Larry Craig: Another Appeal Denied

I noted yesterday that the appeal by former Florida state representative Bob Allen had been denied. While Allen's pretty well known in some circles, few cases of conservative politicians soliciting sex in men's bathrooms had garnered as much interest as that of Idaho Senator Larry Craig (R). As you may recall, Craig entered a guilty plea after his infamous "wide stance" solicitation in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport and then said that he'd resign only to later not only fail to step down but to file an appeal seeking to retract his guilty plea.

A decision has just come down in the last couple of hours and, like Bob Allen, Larry Craig's appeal has also been denied. The full decision by the Minnesota Court of Appeals has been released, but the gist of it is that Craig's guilty plea will stand because he lacks any legal basis on which to retract it. Or, if you prefer your legalese undiluted:

To be valid, a guilty plea must be "accurate, voluntary and intelligent." State v. Ecker, 524 N.W.2d 712, 716 (Minn. 1994). For a plea to be accurate, it must be supported by a proper factual basis. Id. Appellant argues that the plea was not accurate because it lacked a full record of supporting facts.

Appellant did not appear in person when his plea was filed, but a guilty plea is not invalid merely because it is entered in writing. See Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.03, subd. 2...

But, because appellant did not appear, the written plea petition was the only account given to the district court of appellant's version of the offense. The relevant paragraph of the petition states:

"I am pleading guilty to the charge of Disorderly Conduct as alleged because on June 11, 2007, within the property or jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, Hennepin County, specifically in the restroom of the North Star Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal, I did the following: Engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment or [sic] others, which conduct was physical (versus verbal) in nature."

...Appellant argues that because the paragraph lacks a description of the alleged conduct it fails to provide an adequate factual basis.

Appellant's argument is unsupported by the record. A verbatim record was required to be made of the August 8, 2007 proceeding at which appellant's petition to plead guilty was filed and he was sentenced. See Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 6(A) (requiring verbatim record of sentencing proceedings). A defendant is responsible for providing a record adequate for appellate review, including a transcript if necessary. See State v. Anderson, 351 N.W.2d 1, 2 (Minn. 1984) (holding claim of trial error could not be reviewed without transcript). Appellant did not order a transcript of the August 8, 2007 proceeding...

— Source

And it goes on from there, as legalese does, to set out why Craig's appeal simply doesn't hold water.

Larry Craig is still guilty by his own admission. More importantly than the legal offense he committed, though, is his hypocrisy in the whole matter, one that he maintains to this day. Craig, like Bob Allen, could remedy this by simply coming out of the closet and explaining his errors while maintaining that gay men can legitimately hold conservative political views and ideas that don't extend to curtailing the rights of other gay men in order to bolster their standing amongst the homophobic segments of society. He could point out that he served as a Senator in ways that otherwise represented his constituency and that his homosexuality, like all homosexuality, is at most a coincidence that, absent social stigmatization, has zero bearing on the fitness of an individual to serve in office, vote, serve in the military, or otherwise enjoy the rights and fulfill the responsibilities incumbent upon all of us as members of American society, no matter whom we might prefer to twiddle our dangly bits now and again.

Will he continue in his hypocrisy, though? I'd bet on it.

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Obama Lights Up: Ruminations from a Fellow Addict

Will the stunning revelations never cease? When pressed during an interview with Tom Brokaw, Barack Obama waffled a bit before admitting that he hasn't been entirely successful in kicking his nicotine addiction. He still lights up from time to time, but he's promised that he won't do it in the White House.

During his interview with NBC News' Tom Brokaw over the weekend, President-elect Barack Obama acknowledged that he has had some trouble kicking his smoking habit but promised that the White House would remain a smoke-free zone.

"There are times where I've fallen off the wagon," Mr. Obama said when asked if he had stopped smoking...

— Source

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Smoking is bad. Kids, don't try this at home. Everybody tells you this stuff, so why should I repeat it? In most ways, this item is a non-story. The last eight years of radical misgovernment have left many aspects of our nation's well-being in smoking ruins. A smoking Executive? If he can pull America out of its historical nosedive and make repairs to our economy, infrastructure, international relations and commitment to education, I don't care if Obama likes to pound nails up his nose while singing the theme song from Bonanza at 3:00 in the morning in drag. Really, really bad drag. Get over yourselves, snap snap.

So while I'll readily admit that a smoking president might not be the greatest thing in the world, it's far from the worst. I say this as a smoker myself, and one who, like Obama, has made repeated and unsuccessful attempts to kick the habit. In light of that, my first bit of advice to the President-Elect, were he listening, would be to stay away from Chantix. It did weird things to me when I tried it, and I got my hands on a prescription the week after it went on the market. Chantix impaired my memory and caused me to have multiple episodes of sleep paralysis that left me an utter wreck after about two months on the stuff. We can't risk having that in a president. All things considered, he's better off sneaking out to the Rose Garden for the occasional smokebreak... and so are we if he stays away from varenicline.

So, even though I am painfully aware of how addictive cigarettes are and have a pretty thorough understanding of how and why they're so bad for you, I'm going to play the optimist here and speak about the upside of this nasty habit. Yes, there is one and no, it's not worth the health consequences and no, this isn't an endorsement of inhaling particulate matter. Still, the guy already smokes. Let's think about the lung being half-full for a moment.

In one way, I've benefited from being a smoker. Because we smokers are banned from indulging our habit indoors in the workplace (and rightfully so), we have to step away from whatever else we're doing every so often in order to pump a little sweet, sweet nicocrackatein into our bodies in order to be able to maintain our concentration and evenness of mood. It's boring to do that by ourselves, so smokers naturally form little cliques that take breaks together. From experience, I can say that these little sessions have allowed me the opportunity to learn about all sorts of things — useful things — from other smoking colleagues. This is as true now that I am studying biology as it was when I was a headhunter. It's hard to get time from people to simply learn from them what they know; everyone's days are pretty full. Those smokebreaks make it happen. I've learned about everything from inside information regarding the executive teams at high-tech startups to the problems with designing primers for insect mitochondrial genes from fellow junkies.

Might Obama reap the same sort of benefit from amongst the negative consequences of his unhealthful indulgence? He might. You know, he might not be the only world leader, or staffer employed by a world leader, who smokes. He might not be alone out there on the White House steps puffing away in the dead of winter. Who knows what breakthroughs might come when he's joined out there by some government official from another country? What inside knowledge might he gain from sharing a few tar-tawnied moments with a staffer traveling with the Prime Minister of Brunei? Scorn if you must, but these smoke session are intimate in a way that the inside of an office or conference room can never hope to be. You're removed from that environment. You're outside. Maybe you're cold and feeling a little alienated. It's natural that such a situation breeds candor amongst those involved. Obama's health might suffer just a little, but we as a nation might just come out ahead because of it.

I have another common trait I share with Obama, or at least I like to think so. Both he and I are highly educated and possessed of a level of intelligence markedly higher than the outgoing president. The latter is, in and of itself, not saying very much, I know. Still, from my own experience I can state that my own awareness of both the costs of smoking and my inability (so far) to quit is a rather humbling thing. It reminds me of my own frailties and it probably does the same for Obama. Such weaknesses are intrinsically humiliating things to anyone with even a modicum of self-awareness, and Obama's waffling in the interview likely demonstrates that he has experienced a similar awareness and its consequent humbling effect. I've long maintained that anyone narcissistic enough to think they ought to be president probably shouldn't be elected, so it's a hopeful sign that Obama gets this periodic thump upside his head with the two-by-four of an unresolved character flaw. He's aware that he's not perfect, that he can do wrong by himself. He's not likely to wave that silly banner of divine right and council like some Chief Executives we know. I'm aware that plenty of people will disagree with this notion that I prefer my humans both flawed and aware of their flaws. Lots of folks think that a president should be a spiritual leader of some sort, a shining paragon of white knight rectitude. Me, I like to see that the guy knows there are some chinks in the armor. It's hard to be humble when one thinks of themselves as perfected. Besides, as embarrassing a habit as smoking is, is it really any more humiliating than


I think not.

Now, look, the fact that Obama is going to sneak off for a cigarette when the pressure is on every so often is not something to be celebrated. Still, presidents have done a lot worse in recent memory. I'll take smoke-n-choke over shock-n-awe any day of the week.

So, Mr. President-Elect, smoke 'em if you got 'em until you don't need to get 'em anymore. From one smokin' schmuck to another, you have my sympathy on this. It must hurt to have the press and the naysayers jabbing their fingers into this bullet wound in your self-image. I'm sure Michelle gives you as much grief over the habit as LL gives me; I also can't smoke in my home or in my office and I'm quite acquainted with the winter winds of New England as one result. Still, maybe you can leverage this for our benefit somehow. Whatever it takes. If I'm ever in DC and see you out having a dose of the bad stuff, I'd love to come and join in your act of enlightened self-destruction. I've got a few thoughts on research funding, and so do you. We can talk about it while we die just a little.

See? Smokers' optimism.

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Florida Judge Rules Ban on Gay Adoption Unconstitutional: Reason Draws a Breath

There are moments when something like reason still manages to push its head above the floodwaters of fear and superstition and bigotry. Things change because sooner or later reason stops drowning and starts swimming.

Such a moment happened in a courtroom in Miami, Florida this morning. A circuit judge ruled the state's ban on adoption by homosexuals unconstitutional precisely because it is unreasonable to deny a right or privilege to one group that is granted to another if there is no sound, rational or — dare I write the word! — scientific reason for doing so.

Judge in Miami Rules Florida Ban on Gay Adoption Unconstitutional

By Amanda Ruggeri

A 1977 Florida state law that bans gay individuals from adopting has received its biggest challenge thus far: Foster father Frank Martin Gill won his suit to adopt two brothers he has been fostering since 2004...

In her decision this morning, Miami Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman ruled that there was no "rational basis" to prevent the children from being adopted. The case, which marks the first time that a gay adoption case has been taken before a trial court in Florida, seems likely to go before the Florida Supreme Court, which could overturn the ban.

Although several states have de facto bans against gay couples adopting and an unknown number of conservative-leaning courts make it virtually impossible, Florida is the only state that prohibits gay individuals from adopting...

...In one successful case earlier this fall in Key West, a judge ruled that the ban was unconstitutional and arose from "unveiled expressions of bigotry." But that case's legal effects were limited.

The Gill case, however, could have wide-reaching consequences. This morning's decision has already been appealed by the state. If the appellate court upholds the ruling that the law is unconstitutional, which seems probable, then the case is likely to go up to Florida's Supreme Court. Even if the appellate court reverses the ruling, the Supreme Court still has the option to hear the case. And if the Supreme Court agrees to reverse the law, that would strike the ban down statewide—without having to go through the state legislature...

...The state's defenders argued that gay people are more prone to a host of problems, ranging from alcohol and drug abuse to depression. Experts on the other side testified that while gays as a group do struggle more with particular issues, so do other demographic groups—but they're not banned from adoption, because adoption is meant to be decided on a case-by-case basis, rather than with group generalizations. Meanwhile, no credible scientific study has shown that the children of gay parents are at more of a disadvantage than the children of straight parents, they said...

Perhaps it's putting the cart before the horse to maintain that gay people are "more prone" to depression and related symptoms than straight ones, no? Perhaps that depression arises from the fact that they don't have the hope of ever being able to get married, to adopt a child that they've cared for, to not be discriminated against. I don't know how the depression rate among homosexuals compares to that among heterosexuals, but if it is higher, maybe not treating them like second-class citizens could change that. I'm sure the same things that apply to same-sex oriented people could be applied to other groups throughout history that have received the same sort of treatment. American Indians, African Americans, and many immigrant demographics have had the same problem and responded in the same way. Some still are.

I think, or at least I like to believe, that things are changing and that in the end the light of reason and compassion is going to win the day. I still believe there's that much good to hope for out of fellow human beings. If there isn't, as a well-known gay man once said, "If it's not love then it's the bomb that will bring us together."

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Rancho Cucamonga Censors Atheist Billboard

The city government of Rancho Cucamonga, California (population: about 127,000) pressured the General Outdoor sign company to remove an "Imagine No Religion" billboard after receiving 90 complaints about it.

SoCal's atheist billboard taken down

Complaints have led to removal of an atheist group's "Imagine No Religion" billboard in Rancho Cucamonga.

The General Outdoor sign company took down the Freedom From Religion Foundation billboard on Thursday after the city asked if there was a way to get it removed. Redevelopment director Linda Daniels says they got 90 complaints...

Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor says the city shouldn't be censoring speech...

Gaylor is 100% correct; there is absolutely no good argument for removing the sign. If the billboard had been an advertisement for McDonald's and 90 people concerned with juvenile obesity had requested it be taken down, they almost certainly have been ignored and dismissed as cranks. As the sign dissented from a belief in sky-pixies, though, a small number of complaints from true-believers was enough to give the city's government an excuse to exercise censorship.

There's more from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin:

Freedom of speech in question as Rancho Cucamonga asks company to take sign down

By Wendy Leung

...Gaylor said sign companies have declined business before, but no company has taken down a sign after it went up...

Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said the city's actions are "dangerously close" to censorship and a violation of the First Amendment.

"A city government has no business trying to dictate or influence the content of an advertising image, particularly one that's political and controversial as this is simply because some people don't like it and complained about it," Scheer said. "The whole point of the First Amendment is to protect speech that is unpopular, to protect the views that are in the political minority, as long as they don't cross the line and use the speech for some seriously unlawful purpose, which clearly did not happen here."

Scheer said the city may not have forced General Outdoor to take down the sign, but it's obvious the company did not act independently.

Again, that's exactly right. The sign was in no way obscene. Controversy alone, the mere fact that some people disagree with the billboard's message, is not a legitimate reason for a city government to step in and "request" it's removal.

The City of Rancho Cucamonga's Redevelopment Agency website provides the following contact information:

Rancho Cucamonga Redevelopment Agency
10500 Civic Center Drive
Rancho Cucamonga, CA. 91730
1-877-5-Rancho
Director Linda Daniels: Linda.Daniels@CityofRC.us
Whether or not you agree with the opinion expressed by the billboard, there can be no doubt that the interference of Linda Daniels constitutes censorship and a clear breach of free speech. She shouldn't get away with it.

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Non-Belief in America: A Rising Tide of Reason?

I find a recent story in The Wall Street Journal encouraging (hyphal tip to Greater Worcester Humanists for the lead). It talks about the growth and emergence of the secular movement in the USA and the rather humorous, panicky attempts by religious extremists to push back against it.

Atheists Reach Out -- Just Don't Call It Proselytizing

Nonbelievers Think the Time Is Right to Better Organize Their Nonreligion and Swell the Membership; 'Reason's Greetings'

...During the past three years, membership has grown in local and national associations of nonbelievers. Books attacking faith as a delusion shot up best-seller lists. For the first time, the faithless even raised enough funds to hire a congressional lobbyist.

Building on that momentum, nonbelievers have begun a very public campaign to win broad acceptance. On billboards and bus ads, radio commercials and the Internet, atheists are coming forward to declare, quite simply: We're here. And we're just like you...

Not so fast, religious leaders respond. They point out that the vast majority of Americans believe in God. A poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life earlier this year found 71% of American adults are absolutely certain God -- or some sort of universal spirit -- exists, and a further 17% said they were fairly certain. Only 5% said flatly that they don't believe.

Atheists "are talking to a very small slice of the population," said Mathew Staver, a leading Christian conservative and law-school dean. "In some ways, they're really just talking to themselves..."

Of course Staver would say that. Staver says a lot of things that don't make much sense. As far as his being a "law-school dean," that's technically true... if you consider Liberty University a school instead of a religious indoctrination center. That's a hard case to make in light of their doctrinal statement and the statement of belief that all faculty there is required to sign, though.

In this case, Staver is twisting facts to suit his argument when he says "only" 5%. Even if that figure were true, 5% is not an insubstantial number of people. To put it in context, the Pew Forum's most recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey shows that only 1.7% of the population follows Judaism and 1.7% is Mormon. Unless Staver wishes to argue that Jews and Mormons have no impact on the rest of America, that they are "really just talking to themselves," then the same can't be said about nonbelievers. I wonder how these other groups feel about Staver suggesting that they should be ignored?

Secularist groups say their membership began to surge in 2005, when Congress sought to prevent Terri Schiavo's husband from removing her feeding tube. Many new members said they hoped nonbelievers could serve as a counterweight to religious influence in political affairs...

Bingo. As is noted later in this article, the rational community is by no means homogeneous and, by its very nature, is not particularly prone to organizational efforts for that reason. Still, the increasing stranglehold of those who believe that their religion should serve as the blueprint for law over political discourse in this country has served as a goad for nonbelievers to put aside differences and come together to push back against the American shariah movement. We can have rational arguments about those areas of disagreement later; they're just not as important in light of a much greater challenge. To do otherwise is tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Rather than renew old battles, such as the symbolic fight to remove "In God We Trust" from currency, members are mobilizing to repair what they view as breaches of the wall between church and state -- such as federal funding for faith-based charities and teaching of intelligent design in science class. They believe many others sympathize with their views -- but are too timid to commit.

I have to admit that as much as I usually dislike having "In God We Trust" on currency, there's a certain irony to the slogan that I can enjoy during the current economic meltdown.

The new ad campaigns and other public-relations efforts are designed to raise comfort levels about atheism by making the point that nonbelievers are "just as ethical and moral as anyone else," said Lori Lipman Brown, who lobbies Congress on behalf of the Secular Coalition for America.

As Doug Krueger, a philosophy professor in northwest Arkansas, put it: "Step one is for people to know we're not crazy, we're just regular people [who have] perfectly satisfactory lives without believing in God."

There's an irony, too, in the necessity for people who don't believe in an invisible, omnipotent being and its winged, praise-singing minions to demonstrate that they aren't crazy while belief in divine intervention and incorporeal evil spirits is the norm. Sarah Palin can talk about an immaterial divine hand "opening doors" for her to "plow through" and much of America nods its head in agreement that such things happen, but if we contend that no bearded man from a parallel dimension provides opportunities, that we humans are responsible for the state of our own and one another's lives, we're a bunch of misfits!

So the American Humanist Association is spending $42,000 to plaster buses in Washington, D.C., with ads asking: "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake." FreeThoughtAction and its local affiliates have put up billboards all over the country asking: "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." Eight billboards are going up this month in Denver...

Organizers of such efforts generally say they aren't trying to evangelize. Instead, they say their goal is to make the public more comfortable with the concept of atheism and give fellow nonbelievers a sense of community.

In seeking the spotlight, the movement risks a backlash. Some Christians find the billboards deeply offensive, especially at this time of year. In recent weeks, press releases from the religious right have accused atheists of "mocking" and "insulting" Christmas. In rural Chambersburg, Pa., one Christian group responded to an "Imagine No Religion" billboard with a giant sign of their own, asking: "Why Do Atheists Hate America?"

Ah, there's the humorous part. It hearkens back to the days of 2003, when 83% of Americans supported the invasion of Iraq and those of us who thought it a bad idea were confronted with that stupid question, "Why do you hate America?" If any empty-headed question is symbolic of blind faith, of going along with the crowd simply because it's the majority, that's the one. And just as we in that 17% minority spoke our minds then not because we hated America but because we hoped to steer it away from a direction we thought bad for it, those of us in the 5% that Staver insists is talking to itself are trying to change the course of America toward one that leads to greater reason, to policy based on empirical reality rather than wishful thinking, and to a better future in general. It has nothing to do with hating anything, whether it's a religion or a country, and everything to do with simply being rational. If we have to organize to do that, if we have to reach out to others who have no connection to other nonbelievers in their own localities, so be it.

Still, leading activists say nonbelievers tend to be just as wary of organized atheism as they are of organized religion -- making it tough to pull together a cohesive movement.

"A pastor can say to his flock, 'All rise,' and everyone rises. But try that in an atheist meeting," said Marvin Straus, co-founder of an atheist group in Boulder, Colo. "A third of the people will rise. A third will tell you to go to hell. And a third will start arguing....That's why it's hard to say where we're going as a movement."

No kidding! Independent thought doesn't necessarily lead to agreement; it often results in the opposite. Aside from the core idea behind secular thought — that theology shouldn't be the basis for policies that affect the lives of all Americans — there's plenty of disagreement and debate about the particulars and priorities beyond. That very debate, though, is what reason should encourage. It's how a society learns, changes and progresses. If you find ten nonbelievers in a room agreeing with one another about some aspect of social policy, you can bet that they've been in that room for at least a couple of hours and half of them will probably have exhausted their voices. The very fact that we can change our minds is a strength.

If the theocratically-inclined find this offensive, if they believe that their religions are under attack because we put up a billboard expressing dissent against it and offering some other way of thinking, too bad. It's going to keep happening and all indicators point to it becoming more widespread, not less. That's America for you, and that very freedom is one of the reasons that I, and other secularists, believe it's worth inciting the outrage of those who would take it away. It's a risk we're willing to take on behalf of our country.

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Spot the Looney: Ralph Nader and Al Qaeda Say the Same Things

It's time once again to play...

Spot the Looney!

A couple of weeks ago, Ralph Nader used the term "Uncle Tom" to describe Barack Obama. Today comes revelation of a new (still to be fully vetted) audio recording featuring Al Qaeda's #2 lunatic, Ayman al-Zawahri. In it, the fundamentalist blood-sucker inveighs against Obama, calling him a "house negro" and complaining that he isn't enough like Malcolm X.

In an audio message which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, al-Zawahri said that Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X. He called Obama a "house negro."

— Source

Compare this to Nader's June 25, 2008 statements as well:

He wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician. He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

Ralph Nader should feel proud that he has found common ground with Al-Zawahri. Since it should be apparent to even Nader by now that he's never going to win any public office in the US, perhaps he should look into the possibility of becoming Al Qaeda's official consumer protection advocate. I hear some of the car bombs they're using are "unsafe at any speed."

Buh-bye, Ralph, and thanks for playing Spot the Looney!

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Cheney, Gonzalez Indicted in Prison Scandal

Indictments fly: Willacy County DA targets officials
By Emma Perez-Trevino, The Brownsville Herald

A Willacy County grand jury indicted several high-profile public officials on Monday including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr.

The indictment charges Cheney with illegally profiting, by virtue of his office, from $85 million in investments in the Vanguard Group. The group invests in companies that house federal detainees. He also is charged with exerting pressure on how much prisons are paid to house detainees.

For now, Cheney's office did not comment. "I haven't seen the indictment," Cheney's spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said Tuesday, indicating that it would be reviewed.

The indictment further alleges that Gonzales used his position to stop investigations into assaults committed in the private prison managed by the GEO Group in Willacy County.

The GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., was also indicted on murder charges involving the 2001 death of an inmate killed in a Raymondville prison. The indictment accuses GEO of allowing inmates to beat Gregorio De La Rosa Jr., 33, of Laredo, to death with padlocks stuffed into socks...

No! Say it ain't so! Dick Cheney profiting from inhumanity? Alberto Gonzalez tied to torture? This is America. That kind of thing doesn't happen here. Oh, sure, maybe it happens in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and Cuba, and maybe the occasional suspect is extraordinarily rendered to a secret prison or two somewhere in Eastern Europe to undergo procedures that are illegal on US soil, but it couldn't happen here.

Will this go anywhere? Will we ever see a Cheney perp walk? I doubt it. He'd have to be dug out of his undisclosed location first, and those sent to retrieve him would have to take care not to wind up being shot in the face. Still, it's fun to think about.

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Same-Sex Marriages Begin in Connecticut Today: "No Big Deal"

Beginning today, Connecticut joins Massachusetts as the second state in the US to issue licenses for same-sex marriages. Not civil unions or domestic partnerships or some other separate-but-equal concept, but full-on marriages. The overwhelming reaction in the state appears to be that it's no big deal.

Same-Sex Couples Can Obtain Marriage Licenses Today
By Daniela Altimari, The Hartford Courant

Connecticut begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples today, a historic milestone that gays and lesbians will celebrate and social conservatives will grieve.

Many others are likely to respond with a shrug.

"They could do what they want to do," said Karen Dowdell, a 61-year-old Hartford resident who was shopping at Corbins Corner in West Hartford Tuesday morning. "I could care less..."

...Citizens here have long displayed a distaste for the culture wars that have riven so much of the nation...

Same-sex marriage comes to Connecticut more than four years after it arrived in Massachusetts. Those first-in-the-nation gay weddings were met with a burst of hoopla. Reporters from as far as Japan came to cover the story...

Contrast that to Connecticut, where the gay rights coalition Love Makes a Family has received a smattering of calls from international media, "but nothing compared to what they received in Mass.," said Anne Stanback, the group's president...

Now, "at least in New England, it's becoming ... old hat," Stanback said. In fact, she added, for most people in Connecticut, same-sex marriage is "a big yawn..."

A big yawn? Well, yes, and that's exactly what it should be. Why should anyone care about what two consenting adults do in terms of their own relationship? It's nobody's business but their own. How many of us look through the marriage announcements in our local newspapers at all, let alone do so with any sense of either excitement or revulsion? If it weren't for the magical thinking of culture warriors who wish others to accept their strange, as-yet-unexplained notion that the effects of somebody else's marriage extend to the rest of the world, nobody would care about this. Even objections based in religion would, if they were statements of honest faith instead of bigotry given a cosmetic gloss of godliness, culminate with nothing more than a shrug and a "God will sort this out, so I'm not worried" sort of a statement.

See, that's the thing about equality. It's only exciting in the moments prior to and immediately after it is extended to some group that didn't previously have it. After that, it quickly becomes a pretty ho-hum situation. That's a good thing. That's what acceptance looks like. Sure, there may be a few radical racists who feel otherwise, but does anyone get revved up today over the fact that a vote cast by a black person in the USA is weighted equally with one cast by a Caucasian — a situation which was once made otherwise by nothing less than a Constitutional amendment? For the vast majority of people, this is just the way things are and we accept it, even though there were once movements as passionately for and against the arrangement we now take for granted and great celebration when it first changed.

So today, Connecticut will yawn a little and shrug a little and a few more people will enter into a situation that was previously prohibited to them. There will be the little, personal celebrations and a few more people will be happier than they were yesterday. The rest of the people will go on about their lives as if nothing had happened because it's not a big deal.

"No big deal" can be a wonderful phrase sometimes. This, I think, is one of them.

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Worcester: Speaking of Politics

If your one of those people who hasn't had their fill of slicing and dicing the results of this last election and what it means going forward, and you happen to live in or near Worcester, consider coming to the UU church on Holden Street at 7:00 PM tomorrow night. The Greater Worcester Humanists will be holding an open discussion about these topics.

The event is free and open to the public. Moreover, tickets will be on sale for the GWH's Darwin Bicentennial celebration to be held on February 14 at the Tower Hill Botanical Garden in Boylston. Tickets to the event are $45 and include a luncheon, music and a talk by Harvard biologist David Haig.

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Palin 2012? Not Likely: The Evolution of the GOP

As much as the last US elections might have been about change, one thing hasn't changed at all. We are still a nation with only two viable political parties, Republicans and Democrats, and one of those two parties was essentially ground up into something that looks like red sausage. It's now eating itself and, at the same time, trying to figure out what it's going to do next. Personally, I didn't vote for anything or anyone Republican in the last election, nor in the one before that, nor even in the one before that one. The Republicans don't represent anything in which I believe, so I don't have any motivation to vote for them. In fact, they've long since turned themselves into the antithesis of anything for which I would personally stand. They've become the party of social cruelty and culture war. The last election pointed out to them, I think, that there are a lot of people like me out there.

In looking forward, one of the memes that keeps bubbling to the surface is "Palin 2012." Really? This is a good idea? Palin, after all, was brought into the campaign for two reasons. The first was in an attempt to attract support from supposedly disenfranchised Hillary Clinton backers, and all evidence points to her failing miserably in this mission. The second reason was to "energize" the base — the gaggle of socially arch-conservative, religiously motivated and anti-intellectual voters that would normally vote Republican no matter what but for whom McCain himself held little to no appeal. These aren't people who were going to vote for Obama on election day; the danger was that they wouldn't vote at all. Palin's run at vice president was a success on this count, but as we saw, success in this case doesn't look much like victory. Assuming no dramatic swing back to the far right — and the evidence seems to suggest a generational change is at work against such an event — Palin isn't likely to win a nomination in 2012, let alone a general election. This has less to do with her portrayal as a bit of Alaskan fluff by the media. What has become the Republican base is simply shrinking. People are fed up with the fostering of a divided society whose leaders are terrified by progress and insistent upon moral absolutes in all things, that demands absolute freedom for markets even as it erodes the liberty of individuals.

What, then, might be the future of this party? If it doesn't lie with Sarah Palin and her "you betcha, gosh darn golly Joe Sixpack drill baby drill and buy your own damned rape kit" ideologies, then who might carry the torch forward?

We're beginning to see some clues, particularly from the coasts — places in which Republicans haven't been doing very well at carrying national elections for the past couple of cycles and which are generally written off and derided by their base. The fact is, though, that these are also places with the weight of population in their favor, ignored at the peril of ever having influence in politics. The rigidly dogmatic social stances of the GOP as it has been — the GOP of the base — is likely going to have to change if they're going to play in such places as a national party. For instance, even though Proposition 8 passed in California and gay marriage got banned, the fact is that a margin of about 20 points in a 2000 attempt at banning it has shrunk to one of only 5 points this time around. The trend there is clearly, powerfully, away from unreasoning traditionalism and toward increasing tolerance of diversity.

We'll take our first clue from the Governator, California's own Arnold Schwarzenegger. In today's LA Times, Schwarzenegger had this to say about Proposition 8's passage:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday expressed hope that the California Supreme Court would overturn Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage...

Schwarzenegger publicly opposed Proposition 8, which amends the state Constitution to declare that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

On Sunday, he urged backers of gay marriage to follow the lesson he learned as a bodybuilder trying to lift weights that were too heavy for him at first. "I learned that you should never ever give up. . . . They should never give up. They should be on it and on it until they get it done."

— Source

This is the same Ahnold who had Republicans so excited not long ago that there was talk of amending the US Constitution to allow for citizens not born in the United States to become President for the first time in our history. Has the confluence of these messages sunk in yet, one wonders, with whatever passes for GOP leadership? Touting Palin and similar far-right candidates might play well in particular congressional districts and maybe in population-poor places like Oklahoma and Wyoming, but on the national level it's a sure path to failure.

A second clue comes from the East Coast, particularly from New England. In the Boston Globe, Republican columnist James Peyser talks about "How New England's Republicans Can Hit Restart":

...The number of Massachusetts Republicans in the US Congress remains stuck at zero. The party's US Senate candidate polled less than a third of the votes, winning only one town in the entire state. Come January, there will be not a single New England Republican in the US House of Representatives...

The underlying problem for Republicans is the absence of a compelling conservative vision for the future that is aligned with New England's more tolerant and civic-minded political sensibilities...

Today's conservative agenda includes a censorious social policy that panders to the Christian right, a guns and butter fiscal policy that would make Lyndon Johnson blush, and a Wilsonian foreign policy that is increasingly untethered from the national interest...

A new Republican vision should focus squarely on the future, with a sense of hope for what lies ahead. Any conservatism worthy of the name honors tradition. But there is all the difference in the world between careful stewardship of our heritage and rigid traditionalism... Unfortunately, the loudest voices of conservatism on the national stage today are more likely to bemoan America's decline than to praise its potential. They are also increasingly known for their resistance to science, technology, and change. This rejection of hope and progress runs against the grain of the American spirit and is a formula for even more electoral defeats...

— Source

In short, the religious moral absolutists, the Luddites and Creationists, the culture warriors, the Palin/Limbaugh/Coulter far-right wing of the GOP needs to be jettisoned if there's going to be a nationally viable GOP at all. What makes America great, and what excites the electorate, isn't feverish clinging to 18^th century absolutism, it's the looking forward to the future, the change, the advancement. It's optimism, not fear. It's opening up the culture to the next leap in its evolution, not huddling in our caves and hoping that the thunder god doesn't hurl lightning bolts down upon our miserable heads. The base is not enough anymore, and good riddance to its dominance.

