"Are you now or have you ever been … involved in community theater?"
Apparently that was the question military investigators asked a decorated Arab linguist servicemember before outing him and firing him from service to his country. I’m glad the military has its priorities, er, straight.
(Update: the best revenge for getting kicked out of the army because you’re gay … is taking the male lead in a community theater production of "Bye Bye Birdie." I’m really not making this up.)
Dahlia Lithwick explains the rationale to uphold the ban on same-sex marriage in Washington State succinctly:
Only if the ban was enacted by insane people can it fail constitutional review.
Burt prejudiced people? No problem. Lithwick adds this rhetorical zinger:
Even the most deferential review should grapple with whether banning gay marriage really encourages straight marriage; whether there is something about marriage that magically lures heterosexual parents into its grasp ‚Äî something that would evaporate if it were also extended to gay parents. Even deferential review that was also deaf, dumb, and blind would do more than just assert that gay marriage is illegal because kids "thrive" in straight homes. That claim is not just slightly over- or underinclusive, as the majority would have it. It’s nonresponsive. Or, as the dissenters put it, better than I have: "denying same-sex couples the right to marry has no prospect of furthering any of those interests."
There is no rational relationship between banning gay citizens from civil marriage and promoting heterosexual marriage and the interests of children. There is no reason why you can’t do both. At least I have yet to read a logical argument as to why you can’t.
He’s strongly against it. I really am going to hell.
Go check out the absence of any substantive discussion about the Israel-Hezbollah war on Daily Kos’s main pages.
"It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine. Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine," – Ayman al-Zawahiri, on al Jazeerah.
The connection between what is happening in Iraq and what is happening in Lebanon cannot, to my mind, be under-estimated. What else are the Shiite militias in Iraq gradually seizing the levers of government in Baghdad but a version of Hezbollah?
It doesn’t exist.
Know and revere: it’s Colbert interiewing Eleanor Holmes Norton. You can’t stop watching.
Michael Totten has an insightful post:
I spent a total of seven months in Lebanon recently, and I never could quite figure out what prevented the country from flying apart into pieces. It barely held together like unstable chemicals in a nitro glycerin vat. The slightest ripple sent Lebanese scattering from the streets and into their homes. They were far more twitchy than I, in part (I think) because they understood better than I just how precarious their civilized anarchy was. Their country needed several more years of careful nurturing during peace time to fully recover from its status as a carved up failed state.
By bombing all of Lebanon rather than merely the concentrated Hezbollah strongholds, Israel is putting extraordinary pressure on Lebanese society at points of extreme vulnerability. The delicate post-war democratic culture has been brutally replaced, overnight, with a culture of rage and terror and war.
What is happening in the Lebanon is a tragedy for the Lebanese, a horrible – and terrifying – conundrum for the Israelis, and a disaster for US policy in the wider struggle against Islamic extremism. And, oh yes, it is not, unfortunately, going to bring an end to Hezbollah…
‚ÄúWhat will become of us?‚Äù is the question on everyone‚Äôs mind. No one can know what will happen after Israel lifts its siege and the temporary national unity flies apart into pieces. And it will fly apart into pieces. The only question is how far the pieces will fly and how hard they’ll land.
The photograph above from Totten’s website is of a Christian mob attacking a car in Beirut because it had a Hezbollah logo. It may be the future of Lebanon – a country just beginning to grope its way toward democracy and normalcy. Totten wants to return as soon as possible. His reporting and analysis is as good as anything in the MSM. Donate to him. He has a tip-jar on the site.
It’s been two years since we had a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Shouldn’t this be done annually so we can know what the intelligence agencies actually believe is happening out there? It’s important data for a national debate, whatever judgment you reach. And yet the administration refuses. What are they afraid of? Reality? Or the November elections? Ken Silverstein comments here. Meanwhile, here’s some hard data from Brookings. A glass half-full assessment can be read here.
The latest service member to be dismissed makes the number of soldiers trained to be Arab linguists and now fired for being gay 55. This dismissal even violated the basic rules of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," because the individual was closeted at work and was outed by an anonymous email campaign:
The U.S. Army recently discharged a highly regarded Arabic linguist who was the target of an anonymous email "outing" campaign. Former Sergeant Bleu Copas was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and was a member of the prestigious 82nd Airborne Division. A decorated Sergeant who received impressive performance reviews, Copas also performed in the 82nd Airborne Chorus. His dismissal, under the federal "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel, brings the total number of Arabic language specialists dismissed under the ban to at least 55. Neither Copas nor his command know who was the source of the email campaign.
We really aren’t serious about winning this war, are we?
The Dish 