Category News

Prop 8 Ruled Unconstitutional

You’ve probably heard it by now, but a federal judge has ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional (; mirror).

(In case you’d forgotten, Proposition 8 was a ballot initiative that took away millions of Californians’ right to marry, on the grounds that they love the wrong kinds of people.)

Any moment now, I expect to hear explanations of how earthquakes, wildfires, el niño, the poor box office showing of Mel Gibson’s next project, and Pet Shop Boys concerts are all expressions of God’s wrath.

/me raises a Cosmopolitan (which several sites list as a contender for the gayest drink ever) to the Californian gay community.

Update, 18:04: Tony Perkins of the Patriarchy Family Research Council criticizes the ruling, on the grounds that, well, one-man-one-woman is how it’s always been. He also compares this ruling to Roe v. Wade. Which, I can’t help noticing, the right-wingers still haven’t managed to overturn despite decades of trying.

No word from NOM NOM NOM yet.

Update, 18:17: NOM tweets

NOM Decries Federal Court Decision Invalidating Proposition 8. http://ow.ly/2l9qm #prop8 #NO4M

Full text of their rebuttal:

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Update, 18:30: An obviously butthurt Heritage Foundation whines about “judicial activism”.

Update, 19:20: Newsweek/WaPo’s On Faith has a roundup of religious people’s reactions.

Update, 21:56: Hemant Mehta points out this kook fight, where Liberty Counsel bitches at the Alliance Defense Fund for not letting them help defend Prop 8 in court.

Breaking: Kent Hovind in Solitary

From Kent Hovind’s outfit, Creation Science Ministry’s Facebook page comes word that Kent is now in solitary:

Creation Science Evangelism Pleas pray for Dr. Hovind. We were just informed that he is solitary confinement. We are not sure why he is there and how long he must stay. He is need of your prayers. Thank you!

No word on how prayer is supposed to help, or what he did this time, though I’m sure we’ll be seeing a selectively-edited account of the events at some point.

(And just to keep the schadenfreude from getting out of control, I should add that solitary confinement is not something I’d wish on anyone.)

Update, 17:17: According to this thread at the JREF forums, this isn’t the first time Hovind has (been said to have been) placed in solitary. And given creationists’ penchant for repeating ancient and out-of-date information, for all I know this latest instance may be referring to something that happened three years ago.

Fourth of July Party Write-Up

Cool! We got a write-up in the Post.

So here we are in Lorton, at the year’s largest social assembly of Washington area atheist groups, the fourth annual Independence Day Celebration — or, as the e-mailed news release read, “Ungodly Leaders to Gather at Potomac Picnic.”

If there were any major factual errors in the article, I missed them.

Prop 8 Trial: They Got Nuthin’

Just to remind everyone, in 2000, California passed Proposition 22, which said that California would not recognize same-sex marriages, even out-of-state ones. In 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled that Prop 22 was unconstitutional, and furthermore, that marriage is a fundamental right. This gave gays the right to get married in California. Then, later in 2008, Prop 8 amended the state constitution to say that only opposite-sex marriage is valid or recognized.

I mention this to make it clear that Prop 8 took away a right. A right that courts have called fundamental.

So anyway, Prop 8 was challenged in court, and we’re finally approaching the end, with closing arguments presented yesterday. The wheels of justice certainly turn slowly, and one can only hope that they grind exceedingly finely.

So you’d think that after months of lead time, both sides would bring their A game and try to make a compelling summary for why their position is correct. You’d be wrong, as witnessed by this exchange between pro-Prop 8 attorney Charles Cooper and judge Vaugn Walker:

Walker: “Why is it that marriage has such a large public role? What is the purpose?”

Cooper: “This relationship is crucial to the public interest. Procreative sexual relations both are an enormous benefit to society and represent a very real threat to society’s interest.”

Walker: “Threat?”

Cooper: “If children are born into the world without this stable, marital union both of the parents that brought them into the world, then a host of very important, very negative social implications arise…. The purpose of marriage is to provide society’s approval to that sexual relationship and to the actual production of children.”

Walker: “But the state doesn’t withhold marriage from people who cannot have children.”

Cooper: “It does not.”

Walker: “Are you saying the state should?”

And this one:

“What testimony in this case supports the proposition?” Walker asked.

“You don’t have to have evidence of this,” Cooper said.

This gives some insight into the world that the anti-gay folks inhabit. The usual expression is “I don’t know what you’re smoking, but where can I get some?”, except that I like my drug trips to be better than reality.

Apparently, on planet Conservo 8, homosexuality is so appealing that if it isn’t forbidden, restricted, and blocked at every turn, everyone will instantly turn gay, stop having children, and the human race will die out. Entire continents will be devastated by the Fabulous Blight.