I've never been one to be in favor of a political system that provides a realistic choice between only two parties. When push comes to shove, I would like very much to see a more parliamentarian system in which there are numerous parties spanning the political spectrum that must forge compromises and alliances in order for government to function. In my ideal world, America would have at least a dozen parties from which voters could choose and complete dominance by any one party would be a vanishingly rare event. Such a system, I think, would better insure that all voices were heard and create better representation for all of us, wherever we might fall across the spectrum. But that's an ideal world that seems incredibly unlikely to come into existence within the lifetime of anyone reading this. It would seem that, for the foreseeable future, we will continue to have only one more party than a one-party state. If Republicans want to preserve even that much diversity, though, it's incumbent upon them to start becoming less ideological and more representative.

The dinosaurs of the extreme right wing aren't going to be much of a part of this sort of outcome, unfortunately for them but much to the joy of those of us who are sick and tired of seeing the populace turned against itself. The purveyors of fear and ignorance are due for a return back to the fringe of political discourse which, in truth, is where they've always belonged. It is in our own best national interest as Americans that the GOP does this in the course of expanding its appeal and becoming a national party. It will help insure that we all do better, that our country does better, that we move forward into something like a hopeful future — even if we as individuals still disagree with some of the party's new platform enough not to vote for them.

Can the GOP run Palin in 2012? Absolutely. It's their prerogative to do so if they wish. Anyone can go to the dance and choose to be a wallflower if they so desire. If they want to move forward and so move the nation forward, though, they'd be well-advised to listen attentively to other voices within their own party. The message coming from the coasts, delivered by people like Schwarzenegger and Peyser, is loud and clear. If the national GOP doesn't want to hear it, if they prefer to stick their fingers in their ears and keep doing the same things that have resulted in the results of the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, then the electorate is also free to shake its collective head and hope that the GOP enjoys its exile in Oklahoma.

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The George W. Bush Freedom Liberry and Family Fun Center

Don't think for a minute that The Decider is being a lazy lame duck these days. The San Francisco Chronicle's Mark Fiore breaks the story of Dubya's next big project: the George W. Bush Freedom Liberry and Family Fun Center!

Looks like we're still in for quite a ride!

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Ban on Stem Cell Line Development May End

I was in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad on the day that Dubya came on the airwaves and announced that the development of new stem cell lines was to be banned in the United States. He did this by executive order, a sort of edict open to presidents that Bush exploited to an extent unprecedented in American history. In any case, I remember where I was when the Dubya delivered his proclamation because it was a big deal to me at the time. It still is.

President-elect Barack Obama's transition chief said Sunday the incoming administration is looking to reverse President George W. Bush's executive orders on stem cell research...

Bush has limited federal spending on stem cell research, a position championed by opponents of abortion rights. Obama has supported the research in an effort to find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's...

— Source

It comes as good news, then, that Dubya's executive order is under review by the incoming administration. While it's not a done deal yet, Obama has stated in the past that he favored expanding stem cell research. If he comes through and reverses the standing executive order after taking office, the result could well be a boon not only to the treatment of injury and disease in the long run, but to American competitiveness in biotechnology in the short run. We've been losing out on both of these fronts for the sake of preserving discarded, frozen embryos for seven years now. Luckily, the research has continued in other countries and much of it is a matter of published record.

Change may really be coming. Whether this change will amount to an increase in funding for research limited to working on the few permissible (and far from the best) stem cell lines allowed under the Bush restrictions, or whether there will be the opportunity for the development of new stem cell lines is unclear to me. I suspect it will be the latter, though, if the incoming administration is honestly dedicated to letting research in the area advance.

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Ralph Nader Reveals His Racism Yet Again

During the course of the contest for the presidency now ended, I was pleasantly surprised to note the absence of Ann Coulter from the airwaves. Coulter's slide into obscurity since the publication of her paranoid and bizarre screed, Godless, is one of the things that have given me some hope that America may be returning to reason and repudiating the visceral hatred of the radical right.

Leave it to Ralph Nader to remind us, in Coulter's absence, that old-fashioned racism and bigotry is still very much alive and isn't the exclusive domain of wingnutters. In a quote from Nader discussed in an election night interview on Fox News, Nader accused Barack Obama of being an "Uncle Tom" in his relationship to corporate interests.

Whether or not one agrees with the assertion that Obama is too accommodating to big business, clearly the assertion itself could be expressed without one of the most incendiary references to his race possible. In fact, the unapologetic Nader has gone out of his way to include the slur in his statement. What does it mean, after all, to ask whether Obama would be an "Uncle Sam" in the first place? Nader could simply have said that Obama was misrepresenting himself; there was no reason to do this.

Still, Nader has a long history now of making racist statements. Some prior instances of this have been collected here, including such gems as:

There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American," Nader said. "Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white?

The assertion that Obama's ethnicity should make him predisposed to speaking a certain way and cause him to focus on a particular set of issues or to hold to some specific set of priorities is, without question, utterly racist. Obama, just like any other person in this country, is free to think about things in whatever way he wishes, to speak however he thinks best, and to prioritize things in whatever way he desires. The whole point of equality is that everyone enjoys the same freedoms and the rest of us get to agree or disagree without consideration of the coincidence of skin color. Clearly, Nader disagrees with Martin Luther King's contention that we should judge people based on the content of their character, not on the color of their skin.

I've previously made note of Nader's racist tendencies. This latest fuselade is in itself no longer surprising, just revolting. That it took an interviewer on Fox News, of all places, to call Nader out on his garbage should be an embarrassment to anyone who has ever put stock in the man enough to have even considered voting for him. At this point, Nader is no longer due any respect whatsoever from anyone at all. He should be cast onto the rubbish heap of history, right next to Ann Coulter.

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First Wednesday in November: Obama Wins

In my recently less-than-sporadic efforts to bring you the latest news, I'm sure I'll be the first to mention that Barack Obama won the election and will be the next president. I'm glad for this. The alternative was clearly a very poor one and, of course, we're all aware by now about the historic context of his victory. This is big stuff, a sea-change, a climax in a struggle that began long before my own ancestors ever arrived in America.

I have followed the election closely for these past couple of months, even though I haven't had time to write about it. I have been all too aware of the hatred and panic, as well, that certain elements of our society have expressed over the impending turn in US history as my email box was besieged by dire and dirty "warnings" from Don Wildmon's American Family Association and their nethermost organ, OneNewsNow. To hear them tell it, we are all about to be swept up in a vast wave of stoned, gay, incestuous prostitutes in leather chaps, bearing pitchforks and crucifixes on the soles of their Birkenstocks. Their weather report, now that Obama has been elected, calls for periods of void-swallowing darkness followed by a rain of brimstone with a 30% chance of pale horses storming through the streets of America. In truth, or at least we need all hope, that these are the final fervent prayers and feverish visions of small people with tiny and malign minds, the kind that are ultimately drowned in the eddying currents of human progress.

In all honesty, one of the things that I most look forward to now that the election has been conducted and the ballots tallied is the impending absence of the whiny, shrill, nasal sound of Sarah Palin. I look forward, too, to the absence of scientific research being held up by the losing side every time they wanted to bring up an example of "earmarks" or "pork." Whether they understood basic research or not, the fact that McCain and Palin cited research into population genetic structure or molecular biology or a new projector for a planetarium — a place of science education — did not exactly endear them to this researcher. Had they won, I had visions of funding for research not entirely unlike my own simply vanishing in a puff of ignorance. They will not have the chance to do this, it seems. I count myself and my colleagues fortunate in this regard.

