The Dish

That’s what the backers of Michigan’s state constitutional amendment against gay couples’ rights said during the campaign. Proposal 2 backers claimed their amendment was “only about marriage … this is not about rights or benefits or how people choose to live their life.” This is the same claim made by Matt Daniels of the federal amendment, an amendment that would deny gay couples any of the “incidents” of civil marriage under any name. Well, in Michigan, we now see what the real agenda is. There’s an existing agreement in Ohio granting domestic partner benefits to gay couples who are state employees. One Republican legislator wants that agreement torn up:

“It’s unfathomable how, before the ballot boxes are hardly put away, some state leaders are going against citizens’ wishes to even consider this issue in the labor contract negotiations process,” [Rep. Ken] Bradstreet said in a news release.

Now let’s see whether Matt Daniels cavils at this attack on gay couples’ rights. (Correction: In the first version of this item, I confused Ohio with Michigan. Fixed now. Apologies.)

ATTLEE BEATS CHURCHILL: Here’s a wonderful insight into the bias within the British academy. A poll of 139 British historians and political scientists placed Clement Attlee ahead of Winston Churchill in a ranking of the 20th Century’s prime ministers. Britain is still recovering from the damage Attlee did to the British economy by a wholesale government take-over. Without Churchill, there wouldn’t have been an independent Britain to wreck. And you thought America’s professors were left-wing! (Hat tip: Clive Davis).

How influential, exactly, is John Stott on the political agenda of America’s evangelicals? Not too much, I’d say. By picking a theologian in London, David Brooks strains somewhat to exculpate his conservative allies from the taint of intolerance. Yes, many of us need to understand the reality of evangelical conservatism better. And I’m delighted to see Brooks deride Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “bozos”. I hear the same thing privately from many other conservatives. But the real test is whether any leading Republican would ever publicly call such people “bozos”? McCain did – and look what happened to him. Who else has? Frist? Hastert? Bush? Never. I’m afraid David cannot have it both ways. If the real religious right is not represented by these blow-hard haters, why can’t a leading Republican say so? If the Democrats are always being required to castigate their extremes, why can’t the Republicans? The really interesting case study for David would be James Dobson. Dobson has said that granting gays civil marriage rights would lead to the “destruction of the earth.” Bozo or not a bozo? Nut-case or proud member of the big tent? Inclusive or intolerant? That’s a slightly more pressing and relevant question, I’d say, than the oeuvre of John Stott.

I got my results a few minutes ago. They confirm that I do indeed have sleep apnea. While sleeping normally, I got zero REM sleep – the really refreshing sleep that rejuvenates the mind and body. Zero. I stopped breathing on average 38 times an hour – at one time for thirty seconds continuously. The oxygen saturation of my red blood cells dropped to worrying levels. When I was put on the machine, 13 percent of my sleep was REM sleep, and I didn’t stop breathing once. No wonder I felt better the next day. My doc is now ordering the C-PAP machine. The best Christmas present I’ll ever have.

In Iran, the fifth blogger has now been thrown in jail for free speech. Money quote:

Reporters Without Borders has strongly protested against the Iran’s relentless efforts to stifle free expression online after the arrest of five webloggers in less than two months, the latest on 28 November 2004.
“The government is now attacking blogs, the last bastion of freedom on a network that is experiencing ever tighter control,” said the worldwide press freedom organisation. “At the same time, an Iranian delegate is sitting on a UN-created working group on Internet governance. The international community should condemn this masquerade,” it added.
Three webloggers identified only by their first names were arrested on 29 October 2004. They were : Dariush (http://www.dariushkabir.com), Omid (http://www.shurideh.com) and Payvand (http://gayaneh.net).
Mojtaba Saminejad was arrested at the beginning of November for speaking out against the arrest of his three colleagues in his blog (http://man-namanam.blogspot.com).
Farid Modaressi, a member of the student organisation the Office to Consolidate Unity, was arrested on 28 November on the order of the prosecutor’s office in the city of Qom. He had posted a number of articles on his weblog (http://farid.blogset.com) exposing persistent harassment in the city by members of the conservative movement. Two of his brothers were reportedly arrested two days earlier and are apparently still being held.

You think the Europeans will protest?

“Despite the despair some (such as myself) may feel when looking at the situation in Iraq and comparing it with the rhetoric of the Bush administration, I felt heartened reading the list of countries that you said were ‘lining up behind equality.’ At least in this sense, one can rightly say with the same vigor as our current president, ‘freedom is on the march,’ both at home and abroad.” Yes, the spread of democracy in its deepest sense is continuing around the world, as civil rights are extended to all citizens. Except where this president is trying to stop it – in America.

