The Dish

My Sunday Times column is on what Gaza and the West Bank tell us about the limits of democratic transformation in the Arab world. Money quote:

This is surely the self-contradiction at the heart of neoconservatism. Even at the maximum surge strength, America is helpless in the face of an Iraqi civil war that has only just begun, can be fuelled indefinitely by corrupt oil money, and is driven by centuries-old sectarian hatred between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims and decades of totalitarian trauma. And yet the neocons insist we should plough on, adding more troops, planning on permanent bases for indefinite occupation.

Well, you can’t have it both ways. Either Arab culture without autocracy really is what we see in Gaza and Iraq or it isn’t. If it is, then trying to build western-style democracy during a brutal civil war in Iraq is a mug’s game.

The rest is here.

(Photo: Armed Palestinian militants loyal to President Mahmud Abbas patrol in the West Bank city of Ramallah, 16 June 2007. Fatah fighters went on the rampage against Hamas in the West Bank today, stoking fears deadly factional violence could spread as the Islamists tightened their grip on power in the volatile Gaza Strip. Gunmen linked to president Mahmud Abbas’s secular Fatah faction stormed parliament in the West Bank and also ransacked dozens of offices linked to Hamas including charities, a school and television and radio stations. By Awad Awad/AFP/Getty.)

She was the woman who had to fight for her right to marry a man of a different race in, yes, Virginia – in my lifetime. She won the case forty years ago, in the historic decision "Loving vs. Virginia." She has just issued a public statement on the anniversary of this act of "judicial tyranny" against the clear wishes of a large majority in Virginia. Here it is in full (hat tip: Jonathan), continued after the jump:

When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn’t to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married. We didn’t get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We did it there because the government wouldn’t allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and build our family. You see, I am a woman of color and Richard was white, and at that time people believed it was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who should marry whom. When Richard and I came back to our home in Virginia, happily married, we had no intention of battling over the law. We made a commitment to each other in our love and lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn’t that what marriage is?

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night in our own bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the “crime” of marrying the wrong kind of person.

Our marriage certificate was hanging on the wall above the bed. The state prosecuted Richard and me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” He sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

We left, and got a lawyer. Richard and I had to fight, but still were not fighting for a cause. We were fighting for our love.

Though it turned out we had to fight, happily Richard and I didn’t have to fight alone. Thanks to groups like the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, and so many good people around the country willing to speak up, we took our case for the freedom to marry all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that, “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men,” a “basic civil right.”

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry.

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

Americans have long been puzzled by their compatriots of the Mormon faith. Here are two classic excerpts from the Atlantic archive that wouldn’t see the light of day today. The first from 1900:

Unvarying type traits or stigmata mark Gentile and Mormon. Your Gentile will clench fist, grit teeth, and sputter bad words. Your Mormon, with the usual suavity of an under dog, will spread forth his fat palms, smile a bland, sweet, Asiatic smile, and honey his talk with Scriptural quotations. Half an eye sees which is right. Yet noblesse oblige; let us grant this devil his due. Consider, I beg you, the case of the Mormon, who pleads for polygamy, and boasts a bright liege loyalty to country and country’s flag…

I looked and found that polygamous Mormons were of five sorts — sentimental Mormons, exegetical Mormons, philosophical Mormons, and barnyard Mormons."

Of course, back then, polygamy was the object of greatest fascination/repulsion. From 1864:

A cosmopolitan, especially one knowing beforehand that Utah was not distinguished for monogamy, might well be ashamed to be so taken off his feet as I was by my first view of Mormonism in its practical workings. I stared, I believe I blushed a little, I tried to stutter a reply; and the one dreadful thought which persistently kept uppermost, so that I felt they must read it in my face, was, ‘How can these young women sit looking at each other’s babies without flying into each other’s faces with their fingernails, and tearing out each other’s hair?’

How indeed.

I’ve gotten used to having my gayness used against me in blogospheric spats. Whatever. It’s a free country. But I have rarely received as unhinged a homophobic rant as the one Glenn Reynolds just linked to, directed against Glenn Greenwald. Matt raises an eyebrow here.

It was very cold for a few days on the wharf, but the weekend has been beautiful. Yesterday, the youngest beagle went for somersaults of what can only be described as joy in the low tide, interpersed with sea-gull chasing and the occasional love-in with something dead near the dunegrass. In Ptown this season, we’ve already had a mini-scandal of the cops busting a rowdy party on Commercial Street, and more drama over sewer construction. And then there’s the constant reminder of the history of the place. The best act in town (if you come here, don’t miss her at the Vixen nightclub) is performance artist Dina Martina. She recently gave a small glimpse of the rich inheritance we all share on this little strip of sand, in an interview with Provincetown Magazine:

I love coming back to Vixen every year because there’s so much history there. Did you know that back in the 1920s, Marlon Brando used to go to there? He used to go disco dancing there all night with Eugene O’Neill and Fatty Arbuckle. They’d dance ’til the sun came up and then go out for fish ‘n chips. And then they’d all go over to Rick Astley’s, ’cause he owned this huge cranberry patch or whatever, over where the Pilgrim Monument is now, and they’d wake Rick Astley up and he’d make his famous cranmberry muffins – ‘member Astley’s Famous Muffins? That was him.

Paul Potts won the whole competition. He’ll perform for the Queen. His response? "Absolutely bonkers." The best YouTube is still the first, I think. But here’s the winning sequence:

A gay man grapples with the post-"Will and Grace" world:

Last Monday night, a woman at a bar came up to me and asked me if I was single. Not to disparage her, but let’s just say I was happy to shut her down right away with an abrupt "I’m gay." And you know what? THAT DID NOT DETER HER.

She LIT up and said, "We can go shopping together and you can watch me play with myself with my Rabbit."

Ugggggghhhh … Do you ever not even know where to begin?

I wanted to say, "Yes, please, I am in the habit of befriending bar skanks in the first ten seconds of talking to them. And despite my lack of sexual attraction to women, I would simply LOVE to watch you get yourself off. JACKPOT!"

As far as the shopping thing goes: I love saying "I’m not really into shopping" and I just stand back and wait for their heads to explode. Their precious "Will and Grace" never prepared them for that possibility!

I hate shopping too.

Here’s an important reminder that Congress clearly never intended the Patriot Act to be a broad sanction for rounding up terror suspects without charges and detaining them indefinitely as a guard against terrorism. Money quote:

Long story short, in the weeks following 9/11, the Bush administration pushed hard for the authorization to use military force domestically and later for express statutory authority to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without process. And although Congress was under enormous political pressure to act quickly and was clearly willing to rubberstamp most of the administration’s requests, it pushed back and ultimately rejected the administration’s efforts on both occasions. The AUMF did not authorize military force within the United States and the Patriot Act provided the government with only the authority to detain “terrorist aliens” like al-Marri for up to 7 days without process, at which point it must commence either deportation or criminal proceedings (though, interestingly, a never-yet-utilized provision of the Act arguably allows the government to continue holding “terrorists aliens” more or less indefinitely, subject to certain certifications).

Despite this clear legislative history, the government’s lawyers now claim that, in passing the AUMF, Congress granted the administration powers that it quite clearly did not intend to grant, including powers it specifically rejected during the debate over the Patriot Act, which began almost as soon as the AUMF was passed. Fortunately, the Fourth Circuit saw this argument for what it was, a particularly brazen example of revisionist history.

Even this, of course, was limited to immgrants. Jose Padilla was a US citizen, arrested on American soil, and detained without charge (with charges of torture) for years.

Cracked.com compiles the "The 5 Most Obviously Drug-Fueled TV Appearances Ever." James Brown comes in at Number 4: