060 The Erickson Report for August 24 to September 7

 

 

060 The Erickson Report for August 24 to September 7

- Good News from Colombia and Brazil

- Good News from Singapore

- Good News from Yelp

- Some notes about the economy

- Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages

- A reminder what must not be forgotten

The Erickson Report is news and informed commentary from a self-described "proud member of the 'woke left.' (It's agenda: Justice. Compassion. Community.)"

As "advocacy journalism," we deal in facts and logic without every denying we have a point of view on the topics discussed.

Comments and reactions are welcomed either here or at Http://whoviating.blogspot.com. 

The Erickson Report for November 11-24, Page 1: Heroes and Villains

The Erickson Report for November 11-24, Page 1: Heroes and Villains

We start this time with an occasional feature we call Heroes and Villains

The Heroes this time are the voters of Nevada.

In 2002 a referendum amended the Nevada state constitution to define marriage as between “a male and female person.”

But this year, that amendment was overturned in favor of an amendment recognizing marriage “as between couples regardless of gender.” It makes Nevada the first state to put the right to same-sex marriage in its constitution.

It wasn't even close; the proposal passed 62 to 38.

That state already had a domestic partnership law since 2009 and of course the historic Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015 invalidated same-sex marriage bans nationwide, but this is still more than a mere formality both for symbolic and legal reasons.

Between 1998 and 2012 at least 30 states passed a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Obergefell obviated all those provisions, but they still exist. This way, the people of Nevada are protected even if Obergefell is overturned - and even though public acceptance of same-sex marriage now stands at 70%, according to an October poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, that event would mean having to re-fight those battles state by state. But not in Nevada.

Which brings me to the Villains.

As I mentioned last time at least two members of the federal Supreme Court - Clarabell Thomas and Sam the Sham Alito, doubtless eagerly looking forward to the addition of Amy Bugs Bunny Barret, are itching for a chance to take a second shot at making anti-LGBTQ bigotry constitutional by overturning Obergefell.

But again as I said last time, it's doubtful that ruling would be directly overturned; it's more likely that rights attendant to same-sex marriage would be chipped away until the right is just a shell of what it was.

And we are seeing the first signs of that.

On November 4, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia.

The city of Philadelphia contracts with various agencies to arrange for foster care for children who need it. As part of that contact, it requires those agencies not to discriminate.

Now comes Catholic Social Services, which is affiliated with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, saying its religious views keep it from certifying same-sex couples as foster parents - while at the same time arguing that it can't be locked out of more foster care contracts with the city. In short, they are arguing that they must be free to actively discriminate against same-sex couples while still getting the money they get from the city for foster care services.

Catholic Social Services lost at both the district and appellate levels - but according to court observers, the right wing majority of the Supreme Court seems likely to agree - likely to agree, that is, that the city of Philadelphia can be required to accept bigotry.

It would seem to me that even though this involves a contract not a law, the principle that religious beliefs do not exempt you from "laws of general applicability," something else I mentioned last time, should apply here. But apparently not when it's the religious beliefs of the justices - seven of the nine are either Catholic or went to Catholic school or both - are involved.

A few of the justices got near but never actually got to the sort of questions I kept thinking: What if the agency refused to deal with previously divorced people? Catholic doctrine says marriage is indissoluble. If you divorced and remarried, could Catholic Social Services say "your relationship is contrary to our religion, we refuse to deal with you?"

What if it was an interracial couple? It wasn't until 1967 that US laws against that were finally all struck down, but you still find ultra-conservative churches saying it's against God's law. Would the city have to say that's no bar to a contract?

What if a conservative Jewish organization refused to deal with a couple because one was Jewish and the other not? Would the city have to contract with them if they applied?

Or does only Christianity or more specifically Catholicism get the pass?

This circumscribing of rights of same-sex couples beyond the marriage itself - in this case hindering their ability to be foster parents - is exactly the sort of concern that Clarabell and Sam the Sham have provoked. I guarantee this will not be the last example.