The only reason people get married, there, is to have sex and children. Love has nothing to do with it, nor are people allowed to decide for themselves why they should get married. Couples who fall out of love after they’ve had children are not allowed to get divorced (unless they’re straight, I’m guessing), and adoption is evil (since the child doesn’t grow up with its biological parents).

But I do have to give the anti-gay side some credit. For a long time I thought the only arguments against gay marriage, or gay rights in general, were religious, and should therefore not be used as the basis for legislation under a secular government. Turns out I was wrong: as the above shows, there are also secular arguments.

The remaining question is, are there any arguments against gay marriage that are neither religious, nor pants-on-head retarded?

Update, Thu Jun 17 11:10:03 2010: The best argument I’ve seen in the reporting about the closing arguments is that Prop 8 honors “the will of the people”. This does carry a certain weight: in a democracy, we the people get a say in the laws that govern us.

Of course, just because something is popular doesn’t mean that it’s right: slavery, denying women the right to vote, Prohibition, and segregation used to reflect the will of the people as well, but I think we’ve grown up since then.

RIP Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner, the Mathemagician, passed away on May 22.

Go read Phil Plait’s post about him, because Phil says everything I would have.

Boobquake vs. Feminism

For those who hadn’t heard, some idiot Muslim cleric said the other day that “women who do not dress modestly” cause earthquakes. So Jen McCreight, aka Blag Hag decided to test this proposition scientifically. This became known as Boobquake. There was much tittering on the intertubes, and it quickly became more popular than any of the myriad thoughtful posts she’d written up til then.

But it also apparently raised the ire of feminists, on the grounds that encouraging women to show cleavage promotes the objectification of women. Okay, I can see that as being a valid concern.

Now, I like to think of myself as a feminist, in the sense of someone who thinks women should be equal to men in most situations. So of course I’m opposed to seeing women as nothing more than sex objects.

However, there’s a difference between not being merely a sex object; and not being a sex object at all. I have friends who are fantastic cooks, and I’d be a fool to turn down a dinner invitation from them. But that doesn’t mean they’re merely cooks, that they aren’t fully-rounded people. And it certainly doesn’t mean that I can just expect them to cook for me whenever I want, or that if I walk by when they’re cooking, that it’s somehow acceptable or even expected that I’ll be so overcome with hunger that I’ll be unable to resist stealing their lunch.

Having said this, I don’t deny that sexism is still a problem in the US (where, after all, “she was asking for it, dressed the way she was” is still a credible excuse for rape in some circles). But we’re still light years ahead from the sort of society where women are expected to be covered head to toe lest the sight of an unclad earlobe send a man into an involuntary libidinous frenzy or, worse yet, challenge his assumed superiority in all things, including control of women’s bodies. And that alone makes Boobquake a worthwhile poke in the eye to more repressive societies.

But I’m not going to tell anyone to participate in Boobquake who doesn’t want to. That’s an individual decision. But in the final analysis, the whole thing is a bit of fun, albeit with a serious underlying message. And if you can’t have fun with sex, you probably have other problems.

Pope Calls for Penance

Hermes: What do we do when we break somebody’s window?
Dwight: Pay for it?
Hermes: Heavens, no! We apologize! With nice, cheap words.

— Futurama, The Route of All Evil

The pope said today that the Catholic church must “do penance” for its history of covering up child abuse. Reuters quotes him as saying,

“Now, under attack from the world which talks to us of our sins, we can see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how necessary it is to do penance and thus recognize what is wrong in our lives,”

and

“opening oneself up to forgiveness, preparing oneself for forgiveness, allowing oneself to be transformed”

This is all very well and good and seems to be a step forward, but I see no mention of actually doing anything useful. It looks as though Benny hopes to put the abuse coverup scandal behind him with “nice, cheap words”.

Fundie Pharmacy Folds

The Washington Post reports:

The Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy in Chantilly proudly and purposefully limited what it would stock on its shelves. But it turns out that no birth control pills, no condoms, no porn, no tobacco and even no makeup added up to one thing:

No customers.

The self-described “pro-life” pharmacy went out of business last month, less than two years after it opened to great fanfare, with a Catholic priest sprinkling holy water on the strip-mall store tucked between an Asian supermarket and a scuba shop.

No word on whether he returned for last rites.

The article goes on to say that Northern Virginia probably wasn’t the right place to have a drug store like this, since most people don’t equate mascara with Satan. Also, that the K Mart across the way has a pharmacy, which probably didn’t help business.

Tiny violinBut above all, I like to think that this represents the dangers of confusing ideals with reality.

The reason most drug stores carry mascara, condoms, and cigarettes is not that they want people to get tarted up, fuck like bunnies, then share a smoke afterwards—though that would probably suit them just fine. It’s the same reason health food stores sell homeopathic supplements, book stores carry Deepak Chopra’s woo, and hotels sell porn flicks: for better or worse, these products make money.