Aside from the historical coincidence (albeit an important one) of his ancestry, we have instead gotten a president elect who, as far as I can discern, is one of the most intelligent and well-educated in our history, and certainly in my lifetime. There are those to whom such qualifications make him, ironically, a member of the elite which, they believe, is a bad thing. There are those who will still judge the fitness of their governmental leadership on the basis of how much they'd like to have a beer with them, and those people will not shut up and go away based simply on the fact that their strange criterion has been repudiated by the electorate. On the other hand, I think that I would enjoy a beer with Barack. I would be very interested in sitting in a conversation with him without any beverages whatsoever, for that matter. We're not too far apart in age, after all, and more to the point I could easily envision a long and deep discussion of political and general philosophy with him. I felt no such thing in regard to McCain, certainly never have for Dubya, and I fear that were beer present during a one-on-one conversation with Palin, I might have sprayed it through my nose soon after she began wagging her chin. That would be rude, and I prefer not to be impolite when at all possible. The likelihood of any of this happening is nil, of course. I'm just Joe the Bio Grad Student and Obama has a government to run... and I have tarsomeres to measure. Still, my sense is that Obama gets it. He understands that the basic research of ten and twenty years ago is the technology of the present, and that once the pipeline empties it takes a long time to fill back up. America has dodged a bullet in a manner of which few people will ever be aware. It was a bullet aimed at our brain and the majority of my fellow Americans were smart enough to duck. Good for us.

So here we are on the first Wednesday in November. In about 60 days, ShrubCo at last begins its well-deserved dissolution and, we can be sure, a new track will be charted. We live in interesting times. Obama will need to exercise what I can only describe as greatness at a time when greatness may at best suffice only to staunch our collective bleeding as a nation. Anything less than greatness, anything short of a full application of his capacity to reason, to plan, to anticipate, is likely to result in a single term. Considering the smoking craters left by ShrubCo across our societal landscape, if Obama doesn't have greatness in him, it follows that we will need to find someone who does in four years' time. I am hopeful for now; the possibilities are endless and in most ways we have nowhere to go but up. Still, I am also a pragmatist, even in my idealism. I will say the same thing now to myself (and those who have read this far) that I said eight years ago: Let's see what this guy can do.

Having said all this, I do think it is important that Obama begin reaching out to the other side after this long and often fear-mongering contest. One way in which he could do this, I think, is to offer John McCain an appointment in his cabinet. As much as I loathe some of the tactics, even what passed for a strategy, in the campaign now ended, McCain should be given the benefit of the doubt and it should be recalled that he was not some fiend before the Ring of Power that was his quest for the presidency turned his Smeagle into our Gollum. McCain's strength, it has been said, was in foreign policy. He might be well-employed as a Secretary of Defense. Even making the offer would help to heal the divisions that were pried wide open in these past months. This might have another, even more important, effect in the near future.

Obama is in a good position, I think, to have an impact on the upcoming reformulation of the Republican Party. I believe that one thing that the GOP will learn from this election is that the base is not enough and, indeed, the very constituencies that make up what they have come to consider their base are, in fact, a polarizing power that precludes their having the support of more reality-based Americans. In the end, after all, McCain had to distance himself from Ted Hagee every bit as much as he sought to distance himself from George Bush. Obama could drive that point home with a few key appointments, I think. Few things could be healthier for this country, even for this civilization, than the showing of the door to the Dominionists and Millennialists by the party over which they have exercised enough influence to pry perilously loose from the reality of American life. We saw the base (and base they were!) "energized" by Sarah Palin, and we saw the GOP lose big. Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan have recently said the same thing, so I don't think this idea is too radical. It's time to disentangle that which was supposed to be the party of fiscal conservatism from the business of attempts to legislate morality. Giving Americans a choice of a party in which these two things are no longer intricately wound together will be a boon for all of us, even if we are not ourselves fiscal conservatives.

Which brings me, sadly, to the thing arising from this election that most drags upon my spirit this morning. It appears that Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriage in California, is going to pass by a narrow margin. It is for this reason that I prefaced this long and much overdue entry with the point that Obama's win marks a climax in a long struggle but not the climax. Just as there will continue to be intolerance to people of African ancestry in places in America, even though one will be our next President, just so we should keep in mind that others will still be marginalized as well. Even though they lost the Presidential election of 2008, those small-minded busybodies determined to stick their noses in everyone else's crotches as a test for righteousness are still very much with us and they may very well win this victory, as short-lived as it is likely to turn out, on the West Coast of the United States. They are, and will continue to be, dedicated to a "culture war" in which our own culture makes war upon itself. They will continue to seek to do harm in the name of nothing more than personal belief and preference.

They will be with us, I am sorry to say, for many years to come.

It took nearly 400 years for people somewhat like the man we have just elected President to get the right to self-determination, the right to own property, the right to vote as a whole human being (and not just some fraction thereof), and to marry whomever they liked. It took generations to get to this point, and it took sacrifice and struggle and, yes, the deaths of some very good people brought about by some of the worst people who opposed them. This is the course, too, that gay equality advocates have faced. It was once a crime punishable by death to prefer sexual friction with a member of one's own gender. It is not so now. As long as there are people courageous enough to speak out, progress will continue and the tiny, malign minds will, in the end, be swept away by the current of human history once again.

The leather chaps are, of course, optional.

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American LL: Citizenship Day 2008 at Fenway Park

LL officially became a US citizen yesterday at Citizenship Day 2008, which took place at Fenway Park. Just over 3,000 other immigrants did as well. The event was huge, disorganized and took more than five hours to complete. It included lots of canned patriotism, not the least of which was a videotaped message from Dubya congratulating the newly-minted Americans on having achieved citizenship — inexplicably shown before the oath was administered. The event also included lots of religious hoo-hah; god bless this and that and the other thing. The event was also a great advertising opportunity for the Red Sox. Even as attendees were being shown patriotic imagery and having certain bits of the Constitution explained incorrectly to them (since when does the second amendment guarantee a right of self-defense with firearms? My copy of the Constitution only has a bit about a "well-regulated militia."), Red Sox marketing was passing out "Red Sox Nation" bracelets, and more than one speaker equated being a Red Sox fan with being a good American. No, really.

For me, there was a certain irony to the repeated advising of the new citizens to get involved and learn English and such. LL speaks and writes English better than the majority of people born in this country and she's certainly more involved with the community than most, including myself.

Nonetheless, it was a big ritual and now LL can cast a vote against the religious right wackos and incompetents in the next election, a big part of why she wanted to go through this whole trial in the first place. So, here are some photos.

	Citizenship: It's over there to your left.
	Crowd shot; line up over here. No, line up over there. "If you don't stand behind me, you don't get to be a citizen." The first practical lesson in American civics: shut up, take out your paperwork and get in line. Everyone being sworn in was instructed to show up at the ballpark at the same time and funneled in through a single gate, even though they had "appointments" at three different times. Most of these people don't speak English as their primary language. The result was a great deal of confusion and consternation. You can see the many happy, smiling faces in which this resulted in this shot.
	The notices everyone received in the mail told them to report to Gate D for the ceremony, but Gate D was closed and the crowd was told to go to Gate B instead upon arrival. Is this what they mean by "mass migration?"
	In case you didn't know which ballpark you were at, the sign on the Jumbotron was there to remind you, along with a rotating Red Sox logo. There were many reminders throughout the day of how the Red Sox are patriotic. Be a Red Sox fan... be a Red Sox fan... did we mention that you should be a Red Sox fan? Nobody leaves the stadium until they pledge allegiance to the Red Sox, goddamit.
	Once we entered the stadium, those who were being naturalized and their guests were separated into two groups. The immigrants were sent to the left, the guests to the right. The immigrants were tagged with bracelets and nobody lacking such a bracelet was allowed into the half of the stadium where the immigrants were seated... for two hours before the ceremony actually began. The immigrants were, however, allowed to visit their guests in the other half of the stadium. Here, LL makes her way over to sit with me since we were both bored out of our skull as we sat there waiting for something to happen. She later went to the concession stand and brought me food, since there was a concession on the immigrant side of the park and we were told that we shouldn't go back out into the hallway due to problems checking people in. I couldn't get to the concessions until after the ceremony. All in all, it was a zoo!
	Still, LL and I made the best of the situation. That's not saying much... our butts were already going numb by the time this shot was taken. The Venezualan kid sitting behind me was falling asleep. I wouldn't have missed this for anything, though, since it's a marker in LL's life. Even if it was five hours of ritual nonsense that could have been done with a five minute oath and a piece of paper.
	On command, wave those flags! These people aren't immigrants; this is in the guest section. Many tiny cameras were also present. The flags themselves were made in China.
	The very first photo of LL as an American citizen. She looks more American in this shot, doesn't she? The certificate says that she's one of us now (Gooble gobble gooble gobble, one of us... one of us...) As a waitress told her when we went for dinner at the Eastern Standard when LL told her she'd been born in Lebanon, "Welcome to our side." I hadn't known that LL was on the other side previously! But she's 'merkin now.
	The good news: George Dubya Bush's signature didn't appear on the certificate. Some guy from Homeland Security's signature was on it instead, I think. Neither LL nor I had ever heard of him before. We arrived at the stadium at 10:30 AM. It was 3:30 PM when I took this shot. I think it shows in LL"s face here. Still, the paper says she's 'merkin now and, thankfully, doesn't also say that she's a Red Sox fan. I'm sure that part was just an oversight.
	LL washes her hands as an American for the first time. The hand sanitizer she used was made in China.
	LL's first bloody mary... as an American. Nice eyes.
	LL calls her mom in Lebanon for the first time as an American. She still spoke that funny language that's nothing like English, so maybe the waitress was wrong about her being on "our side" now. I'll have to keep an eye on her for the next lifetime or so.
	LL's first raw oyster as an American. The oyster came from Duxbury, MA and not, thankfully, from China. She's eating it at the Eastern Standard restaurant in Boston, which is probably good but man, overpriced. A dozen oysters goes for about $30! A bucket of three dozen goes for $18 in Florida. You do the math. Welcome to America! Still, after the loooooong day, all we wanted were some oysters and a couple of drinks. We didn't even bother checking the menu beforehand. We only went to Eastern Standard because their awning says "oysters" right on the thing.
	On the train from Boston to Worcester; does LL look tired? We finally got home just after 8:00. LL is glad this whole citizenship-seeking song-and-dance is over, as am I. If she had to fill out one more stupid form asking whether she was selling "marihuana" (good morning, 1933!) or working as a prostitute... it wouldn't have been pretty. Best question on the forms? "Have you ever given false testimony." Why even bother asking? If you've given it before, why wouldn't you just give it again?