The Erickson Report for October 28 to November 10, Page 3: LGBTQ rights again at risk

The Erickson Report for October 28 to November 10, Page 3: LGBTQ rights again at risk

Something we thought or at least should have been able to think was over and done with may again be in the line of fire: same-sex marriage.

The right wing bigots have never gotten over their fury at being on the losing side of history and still dream of undoing the historic gain of Obergefell v Hodges, the landmark 2015 case that found marriage equality to be a constitutional right.

Which is why Justices Clarabell Thomas and Sam the Sham Alito grabbed an opportunity to pretty much call for Obergefell to be overturned and invite challenges to it.

The occasion was the Supreme Court refusing to hear an appeal in the case of Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky who got national attention by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, claiming it violated her religion.

The Twisted Two agreed with the decision to decline the appeal, but took time to out to call Davis "one of the first victims" of the court's "cavalier treatment of religion" in the Obergefell decision but claimed "she will not be the last."

They wrote Obergefell "enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss."

The "petition provides a stark reminder of the consequences of Obergefell," they intoned.

First of all, those people are bigots and I recall an old saying that "calling things by their right names is the beginning of wisdom." And - here's something interesting for you - thirty years ago, in the case Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment's protection of the "free exercise" of religion does not allow a person to use a religious motivation as a reason not to obey generally applicable laws - such as, I would say, laws against discrimination. Quoting Antonin Skeletor, who wrote the decision, "To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself."

But that case involved the used of hallucinogenic peyote in Native American religious ceremonies and the right wing doesn't give a damn about Native American religion. Obergefell, on the other hand, was about something the right wing does care about: Their "religious freedom" to be bigots even in their official duties and commercial enterprises. Besides, as has long been established, intellectual or ethical consistency means nothing to them.

Which is illustrated by the fact that the Twisted Two declared that by recognizing the right to marriage equality, "the Court has created a problem that only it can fix. Until then, Obergefell will continue to have 'ruinous consequences for religious liberty.'"

Which Steve Vladeck, a CNN legal analyst and University of Texas law school professor, accurately called "a telling and ominous message."

According to Tim Holbrook, a professor at Emory University School of Law, Clarabell and Sam The Sham have sent "a signal to state legislatures to challenge Obergefell on religious liberty grounds." In an op-ed at CNN, he warned that "Such efforts could be successful."

This doesn't mean, Holbrook said, that marriage equality would be overruled. Which it quite possibly wouldn't; the reactionaries are too clever for that. Instead, look for the reactionary courts to keep carving out religious liberty exceptions to marriage equality, plus chipping away at attendant rights, like adoption and allowing same-sex couples to be named as parents on birth certificates - in other words, doing to marriage equality the same thing they've been doing to abortion rights, leaving the form intact while removing all the substance.

Worse, this comes at a time when Amy Bugs Bunny Barrett - who served for nearly three years on the board of the private Christian Trinity Schools run by a church of which she is part that openly discriminated against LGBTQ folks, even to the point of barring admission to children of same-sex parents - it comes at a time when she has created a 6-3 reactionary majority on the Supreme Court.

It also comes at a time when a peer-reviewed study released a month ago showed that LGBTQ people are nearly four times more likely to to be a victim of violent crimes than their heterosexual, cisgender counterparts.

The study, by The Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, was based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, data which wasn't released until 2019 and not even gathered until 2016.

There is one light in all this darkness: Pope Francis has restated his support for same-sex civil unions.

"Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God," he said in an interview. "What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered."

What's important here is that it's the first time he's done it as pope. The difference between saying it as a bishop, as he had, and saying it as pope, a role which requires him to be more careful in his language, is significant.

Which is also why I forgive him for saying "civil union" and not "marriage." The Catholic Church regards marriage as a sacrament, and calling for the sort of doctrinal change that Catholic marriage would entail was just too far to expect him to go.