If you run a business, you are, of course, free to choose what you’ll carry. But if you refuse to sell a certain product—especially a popular one—on the grounds that people shouldn’t be using it, then you’re gambling that either a) you’ll attract enough business that that’ll make up for the loss of revenue from the “bad” product (like a vegetarian restaurant), or b) if you drive away the “perverts” who want the “bad” product, there are still enough “good” people left who’ll shop with you that you can still make a profit.

But if most of your clientele wants “taboo” products once in a while and you drive them away, then that’s a recipe for failure. You’re free to bemoan the teens who buy condoms, but wishing your clientele to be different won’t make it so.

This is just like praying the gay away, or pushing abstinence-only sex “ed”. If something doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. And refusing to look at the world the way it really is won’t help you achieve your goals.

BillDo Doth Protest

Back on February 23, 1997, the Hartford Courant published an article about Father Maciel, accused of abusing nine children:

The men, in interviews in the United States and Mexico, said the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, molested them in Spain and Italy during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. Several said Maciel told them he had permission from Pope Pius XII to seek them out sexually for relief of physical pain.

(Emphasis added.)

Bill Donohue wrote a letter to the Courant, saying

To think any priest would tell some other priest that the pope gave him the thumbs up to have sex with another priest–all for the purpose of relieving the poor fellow of some malady–is the kind of balderdash that wouldn’t convince the most unscrupulous editor at any of the weekly tabloids. It is a wonder why The Courant found merit enough to print it.”

(I haven’t been able to find this letter in the Courant. The quoted part above comes from BillDo’s article published on Monday.)

As I understand BillDo’s argument, he’s saying “It’s ridiculous to think a priest (including the pope) would give another priest permission to molest boys. Therefore, it didn’t happen. The people who said that Maciel told them that are lying or mistaken, and Father Maciel is innocent.”

At least, that’s all I can make of it. What’s odd is that BillDo is quoting this in a post entitled “DONOHUE NEVER DEFENDED Fr. MACIEL” (shouty title in the original, as befits his character).

Anyone who’s familiar with BillDo knows that he reflexively leaps to defend the Catholic church against any slight, perceived or real. So all I can figure is that he’s now trying to distance himself from his earlier words through Clintonian parsing (“it depends what the meaning of defend is”).

News Items

VA AG tells universities to be more bigoted

The WaPo reports that the attorney general has urged colleges and universities in Virginia to rescind their policies against discrimination against gays.

You might think the Post got it wrong. That he’s saying that Virginia has no laws against discrimination against gays; that universities who do have such policies are going above and beyond what they’re required to do.

You’d be wrong. The AG’s statement says:

It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” “gender expression,” or like classification, as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.

(emphasis added)

So yeah, the AG just said that universities have to seek special permission to not be bigoted.

TX judge calls death penalty unconstitutional

Also from the Post:

A Texas judge in the county that sends more inmates to death row than any other in the nation ruled in a pretrial motion this week that the death penalty is unconstitutional, saying he could assume that innocent people have been executed.

Sounds good to me. I don’t disagree with the idea that there are people who deserve to be put to death, sometimes by chainsaw, but I nonetheless have a problem with the death penalty, because in the case of a mistake, there’s not a whole lot you can do to undo it. That’s on top of the other arguments against it.

Naturally, the judge is now taking flak from Texas governor Rick Perry. And the Texas AG is calling this “judicial activism”. Figures.

KS considers taxing churches

Finally, the Kansas state House is considering a bill that would raise taxes on churches. Or at least that’s what the hoopla is about. The Kansas City Star and ABC’s have articles about this, but perhaps the clearest explanation comes from the KC Star’s Prime Buzz blog:

The bill would impose the state’s 5.3 percent sales tax on power, gas and water bills. It would also remove a sales tax exemption enjoyed by churches and some particular business transactions.
…

Right now the state exempts 96 specific groups or types of business transactions from the state’s sales tax. Those exemptions add up to more than $4 billion. Lawmakers eager to avoid deeper cuts to schools and other state services suggested the repeal of some of these breaks to help eliminate a nearly $500 million deficit.
…

The [House Tax] Committee removed a provision repealing the sales tax exemption for non-profit organizations and for home repairs.

As I understand it:

• Kansas currently does not tax utilities; the bill would impose this tax on utilities, for everyone in Kansas.

• On a separate topic, there are various groups that currently don’t pay sales tax on anything. This bill would repeal a lot of these exemptions, including the one for churches and non-profits.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I agree that nonprofits that do good for the community should be given tax breaks (and I’m willing to concede for now that churches fall into this category). But these are lean times, and these tax breaks are costing the state revenue. At the same time, lean times mean that people need charitable organizations more than ever.

Of course, I haven’t read the bill, so I don’t know the details. Maybe it maintains exemptions for nonprofits that clearly do good, like soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and raises taxes on organizations that provide only nebulous benefit like “spiritual uplift”.