The Journal of Left of Center Thinking :: August 21, 2005 - August 27, 2005

Democratic Interviews

This is pretty funny.

The Gays and the Judge

Chris is saying he can’t get behind HRC’s opposition to the Robert’s nomination. He basis part of this on the fact that the gay groups seem to focus on some non-gay issues (like freedom of choice and religious freedoms).

I think, however, he’s being a little harsh. Clearly, the groups have gone to great lengths to make Roberts seem worse than he might be. The ‘French Fry’ case, being a good example of how you can twist anything to make someone look bad.

Chris, however, claims that there isn’t any evidence that Roberts won’t be fair and “fairly and faithfully interpret the applicable laws relating to LGBT equality”. That’s not true. Roberts has written a lot about the right to privacy, which is a cornerstone of gay rights cases like Romer and Lawrence. (As further illustrated by Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence).

There is, of course, a paradox presented here. If he is to be judged for the work he did, then he clearly has both pro-gay rights and hostile-gay rights credentials. However, as I have said in the past, I think his work as part of the Reagan administration is far more telling of his person beliefs than his work on Romer. Simply due to the politics involved in getting an appointment within a conservative republican administration as compared to being asked by his firm to help another lawyer to help prepare (not to mention his ‘forgetting’ he was a federalist member).

Clearly, it’s unfortunate that we don’t have much more to rely on, in terms of actual decisions by Roberts, but that too is a red flag. Ultimately, you have to ask yourself what kind of person Bush hopes Roberts will be. I don’t think Bush wants to put an O’Connor on the bench, he wants a Scalia (and has said so publicly). Clearly, that’s what he thinks he has in terms of Roberts.

Finally, I think looking at the purpose of the various gay groups is important. Gay groups have (sometimes rightly) been criticized for being too associated with the Democrats, to the point of not supporting candidates with pro-gay records but conservative pedigrees. This, however, is not the case. Romer aside, there is nothing to indicate that Roberts would uphold gay-rights decisions like Lawrence. At best, he is a 50-50 bet, and clearly the HRC and the others would want to err on the side of caution.

All in all, while I think there's plenty here for people to still be reasonably willing to withhold their judgment, I also think there is enough here for it to be reasonable that the coalition of the gays (HRC, et al) to oppose Roberts.

Update:

Gay orbit predictably says ‘Told you so’.

He also links to the Independent Gay Forum who makes a good point that opposing Roberts could lead to an even worse nominee, then ruins it by crediting Roberts with “[helping] gays achieve one of our seminal victories of the last decade”, which is a mild overstatement. Yes, I’m being generous.

Dear Science

You Suck!

Please stick to reporting things that we like.

Fundies Focus Furor on Frist's forsaking of fetuses

How quickly we have fallen from God’s grace. Or, at least the grace of those who claim to speak for him.

Ahead and behind

I belatedly link to this Kevin Drum post about originalism and the constitution.

He says what I’ve been saying – namely originalism is a marketing tool which falls apart upon any close scrutiny of the law and modern society.

Drum says it better (perhaps) by including phrases like ‘simple agrarian community’.

Heh

If you search google for ‘john kerry raised by a pack of homosexual billionaires’, my site comes up first.

Take that www.boosman.com!

Naked Gay men are Cheap

Shutting them down, is expensive.

And God looked down and said ‘Shut Up’!

Falwell tries to silence dissent.

In other news, isn’t curious that a religious figure should have his name trademarked? I seem to recall something in the bible about temples and moneylenders that pissed Jesus off.

A quick note on style and ‘Journal-ing’

I consider myself, at my heart, to be a left-leaning centrist. More specifically, I tend to be conservative in certain areas and (very) liberal in others, but on a whole I am more liberal than conservative. And, that’s the philosophy espoused here – uniquely mine.

As such, I have no need to fair and balanced (in the true meaning of the words, not the Faux news meaning), though I also do not consider myself part of the propaganda wing of the democrats. I post things that interest / amuse/ annoy me, and I think might have a similar effect on others. This article, for example, is in response to something that annoyed me.