We can entertain the notion that this will cause some right wingers, at least Catholic right wingers, to rethink their persistent denial of the reality same sex marriage since marriage in US law is a civil matter, not a religious ceremony, but I wouldn't hold out much hope.

Anyway, as a footnote to all this, relating to the typical cowardice of the bigots when called out on their bigotry: When AP asked Trinity Schools about its anti-LGBTQ policies, the answer was, quoting, "Trinity Schools does not unlawfully discriminate with respect to race, color, gender, national origin, age, disability, or other legally protected classifications under applicable law, with respect to the administration of its programs."

Um, that's not what you were asked. That's like being accused of robbing a store in Detroit and responding "I never robbed any store anywhere in Wisconsin."

The Erickson Report - Page 2: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages

Next up, a new feature that's a redesigned and somewhat revamped version of popular features f rom the old show, a feature now called Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages

Going chronologically, first up is May 11, the day when a new poll from CivicScience, a Pittsburgh-based market research firm, was released. They had polled more than 3600 Americans on the issue of mathematics instruction.

In response to one question, 56% of the respondents said Arabic numerals should not be taught in American schools; 29% said they should be part of the curriculum; while 16% offered no opinion.

And if you don't get why that is some Clown combination of ignorance and bigotry, these are Arabic numerals: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.

And before you start going "Oh those stupid right wingers again," know that when respondents were sorted into three categories, GOPper, Democrat, and Independent, not one of those three showed a majority in favor.

Here are a couple of cases where you can't tell if it should be Clown or Outrage, so I'll leave it to you. I report, you decide.

Andrew Napolitano

On May 16 on "Fox and Friends," Andrew Napolitano, who is Fox News' Senior Judicial Analyst, said that tossing out Roe is no big deal because if you want an abortion, you just go to New Jersey or New York "where infanticide is legal."

During legislative debate on May 17, Missouri state representative. and former cop Barry Hovis said “most of my rapes [during his time as a cop] were not the gentlemen jumping out of the bushes that nobody had ever met. That was one or two times out of a hundred. Most of them were date rapes or consensual rapes.”

Later that day, Hovis said he intended to say “date rapes or consensual or rape.” Which in contact actually makes no more sense than the original statement.

The reporter who covered the story noted that Hovis did not correct himself at the time despite, according to a witness, "A lot of 'What?'s ringing around the chamber."

Here's an oldie but a goodie for you: On May 20, NPR reported on a 40-year-old California law that requires public school teachers on extended sick leave to pay for their own substitute teachers - an amount that can easily mean half their paycheck.

The law is finally getting some overdue attention - and of course there are those who say changing it is a bad idea because, of course, it only makes sense that the cost of a substitute can't be borne by the budget of the entire district but must be dumped on the back of a single sick individual.

Ben Carson

Here's the Clown you knew: On May 21, during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, HUD Secretary and man perpetually in REM sleep Ben Carson couldn't describe basic terms related to the agency.

For one, he thought that REO, which stands for "real estate owned," which is what happens when a property goes into foreclosure, referred to Oreos, the cookie/

You've heard about that; why it's here is that he didn't even have the self-awareness to be embarrassed or ashamed by his cluelessness about the agency he heads. After the hearing, he tweeted that he planned to send a member of the committee a box of Oreos.

Ben Carson is a classic Clown: He's not stupid - he was a famed brain surgeon, he's not stupid - but it's clear he's lazy and just doesn't give a damn as long as he gets his check and doing nothing for it.

Meanwhile, the Tweetie-Pie administration -

By the way, I call him "Tweetie-Pie" because of his love of tweeting. I used to call him TheRump because he's so obviously an ass, but this seems even more appropriate as he gets more cartoonish every day.

Anyway, the Tweetie-Pie administration continues its attack transgender rights.

On May 22, HUD announced it intends to reverse the requirement that operators of homeless shelters receiving department funding have to “provide equal access ... in accordance with an individual’s gender identity.” The change would allow shelters to segregate transgender people and to consider a person’s biology when determining if they will be admitted to the shelter in the first place.

