Thursday, August 5, 2010

READ the decision of the federal judge overturning California's Prop 8 ban on same-gender marriage here (pdf). The money quote:

Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples. FF 76, 79-80; Romer, 517 US at 634 (“[L]aws of the kind now before us raise the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected.”). Because Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification, Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

CONCLUSION

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex
couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

IT is gratifying to be reminded that this country is NOT a theocracy. It is a secular state, which is why everyone is free to believe whatever they want to believe. They are NOT free, however, to impose those beliefs on others who may wish to believe something else.

No religious sect or denomination is obliged to marry anyone it doesn't want to marry. But two individuals are not married until the state says they are married, and what the state and the religious call marriage is, in fact, a form of civil law contract in which the gender of the two parties entering into that contract is irrelevant. This is a rationalist secular view that is, of course, offensive to would-be theocrats. I will suggest that anyone wishing to live in a theocracy consider Saudi Arabia, Iran or Israel. In the meantime, let the rest of us enjoy simply being the human beings that we are.

It will be interesting, though, to see how near to a theocracy a right-wing Supreme Court will want us to be.

Monday, August 2, 2010

THE comment below, offered to an Opinionator essay about the Arizona immigration law, helps explain, perhaps, why Republican congresses during the George W. years did nothing about immigration reform and now wants to claim, inaccurately, that Obama isn't doing enough:

Michael Wolfe
Henderson, Texas
July 31st, 2010
9:38 am

There was an article in the Times about Obama and immigration about a month ago. It said that, from Reagan to Bush, Jr., the Presidents all ordered the INS (then the ICE) to make raids, TV crews and newspaper in tow, to show they were doing something about immigration. This only affected a few thousand (out of millions) of undocumented workers.

President Obama, according to the article, turned enforcement over to the IRS, a much larger and more tenacious organisation. Before, businesses could deduct payroll expenses from their taxes without providing legitimate SSNs; Obama ordered that all businesses must now provide, for all employees, valid SSNs or face fines large enough to close the businesses. Fake IDs that fooled the INS and ICE cannot get past the IRS computers, and millions of undocumented workers have lost their jobs. But quietly, with no raids and arrests for the TV cameras. With no way to obtain jobs, they have no way to support themselves if they remain in the US, so they are very quietly leaving.

For which the right is justifiably complaining: the old way provided ample entertainment to mollify irate citizens on the nightly news without imposing undue burdens on businesses who need sub-minimum wage labour to remain profitable. ...

Indeed, it seems "the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers," according to the Washington Post. But isn't that what the rightwingers and the nativists say they want? Or is it really, as usual, all about money?

Addendum ...

DID you know your kindergarten teacher could be worth about $320,000 a year? (This is for all the anti-tax bitchers and moaners who seem to think teachers should work for minimum wage — or less.)

Friday, July 30, 2010

QUESTION: What should medicine do when it can't save your life?

Can you answer for yourself? Atul Gawande, a surgeon and staff writer at The New Yorker, suggests some possibilities in an important essay. A quotation:

People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

SORRY, Ms Dowd, but you didn't mention the question General Mattis should have been asked: Can you estimate, on an annual basis, how many American lives it will take to keep happy the stockholders and employees of Halliburton, Rayethon, Lockheed, GE, the various private contractors and all the other military-industrial hangers-on?

Addendum II...

BUT Andrew, please, we must keep on feeding The Beast — the military-industrial complex that Ike so kindly warned us about in 1956.

Addendum ...

WONDER if the scumbag "dirty trickster's" ego was adequately gratified to be mentioned in Frank Rich's column today.

Here's the most highly reader recommended comment about Rich's column:

Talleyrand
Basel, Switzerland
July 25th, 2010
9:06 am

Hi Frank,

Yes, Vilsack was hasty and not smart and he should, if not resign, then at least learn a solid lesson that he can share at the next cabinet meetings. And that is to take a breath and keep the GOP rats at bay. Because ultimately, it is that so-called party — which, after its despicable performance these past 18 years should never even be close to wielding power — that caused the problem. They are a hindrance to government, they are engaging in frivolous battles against the entire nation at a time when we need cohesion. They are in fact guilty of obstruction, just as if you would drive a tractor purposely in front of an ambulance rushing to the scene of a major disaster.

But they saw their chance: Obama inherited the biggest mess we have had since the early 30s (and back then there were no wars to deal with), and they figured rightly: They can stay in the news, they can slow things down, and a population of voters used to instant gratification at any cost will jest see the symptoms (continuing high unemployment, continuing wars) and not the cause.

Because that is what it is all about. In a nation of well-educated, conscientious voters, the GOP would no longer stand a chance of winning anything in November. But in the Era of the Drama Queen, with the deafening Internet-generated noise in the background, they can somehow draw attention and then deflect the blame. The GOP and most of its candidates for the November run are a disgrace, indecently short-sighted, power- and publicity hungry. And that is what wins.

If you have never been in a good fight, not of words, but of fisticuffs, you'll know that small men are dangerous. I have seen Yorkshire terriers attack large dogs, and they do it in really nasty ways. The GOP is like that. It is filled with small men and women, small in mind. They have no ability to think things through, no real depth, no vision. That is why they purport to hate everything academic or concepts like hope. That is why they always refer to God and pump themselves up with phoney and even fraudulent patriotism, because these are planks that allow them to avoid the hard work of using their heads, of coming up with some intelligent program and real strategy. They are the Party of No, Mr. Rich, and that is 30% shorter than the word Yes.

Even when the GOP is in power it's like that. They always purport to be under attack, when they themselves are attacking. They have started up on the reverse racism issue, re-issuing Archie Bunker for a class of voters that is so hard at work, so distracted by the sheer tsunami of nonsense floating around the Internet, it has no time to pick up a real book and read. A voting class unused and unwilling to think things through.

And our media are unwilling to clear matters up. TV is a noisy crowd of talking heads, one sillier and more uneducated than the next. The Internet is just noisy.