I also vary wildly in my post style – sometimes serious, sometimes goofy, and sometimes sarcastic. I may send serious time dissecting something (like I did with Volokh’s recent post), or I may just throw up a link with a snarky comment, which exaggerates the content of what I’m linking to, in order to spark interest. For instance, the CWA isn’t really worried about gay coffee. They are worried about a perceived (by them) overly pro-gay slant the Starbucks corporation has taken in it’s marketing and choice of organizations it has chosen to support. But, I chose to simply ask if your coffee was too queer.

This is not dishonest. This is a device to get people to read the link. And I always include the link when one exists, so that people can read for themselves and make up their own mind.

War Ads

Coming to a gravestone near you?

Update: For people who can’t be bothered to read:

The addition of the pentagon ‘marketing’ name is (according to the article), fairly newAnd, in some cases, hasn’t been voluntary – which is the point of the article. From the article:

And this

So where's my Atrios link?

Update 2: Just for reference, if this post was about Bush, I would have used my 'Bush and Co' category, not the 'War' category.

Michael D said (at August 25, 2005 02:16 AM):

I would so Love

For religious conservatives to go after divorce. And Adultery. And that mixed-fabric thing.

Shorter Robertson

It’s all the media’s fault!

Bush Administration: Punish those who don’t toe the line

Meet Lawrence A. Greenfeld, a department head within the Justice Department :

So, what happens when you don’t shill for the administration?

Because we, as a society, should fear the truth that minority drivers are subject to harsher treatment than other people. And we should punish anyone who thinks it’s important to let facts speak for themselves.

Volokh on HIV/AIDs

In his ‘conversion’ post, Volokh made an off handed remark about being worried about the “disproportionate and grave health danger from male homosexual activity” as compared to that of heterosexual activity, and then he followed up with this post. And, I think, in many ways he’s right. Now, I have in the past expanded a little bit on reasons why the gay community was so effected by the HIV epidemic, as opposed to the straight community. And, to some extent, what we’re seeing with the still high rates of new gay HIV infection is part of that rippled effect: Gay men have sex within a community that has a high infection rate – so naturally they experience higher new infection rates. And, with the invent of medicines designed to extend the life of those infected, people are around longer to infect others.

And, while the gay community has done a lot to alter it’s behavior in order to reduce the infection rates, I have to say that enough isn’t being done, and the gay community still embraces values which seem to encourage risky behavior. And, until the community as a whole is deafening in its support of safe behaviors, I think it needs to bear the weight of some of the criticism surrounding the high[er] HIV rates.

Now, certainly, there are relatively easy ways to reduce infection rates: Don’t sleep around, if you have sex wear protection, and don’t have sex while doing drugs. And, if you are already HIV positive – you are responsible for not infecting other people. (Which is why I support some level of criminalizing the spread of HIV/AIDS by people who fail to disclose their HIV positive status.)

There were reasons that they gay community ended up as the flash point for HIV in America – and I don’t think that the gay community was to blame for that. However, how we have responded (and are) responding to it.

Wannabeleader said (at August 24, 2005 10:20 AM):

Are you prepared for the coming theocracy?

It’s closer than you think.

Foolish Volokh

He throws a bunch of information out, to cleverly point out that gays and lesbians do recruit people to be gay or lesbian. You can read most of the lead up here, but essentially what he says (as interpreted by me) is this: Do gays encourage people who are bisexual or questioning to explore same sex relationships, and/or do they work do de-stigmatize those experiments. If yes, then they are recruiting, as without the ‘gay’ influence, these people wouldn’t succumb to the temptation.

There’s so many problems with this, it’s hard to know where to begin. Firstly, it’s clearly a hetero-centric point of view. For example, Volokh implies that ‘tempting’ a bisexual to actually explore a same-sex relationships recruitment. Can’t the same be said, then, that society discouraging the bisexual to explore same sex relationships is recruiting people into the heterosexual lifestyle?

Volokh also adopts a tactic from the right, and only explores behavior rather than attraction.

If you’re attracted to the same sex, but only have sex with opposite-sex partners, you’re essentially heterosexual, and any attempt to make things comfortable for you to explore a same-sex attraction is recruiting you (presumably to the dark side).