Then on May 24, Health and Human Services published a proposal to remove a section of the Affordable Care Act that defined discrimination “on the basis of sex” to include gender identity. The change would make it acceptable under law for healthcare providers to refuse care to transgender patients and for for insurance companies to refuse to cover them.

Also on May 24, Alabama was amending its marriage law to let bigots off the hook.

Under existing state law, couples are required to obtain a marriage license from a probate judge and hold a ceremony to “solemnize” the union. Under the new law, the solemnization requirement is eliminated and it is the responsibility of couples themselves to record their own union.Probate judges then would simply pass those records along to a state office.

In other words, this is being done so that bigot judges can say they have no part in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and bigot ministers can refuse to do a ceremony.

Here's a deep outrage that can be filed under the heading "We Are Not Alone," that is, we are not the only nation with problems: On May 25, Felix Klein, Germany’s commissioner on anti-Semitism warned German Jews that in the face of last year's 20% rise in anti-Semitic crimes, it could be dangerous for Jews to wear kippahs, the traditional skullcaps also known as yarmulkes, in public. He had already cautioned against wearing kippahs while visiting big cities.

On May 26, in a remarkable and quite typical Clown case of lack of self-awareness, White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley claimed Democrats receive “complicit” and “compliant” treatment from the news media "in a slant that makes everything negative no matter how positive the subject matter may be.”

I usually ignore Tweetie-Pie for the Clown category because he's such an easy target that it seems unfair to others, but I couldn't let this one pass:

Sebastian Gorka

On May 28, during his trip to Japan, Tweetie-Pie claimed he did Joe Biden a favor by calling him a “low IQ individual” because Kim Jong Un had called him a “low IQ idiot.”

In that spirit, I promise that the next time someone calls Tweetie-Pie - or T-P for short, also quite appropriate - an imbecile, I'll do him a favor and call him a moron.

The Clowns keep coming:

On May 29, after Robert Mueller's presser, right-wing blowhard and all-around creepy person Sebastian Gorka said Mueller wasn't qualified to park a car. Here are Gorka's own qualifications in that area. (He also got an expired meter ticket for the latter one.)

On the other hand, here is a real Outrage: The European Union and EU-member states had donated two classrooms to be used in the West Bank for Palestinian children in grades 1-6.

In October the Israeli Civil Administration, which is in charge of policy in the occupied territories, seized and dismantled the schools. The EU missions in the West Bank called for the immediate reconstruction of the classrooms.

Israel not only ignored that call, on May 31 it emerged that in what can only be considered a deliberately cruel move, Israel is auctioning off the stolen classrooms, not only denying Palestinian children access to an education but looking to profit off doing it.

The auction is expected to be held in the week or so.

Oh, but don't forget: BDS is anti-Semitic. Just ask Israel.

Also on May 31was the mass murder in Virginia Beach. The best summation of the meaning was delivered quite unintentionally by CNN, which opened it's report by saying, quote,

At least 12 people were killed Friday after a gunman opened fire at a municipal building in Virginia Beach. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the US since November.

I'll leave you with this, an oft-reprised headline from The Onion:

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Finally for now: On June 1 Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin admonished Catholics in not to support or attend any LGBTQ Pride Month commemorations in June, warning that such events promote a “culture” and “activities” that are “especially harmful for children."

This from a bishop of a church with a long and demonstrated history of child sexual abuse that was actively covered up by the church hierarchy - including in a diocese in Pennsylvania where Thomas Tobin served as an auxiliary bishop.

By the way, Pride Month is particularly significant this year because it marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Manhattan, and if you don't know about that event, look it up.

32.7 - Outrage(s) of the Week

Outrage(s) of the Week

Finally for this week is our other regular feature, the Outrage of the Week.

I had two possibilities this week, one of which is overall potentially much more significant that the other but that other one is just so cheap, so low, that I found it hard to choose.

So I'll lay them both out. You can decide.

The cheap, low one is from last month.

