRS interpretation that Congress authorized individuals in states with federal-run exchanges to access premium subsidies.

If the opponents’ challenge is successful – and the law’s supporters say the cases are a real longshot – it would deal a major blow to the law in the 36 states with federal-run exchanges.

Author: Andrew Sullivan