Here’s a link to the South Africa decision on marriage rights. I’ve also fixed a posting below that called Gary Becker a law professor. He’s an economist. And a note about my Buchanan posting. My point is not that Buchanan is contemplating a conversion to Islam, although that would be fascinating. It’s just that he obviously admires the muscularity of the Jihadists’ religious politics. His lament is that Christians are not as tough. Buchanan likes nothing more than conflict, and a good civilizational conflict between Christian and Muslim theocrats would doubtless thrill him. And from 9/11 onwards, many members of the religious right have indeed opined that Islamist loathing of American “decadence” is partly deserved. The real war, however, is between liberty and theocrats of all kinds, between limited government and religious statism, between the American guarantee of freedom from government-imposed religion and the radical Muslim insistence of a fusion beween church and state. In this war, Buchanan is indeed on the opposing side.

Breaking news from South Africa: the Supreme Court of Appeal there has just ruled in favor of ending discrimination in marriage. The ruling was 4 – 1. Money quote:

“In terms of sections 8(3), 39(2) and 173 of the Constitution, the common law concept of marriage is developed to embrace same-sex partners as follows: ‘Marriage is the union of two persons to the exclusion of all others for life.'”

The decision could, in theory, be appealed to the Constitutional Court, which would have the final say, but they are considered likely to rule in favor of equality as well. The opinion, by the way, was written by the Honorable Edwin Cameron, an openly gay (and openly HIV-positive) judge on the court. I don’t have a link yet, but will post one as soon as I do. Canada, Belgium, Holland, South Africa are now lining up behind equality. Britain has just passed a bill guaranteeing all marital rights to gay couples under the rubric of “civil partnership.” Spain’s ruling in favor of full marriage rights is looming. In Massachusetts, it looks as if marriage equality is here to stay.

It was inevitable, I guess. But Richard Posner, one of the smartest men in the country, will now have a blog with fellow professor, Gary Becker. Most excellent.

Even Pat Sajak notices. Is Spielberg asleep? Is Valenti in a coma? Scorsese? Stone?

The BBC asked a bunch of ordinary Iraqis to describe their day. It’s a fascinating kaleidoscope. What I glean from it is great hope, marred by the obvious insecurity. Here’s a classic passage:

Come lunchtime, a few of us are avidly reading the Stars & Stripes, the US military newspaper. It is reported that US forces are now holding some 8,300 people in detention, with a recent increase of “4,000 as a result of assaults on insurgents in Samarra, Falluja, Mosul and north Babil province”. I think all of us found these numbers quite surprising and, we guess, encouraging.
I read in the news today about speculation that a lot of British forces may be transferred to Iraq from Northern Ireland. Hopefully, this will happen. When I overhear the US soldiers talking amongst themselves, getting more soldiers to forces into Iraq seems is a real necessity.

One reason for my anger over the last year or so has been the fact that this extraordinaryily important chance to turn around a whole region was being ruined by the administration’s refusal to police or plan the occupation adequately. To take on such an endeavor and refuse to give it the resources or care required – even when the need for many more troops was blindingly obvious from the beginning – is incomprehensible. It still is. But if these Iraqis can hope, so can we.

F.A.I.R. ON OIL-FOR-FOOD: A reader finds a classic piece of anti-war flim-flam from before the Iraq war – exonerating the U.N. oil-for-food program from criticism that it was corrupt and ineffective. Yep, it’s from “Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting.” Money quote:

The summer of 2001 saw a revival of long-discredited claims that sanctions are not to blame for Iraq’s suffering, but that Saddam Hussein bears sole responsibility–an argument put forward in a State Department report (8/99) issued shortly after the UNICEF report on the deaths of children. Seizing on the fact that infant mortality had decreased in northern Iraq, which is under U.N. administration, while more than doubling in the rest of the country, where the government of Iraq is in charge, the State Department accused Baghdad of wide-scale misappropriation of funds from Iraqi oil sales earmarked for humanitarian purposes.
Michael Rubin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who spent nine months as a private citizen in northern Iraq, has pushed this argument in at least eight op-eds in papers ranging from the Wall Street Journal (8/9/01) to the Los Angeles Times (8/12/01). These op-eds follow the same basic theme: Since conditions in the north of Iraq are much better than the rest of the country, Saddam must be taking oil-for-food money and using it to buy weapons; Iraqis don’t want sanctions lifted, they want Saddam out; the U.S. should support the overthrow of Saddam.
In fact, oil-for-food money is administered by the U.N., and disbursed directly from a U.S. bank account to foreign suppliers, so direct misappropriation of funds is impossible. Allegations about misappropriation of goods on the other end have repeatedly been denied by U.N. officials administering the program in Iraq (e.g. Denis Halliday, press release, 9/20/99), a fact that has garnered virtually no media coverage.

Should have believed the U.N., then, shouldn’t we?