In November 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services adopted a rule that prohibited nursing homes that accept Medicare or Medicaid funds from including forced arbitration language in their resident contracts.

Forced arbitration - I have talked about this before - is where in order to use a product or service you have to forswear your rights to go to court even as a member of a class action suit and agree to let any dispute be settled by a supposedly neutral arbiter chosen by the corporation whose income depends on being contracted by corporations to handle such arbitrations - which is a good part of the reason why corporations win 93% of the time.

More specifically, it means, in this instance, that in order to get admitted to the nursing home, prospective residents and their families would have to sign away their rights to take the corporation to court and agree that any dispute, even up to allegations of abuse, neglect, or sexual assault, would be settled by such a "neutral" arbiter. Don't agree? You don't get in. Take it or leave it; if you don't, there are others who will so we don't give a damn.

So as of last November, the rule became that nursing homes couldn't do that. Now, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services want to undo that rule and again leave the elderly and their caretakers, at a time when they are under great emotional stress, to the tender mercies of the nursing home industry, which of course has been lobbying and suing over the rule ever since it went into effect.

There is just no other word for this but "low." It is so unfeelingly despicable, so morally outrageous, so ... low, that I don't know what else to say about it.

So let's move on the other other case.

First, you may know this but just to be sure: An amicus brief - properly, amicus curiae, literally "friend of the court" - is a legal brief filed by someone who wants to address some aspect of a case but who is not a party to it. Usually they are filed as support for one side or the other.

The ACLU reports that the TheRump administration has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court arguing - follow me here - that businesses have a constitutional right to discriminate against LGBTQ people, that a business could properly and rightly put out a sign saying "We Don't Sell To Gays" even if a state or Congress says such discrimination is illegal.

The case revolves around a baker who ran afoul of Colorado's anti-discrimination laws when he refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple and who now wants SCOTUS to free him from any consequences of that. And now the White House has weighed in on his side because they insist it is his constitutional right to be a bigot, not just personally, but in his business dealings.

What makes this especially outrageous - and dangerous - is that the baker and the White House are not even "just" making the hackneyed claim that it's a freedom of religion issue: The baker insists - with White House backing - that creating a wedding cake is an act of creative expression to the point where it makes him a participant in the event, in the celebration, and anyone attending would assume that the cake meant he approved of the union.*

Therefore, the argument goes, denying him the "freedom" to be a bigot, denying him the "freedom" to refuse to serve a same-sex couple, becomes "compelled speech," he is "compelled" to say he supports same-sex marriage, and compelled speech violates the First Amendment.

In other words, they are claiming that not only his freedom of religion is at stake, but his freedom of speech as well.

But where does this logic end? If it's a violation of First Amendment rights to say that you cannot discriminate against others, that you can't be a bigot in your dealings with the public, where does it end? How can it be unconstitutional to say you can't discriminate against LGBTQ people but constitutional to say you can't do it in the case of blacks? or women? or Jews? or Muslims? or anyone else you happen to dislike or disapprove of?

The White House brief tries to thread that needle, claiming that this exemption for bigotry would not apply to discrimination based on race by arguing, in effect, that discrimination based on race is really, really bad - but discrimination based on being LGBTQ? Eh, not so much.

Which just proves that they are as bigoted and un-American as the baker - and every bit as much an outrage.

*Because after all, whenever you see a wedding cake, don't you immediately think about the baker's opinion of the marriage? Yeah, me neither.

27.4 - Not Good News: Texas Supreme Court says states can deny benefits to same-sex couples

Not Good News: Texas Supreme Court says states can deny benefits to same-sex couples

Unfortunately, we have some Not Good News on the same topic of LGBTQ rights.

Same-sex marriage was not legal in Texas in 2013. Nonetheless, the city of Houston began extending the same spousal benefits it provided to married employees to employees who were partners in same-sex marriages who were married in one of the states where that was legal at the time.

Two Houstonites, backed by a group that opposes same-sex marriage, sued the city, claiming that those benefits amounted to using taxpayer money to subsidize "illegal activities."