So, yep, LL is officially American now. She'll always be a Lebaneezer to me, though.

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When Civilizations Die

This is what a civilization in its death throes looks like:

Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo.>
This is the future imagined by John McCain and Sarah Palin.

This is bad. This is very, very bad.

I'd rather vote for Cthulhu.

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Let the Eagle Soar: John Ashcroft in Worcester

Mark your calendars now, Wormtowners! Former Attorney General John Ashcroft is coming to town. He'll be speaking (and who knows, maybe singing) at the College of the Holy Cross's Hanify-Howland Lecture in the Hogan Ballroom at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 16.

Freebird!

In honor of his appearance, somebody's going to throw a tarp over Turtle Boy. Also, all sales of pies, eggs and overripe tomatoes are banned in Worcester until further notice.

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Obligatory McCain-Palin Update

I haven't said anything about John McCain's VP pick yet, and after having read and heard a number of sources across the political spectrum talking about the subject, I find myself without much to say on the matter.

Puzzling it all together, Palin appears to be about as valuable in terms of political capital as Dan Quayle. In fact, whereas Quayle was an almost comedic figure — a sort of dumbed-down cartoon character — Palin brings the added baggage of a dictatorial management history in her time in public office. She's not only tremendously ignorant and essentially a primitivist, her history speaks of maleficence and a marked lack of concern for others. It's riddled with personal vendettas and bad decisions. If Dan Quayle, Scarface and Ted Nugent had a love child, it would be Sarah Palin.

This shouldn't be too surprising, though, because McCain reminds me not as much of the younger Bush as of the senior, although also with a vindictive nature. McCain also lacks vision and shows marked problems with being able to predict the impact of his own actions. I think the choice of Palin as running mate is nothing more than another example of yoga master McCain ramping up for his self-immolation sometime in the next month or so. At this point, I can almost hear the bomb whistling as it falls through the October sky.

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A Bit of How the Religious Right Undermines American Rights

It may seem a small thing, but a recent letter to the editor in The Indianapolis Star makes for a pretty good demonstration of the sort of pretzel logic that the religious right employs in undermining all other civil liberties in the name of their strange version of religious freedom. It has to do with the objections voiced by a columnist to the two major party presidential candidates having their first almost-debate on a stage hosted by a preacher.

...Parker remarked on the recent interview of Barack Obama and John McCain by an evangelical minister. She termed this interview "supremely wrong" and "un-American." She opinioned that "the loser was America." She felt that it was odd for the candidates to talk to a preacher in a public forum about their positions on evil and their relationship with Jesus Christ. She stated that they should not have been asked.

If it is wrong for Christians to ascertain a candidate's position with respect to his religion, then why is it perfectly appropriate for homosexuals, abortionists, environmentalists, social advocates, labor unions, immigrants, women's rights groups and a few dozen similar groups to ask candidates to clarify their positions relative to their interests?

— Norm Ward, "'Jesus' question just as fair as other topics"
The Indianapolis Star, 8/30/08

The implicit assertion here is that same tired old assertion that religion equates with morality and that being a member of a religion means that the individual in question must hold to a particular moral code. In America, especially in the last 15 years or so, "religion" means Christianity. I guarantee that the bulk of Americans would not vote for a candidate who asserted membership in a religion other than Christianity at Warren's Saddleback Church. In fact, one of the smears that has been targeted at Obama from the outset is that he's a secret Muslim. If the criterion was religious belief in general (which itself is already unconstitutional), and not a particular religion, that wouldn't be a useful tactic against a candidate in the first place.

That cuts to the very heart of the matter as to why the column to which letter-writer Norm Ward objects was written in the first place. Paragraph 3 of Article VI of the US Constitution states:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

The reason that it is permissible, then, to question a candidate about any number of issues but that some of us out here on the rational fringe of America find it unacceptable to ask candidates explicit questions about their religious beliefs is that doing so constitutes precisely what Article VI prohibits. Such questions are not meant to determine the moral character of the person being so interrogated; that could be done by asking questions about moral views directly. Asking them about belief in Jesus or their understanding of Biblical texts, however, are attempts to explore purely religious issues. Suppose you ask someone whether they believe in Jesus and that person says that they do. What does that tell us about the content of their character?

It tells us nothing. People who express belief in Biblical religion commit murder, steal and rape. The very fact, then, that these candidates chose to appear in a forum hosted by an expressly religious organization and be questioned by a religious figure should throw up a red flag to anyone concerned with preventing American elections from turning into piety competitions.

The reason, moreover, that it's just fine for women's rights groups, immigration advocates, gay rights advocates or, indeed, representatives from the NRA to ask candidates to clarify their positions on issues of interest to those groups is that none of those groups are religious in nature. They may have religious members, certainly, but the charter of these groups requires adherence to no particular religious doctrine. Christians, Jews and atheists may all join the NRA or NOW. Can the same be said for the membership of Saddleback Church? Of course not; it's an expressly and purely religious organization that requires belief in a particular doctrine of faith from its membership.

Individuals like Norm Ward attempt to get around this simple difference by making everything a religious issue. They demand not only that morality be a subset of doctrinal consideration, but that everything else be viewed in terms of this doctrine from the outset. Thus, gay rights and maternity leave are cast as moral issues which, in turn, are (to their minds) religious in nature. They simply redefine "religion" as "morality," and so belief in their religion becomes the overriding issue and they can attempt the entirely specious argument that a question about the nature of evil or belief in a biblical personage isn't a religious test but a moral one. Disbelief in Jesus is an indicator to this worldview of an absence of morality. Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, then, are morally unfit to be President of the United States as opposed to failing a religious litmus test. That, they still know in some cloudy remnant of the rational mind, is still prohibited by the Constitution.

We should be concerned about not only the failings of these two candidates in terms of this abrogation of Constitutional principle (and perhaps even moreso with Obama than McCain, as Obama has practiced Constitutional law), but about the failing of the American people to see through this charade. Whatever else we may say about the Constitution, however much respect each of us has for the principles it embodies, we should also keep in mind that it's ultimately just text. It's only a piece of paper that has the meaning that the people and the government assign to it. Like any old text, it can be re-interpreted to suit the prevailing philosophy of the time. Inconvenient parts can even be ignored entirely if enough people are willing to do so. Ultimately, it's not impossible to make fundamental and fundamentalist changes to it if the will to do so exists. For instance, the third paragraph of Article VI could be stricken entirely and a religious test explicitly allowed, even endorsed or mandated. If the political, and in this case theocratic, will exists, it could happen.