Volokh touches here on my main problem with, so called, reparative therapy (which, is clearly recruitment). A world that discourages same-sex attraction is the norm, and people who try to create a world where people are free to follow their own desires without judgment are seen as bad (recruiters to the homosexual lifestyle). Volokh seems to ignore the fact that if (some segments) of society didn’t feel the need to imprint everyone with a heterosexual label and denounce anyone who deviates from the ’norm’, then the theoretical bisexual would explore same-sex relationships without any ‘recruitment’ necessary. (Indeed, before the positive visibility of gay role models and gay rights many ‘bisexuals’ -in with which I include full gays who marry out of fear- explored same-sex without the ‘benefit’ of recruiting.)

Of course, Volokh doesn’t see anything wrong with ‘converting’ people, but is doing this only to show that we should use the proper terms for things – namely that gays convert people.

Update:

Chris AKA Law Dork comes back from vacation and tackles this as well:

Can someone please explain to me

When Cindy Sheehan claimed that she spoke for ‘all mothers who have kids in Iraq’ or even ‘All mothers who have had children killed in Iraq’ or even ‘All mothers who are opposed to the war’?

Why is the right so threatened by this woman that they need to demonize her so, and organize a ‘You don’t speak for me Cindy’ tour? Couldn’t they just as easily have held a ‘I have a son in Iraq and I support the war’ tour? Or is it too many syllables?

Also, why is it so hard for the right to grasp the truth that supporting the troops and supporting the war are not the same thing, at all.

Isn’t what Cindy is doing supposed to be the best of what America is about? You’re free to peacefully protest against things you don’t agree with? I don’t agree with much of what the woman is saying, but she is free to say it.

And, if a bunch of pro-war people want to camp out, I’m fine with that too (though I'm dubious as to the intent, as they didn’t feel the need until Cindy showed up).

And, if you want to strip naked in times Square to protest the fact that KFC doesn’t kiss the chickens on the head before they become the latest 10.99 bucket deal – you are free to do that.

And, if you want to spend all your time collecting signatures in order to deny gay people basic human rights…you should be arrested and beaten with the VHS version of the birdcage.

Is your Coffee too queer?

Apparently, Starbucks is for some.

A Shocker

HHS has chastised (though little else) a “faith-based” group for using it’s federal monies to promote religion.

Well, you might think, at least the government is keeping an eye out for these things. Well, not quite.

Which, of course, means Pat Robertson will call for the assassination of the head of the ACLU. Anyway, at the very least, this has been dealt with, right? Well, not really.

That’s right. They keep the money the misused, and can get more money if the promise not to do it again.

I’m sure this type of activity is going on a lot – faith based groups aren’t going to stop their recruitment missions, simply because of some ‘imagined’ church-state separation. And, really, it’s not that difficult to hide how you spend the money and money spent by the government, frees up other monies they can use for non-secular purposes. Think about it – if you budget 1,000 a month for rent, then someone gives you 12,000 but says you can ONLY spend it on rent, you’re not going to keep the original 1,000 per month in your rent budget. You’re going to increase your ‘Computer Gadget’ budget. It works the same here – just substitute ‘feed the hungry’ for rent, and ‘bibles’ for ‘computer gadgets’.

Connecticut Sues ‘No Child Left Behind’

Well, really, they’re suing the US Government over unfounded mandates..

Pat Robertson immediately denounced the move, saying ‘Man dates have no place near America’s youth.’ He then called on the US to assassinate the greek president mumbling ‘they’re responsible’ for starting man dates.

Dear God

Christian and faith healer Pat ‘God is going to smite you with a hurricane’ Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate the leader of another nation.

I’m sure when he apologizes, he’ll point out that he didn’t fully understand what he meant when he said it.

What to do in Iraq

Kevin Drum links to a case for a 2007 withdrawal from Iraq, and I think his analysis is right on.

This has always been a trouble spot for me. I supported the war, initially, until I became convinced that Bush and Co spun the evidence to support a pre-existing desire to attack Iraq. Of course, by then, we were already in it. And, while I may not support why we went in, that doesn’t mean I’m for a full and sudden withdrawal of the troops – because I think it’ll make matters worse.

It’ll be interesting to watch the planning around this, as the GOP is already nervous about 06, and I believe they will try and speed up any withdrawal plans, to be able to point out they support bringing our troops home.

A win for GLBT families

A CA court has essentially said that same-sex parents must be treated like their opposite-sex counterparts when it comes to parental rights.

It also goes to show that, gay or straight, when relationships break-up, people tend to forget about what is best for the child, and focus on hurting the other person. Which is too bad.