The trial court agreed and issued an injunction against the city. But after Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the whole country, a Texas appeals court overturned that trial court decision and canceled the injuction, finding that under OvH, ss couples were entitled to equal treatment.

But now, on June 30, the Texas Supreme Court has reversed the appeals court and thrown the whole thing back to the trial court to start all over again. In a unanimous decision, the court declared that because Obergefell did not explicitly and in so many words say that “states must provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons,” that therefore the “reach and ramifications” of the decision is still being debated.

In short, the court ruled that "Just because we have to let you get married like any straight couple doesn't mean we have to treat you like any straight married couple and we can still discriminated against you - because we don't like you."

It's worth noting at this point the that all-GOPper Texas Supreme Court initially refused to take up the case, leaving the appeals court decision intact, until it got grief from the upper echelons of the Texas GOPper political hierarchy, which in essence effectively ordered the court to take it up, upon which the court did its best to do as it was told while keeping some vague shred of legal integrity intact by throwing the case back to the trial court rather than just ruling in favor of the haters of same-sex marriage.

But to show just how bizarre this ruling was, and how the justice must know how thuddingly wrong they are, they tried to prove that the “reach and ramifications” of Obergefell are still being worked out by pointing to two recent actions of the US Supreme Court. The first was taking the case of the baker who wouldn't bake a cake for a same-sex couple - which has nothing to do with spousal benefits or even same-sex marriage but is about if being a religious bigot frees you from the requirements of civil rights laws.

The second was reversing a ruling by the Arkansas Supreme Court that kept married same-sex couples from being treated the same as opposite-sex couples on their children’s birth certificates. The court said it reversed the ruling because the "differential treatment infringes Obergefell’s commitment to provide same-sex couples 'the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage.'" Which would appear to directly contradict the Texas court's claim that Obergefell can be read as allowing for differential treatment.

The only good thing here is that I am confident that once this gets into federal court, it will be dealt with in short order. It's only too bad that the bozos, bigots, and buffoons who pursued it can't be made to offer some sort of compensation for the pain they have caused.

240.6 - Clown Award: Immigration Judge Jack Weil

Clown Award: Immigration Judge Jack Weil

Now for one of our regular features; it's the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity. And this week we again had multiple contenders, narrowed down to two finalists.

First up: So, you think that same-sex couples have the right to get married? Well, yeah, they do, but do they have the right to get matrimonied?

Kentucky State Rep. Joseph Fischer has introduced a bill called the "Matrimonial Freedom Act" that creates the new status of "matrimony" which is legally separate from "marriage" because any two adults can marry, but only if they are of the opposite sex can they have a "matrimony."

The bill then proceeds for 450 pages, meticulously adding language about "matrimony" to any provision in state law that defines the basic parameters of marriage - and then, in any provision that describes a privilege, benefit, or responsibility of marriage, the word "marriage" is replaced by the word "matrimony," effectively stripping same-sex couples of any and all benefits of marriage.

The reason this is so laughable is that it is painfully obvious that this would never fly in the courts, but I imagine Fischer sitting alone in his dark, silent, office late at night going through the entire state legal code line by line, his brow furrowed in concentration, a bottle of scotch on the desk, a single high-intensity lamp lighting his weary work.

Of course I'm sure he did the whole thing by computer search, but that image just seems more fitting to the undertaking, especially since the bill declares that the Supreme Court has established an "absolute Tyranny over these States," and includes the line "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor," which, in case you don't recognize it, is the conclusion of the Declaration of Independence.

But believe it or not, he got outclassed.

So this week the Big Red Nose goes to federal immigration judge Jack Weil.

The ACLU and immigration rights groups have filed a class action suit against the federal government, demanding that the government provide appointed counsel for every indigent child who can't afford a lawyer in immigration court proceedings, contending by failing to insure they had access to counsel the Justice Department had violated both due process and the children’s right to a fair trial under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Justice Department is contesting the suit and this bozo, who has the responsibility of training other immigration judges, is one of the government's chief witnesses.