For those of us who don't think that a full merger of church and state would be a desirable situation, such an outcome would be an abomination and the destruction of the very principles that underpin American democracy. For those who assert that America is a Christian country, however, it's the very reason that they have any involvement in politics at all. The latter group is the one to which McCain and Obama catered by their performances at Saddleback without objection to questions explicitly about religious beliefs, and it is why the voices in the rational wilderness express their dissent toward the whole circus.

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AFA vs. Hallmark: Gay Marriage Greeting Card Flap Illustrates Fundamentalist Stupidity

It really makes my day when I receive a "Dear Manmeat" letter from Don Wildmon, and the one I received yesterday afternoon was a particularly fun one. The American Family Association is in a lather because Hallmark has started selling greeting cards for same-sex marriages. Now, the friends of gay people can send the same sort of overpriced cardboard bits of sentiment that the friends of straight people can send. The horror!

Hallmark defends gay marriage cards - Urge your local Hallmark store to refuse to carry them

Take Action!
Urge your local Hallmark store owner to join others in refusing to carry Hallmark gay marriage cards in their stores.

You can find your local Hallmark store contact information here. [Note: I have changed the link to one directly to Hallmark; the one in the email tracks the clickthrough to give the AFA numbers it can claim as people objecting to Hallmark's policy even if the person clicking supports Hallmark's decision.]

Please be polite, but firm when you contact your local store.

August 25, 2008
Dear Manmeat,

Hallmark is reinforcing their decision to carry gay marriage cards with a message to supporters of traditional marriage – buzz off!

According to their website, corporate emails, and in response to phone calls, Hallmark is telling those who contact the company it will carry “cards that use specific language and images appropriate for same-sex wedding ceremonies.”

Same sex marriage is not recognized in 48 states, but Hallmark has chosen to become a corporate advocate in advancing homosexual marriage.

However, some local Hallmark store owners are refusing to carry them. Earlier this week, Jordan's Hallmark, which owns seven Hallmark Gold Crown stores in Idaho, announced its stores will not carry gay marriage cards in their stores.

Thank you for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy of support, would you consider making a small tax-deductible contribution to help us continue?

Sincerely,



Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

Ah, the dumbness, how shall I count the ways?

Let's start with the assertion that Hallmark shouldn't sell gay marriage cards because same-sex marriages aren't recognized in 48 states. How many states recognize bar mitzvahs with legislation that recognizes 13 year old boys as adults? And the survey says... zero. Precisely no states consider thirteen year olds as something other than minors, despite the fact that Jewish religious custom proclaims them to be adults. Hallmark had better stop selling greeting cards for that occasion. The same number of states also recognize officially your daughter's third birthday, your wedding anniversary, or the fact that your nephew got an A in math last year. In short, whether or not a given state has a law recognizing something is absolutely meaningless in this context. Hallmark is in the business of selling greeting cards, not of marking the passage of laws.

But let's pretend for a moment that Hallmark only sells greeting cards for occasions that are sanctioned by state laws. If this were the case, then Hallmark would sell same-sex marriage cards only in states where such unions were recognized, which is only a few. Not the two states which this latest "Dear Manmeat" letter asserts, however, but fourteen states in all which recognize gay marriage in some form or another, whether it is called "marriage" or "civil union" with the same rights as different-sex marriage or with some more limited number of rights. That's nearly a quarter of all the United States; a redundant statement to make, I know, but since the AFA's Grand Poobah appears incapable of distinguishing between two and fourteen, we shouldn't take for granted that he knows how many states there are.

But let's sink deeper into the AFA's fantasy world and pretend that there really are only two states — Massachusetts and California — that recognize gay marriage in some form. Should Hallmark not sell appropriate greeting cards for gay weddings in the other 48 states? Well, I don't know. Do people sometimes mail cards from one state to another? Hmmmm... anybody have statistics? This one's a real head-scratcher. I mean, it's not like someone living in New Mexico might have a gay friend in Massachusetts, right? Nobody from Florida could possibly know anyone in California! Surely, God has commanded that there shall be no mixing between states upon penalty of smiting.

Perhaps the most shocking news to Wildmon and Co. might be that (gasp) same-sex weddings take place even in states where gay marriages aren't recognized. Believe it or not, for a lot of people who get married, the main thing is commitment to one another, not the question of legal status. The fact that there are states heartless enough to deny the right of one human being to sit at the hospital bedside of a sick or dying loved one notwithstanding, people who happen to be of the same biological gender still have ceremonies to declare their mutual commitment in places that don't provide legal recognition of that commitment. Note that none of Hallmark's cards, for this or any other occasion, include phrases like "Congratulations on the government recognition of your relationship." Greeting cards mark personal occasions, not changes in legal status.

Case in point: a few years ago, two gay friends of mine and LL's had a wedding ceremony and reception in St. Petersburg, Florida. Florida doesn't recognize same-sex marriage, and their official civil union had actually taken place in Vermont. They did that in full knowledge of the fact that they would not have anything like the rights and privileges of other married couples when they returned to Florida... but they did it anyhow, as a statement to one another. As the majority of this couple's friends and family lived in America's nethermost realm, however, they also had a purely symbolic ceremony and reception when they got back home. Finding an appropriate greeting card for the occasion was a matter of some deliberation, and having had cards like those Hallmark now sells at that time would have been quite helpful. So, whether Florida had or had not recognized the legal status of this couple at the time, I would have bought such a card to go along with the very nice picnic set that LL and I gave them as a wedding present. You see, there's a difference between a committed relationship, a marriage and a wedding. I don't suppose that a bunch of dunces like the AFA, who apparently can't even count up to 14 successfully, would understand a concept as abstract as that.

So if Hallmark is really telling the AFA's deluded Paul Reveres, galloping clumsily through our cultural countryside and shouting their fool heads off that "The homos are coming! The homos are coming!", to "buzz off," then all I can do is mark the fact that they've made the right decision in this instance. I would have used a different four-letter word than "buzz," and it's quite possible that Hallmark did, too. The AFA's membership likes to pretend that they're too timid to use the more appropriate word "fuck" for "buzz," although any of us who have been on the receiving end of a fundienutter's vitriol knows what kind of language they really use when they think nobody's looking (and they can always pray for forgiveness, which they "know" they'll get... which is a big part of what makes them such immense pricks in the first place).

And about the graphics that accompanied today's daily dose of Donald Wildmon's "meanmeat" fantasy life; am I the only one confused by this? Is an image of two tuxedos too horrible to contemplate? Is that all it takes to shock the flock? Is the email implying with the second graphic that the 12 apostles were involved in gay marriages? I mean, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were, and I wouldn't think less of them if it were the case that John had jammed his joystick up James. It's hard to think less of something than not at all. Nonetheless, I'm a bit surprised that Don Wildmon would be promulgating that sort of thing as historical fact. Then again, I was a bit surprised when I got an email from him asking me to make his dreams come true on a Saturday night in March, too.

In the end, like most of these moon-faced assassins of joy, Wildmon just needs reassurance that even with gay people getting married, he'll someday find the right man to fulfill his failingly-suppressed needs. He's got the same basic problem that all Christian literalists have. They've signed on to a cult that, on the one hand, is filled to the rafters with homoerotic imagery and on the other hand tells them to disregard the attraction they feel toward it, a conflict sloppily tied up with the promise that if they can just wait for it long enough that they'll get to sit back and watch the pain they've inflicted upon themselves all their lives acted out as sadistic fantasy by stern judges and bloodthirsty horsemen who will torture and behead those who actually enjoyed life. Without the sadism of the apocalyptic vision, which they demand we all believe is a truth rather than the product of asceticism driven to the point of hallucinatory madness, none of this pays off in the end. It is only through the infliction of suffering upon the other that they can derive meaning from the torture they inflict upon themselves.

Attacking greeting cards is no big deal when you're determined to spend eternity lending a hand at driving red-hot pokers into the eye sockets of real people, after all.

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