So what did he do? In a deposition taken in October but just recently released, he declared that providing counsel is unnecessary because "you can do a fair hearing" even with toddlers representing themselves in court, claiming he has "taught immigration law" to 3- and 4-year-olds.

I was going to take down his lame attempt at a defense, his claim this was "not representative of [his] thinking" and was "taken out of context" even though he said much the same thing five different times during the deposition, but then I stopped.

Because I really don't have to go on, do I?

Federal immigration judge Jack Weil: Good gosh, what a clown.

Sources cited in links:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/03/02/3756017/stupid-kentucky-matrimony-bill/
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0306/Can-toddlers-defend-themselves-in-immigration-court-One-judge-says-so
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/can-a-3-year-old-represent-herself-in-immigration-court-this-judge-thinks-so/2016/03/03/5be59a32-db25-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html

235.1 - Notes on progress on LGBTQ rights

Notes on progress on LGBTQ rights

Let's start off with a few updates on things related to same-sex marriage and overall LGBTQ rights, something I haven't talked about in a little while.

One sign of the slow but grinding process of change is that Kraig Powell, a member of the Utah legislature, has proposed legislation that would eliminate terms like "husband" and "wife" from state laws in favor of the gender-neutral "spouse." He also said he is drafting a proposed constitutional amendment that would repeal the provision in Utah's state constitution that bans same-sex marriage. He indicated this was just a matter of accepting legal reality.

Now, I don't expect to see this pass, but the fact that it was even introduced by a Utah Republican shows something is happening.

Then there is the execrable Roy Moore, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, who on January 6 ordered the state's county probate judges to ignore the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage and refuse to issue licenses for such marriages, arguing that "nothing in the United States Constitution alters or overrides" their "ministerial duty" to in essence place Alabama law above federal law.

Unhappily for the unrepentant bigot Moore, most Alabama counties ignored his order and continued issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and one of the handful that followed his order reversed itself the next day.

But that doesn't mean the bigots have given up, either in Alabama or elsewhere. An anti-same-sex marriage bill filed in South Carolina in December declared Obergefell v. Hodges, the SCOTUS decision that struck down bans on same-sex marriage, "unauthoritative, void, and of no effect," again declaring that state law overrides federal law and decisions of the Supreme Court. A similar bill was introduced in Tennessee in September.

You know, this nation fought its bloodiest war over slavery, but the legal issues involved were nullification and interposition, essentially the supposed right of states to nullify or block federal authority within their borders. Apparently, there are those willing to repeat that experience to promote and maintain their own bigoted sickness. Which in a twisted way I can understand: It must be galling for these folks to be so incredibly far on the wrong side of history.

Meanwhile, two things internationally were interesting.

First was that last month, a bill allowing for same-sex civil unions passed the Greek Parliament by a wide margin. One Greek campaigner for equal rights said the bill

does not provide equality before the law, especially in regard to adoption and custody of children, but it comes close.

Latvia is now the only country in the European Union which does not recognize some form of same-sex partnership, either civil union or marriage.

The action was not without opposition in notoriously homophobic Greece, a fact which makes the bill's passage all the more notable. For example, the Greek Orthodox bishop Ambrosios of Kalavryta called on the church faithful to "spit on [LGBT people]. Condemn them. Blacken them. They are not human! They are freaks of nature!"

On the other hand, in another one of those perhaps-grudging "recognize reality" statements, another Greek prelate, Chrysostomos, the Metropolitan of Messinia, said

[h]omosexuals, like all humans, are a creation of God and they deserve the same respect and honor, and not violence and rejection.

Admittedly, that's several steps short of accepting LGBTQ rights, but in the context of what surrounds him, a noteworthy statement.

Finally, the development I personally find the most interesting.

A man named Sun Wenlin - that's a pseudonym, not his real name - has filed a lawsuit after he was denied a marriage application for himself and his same-sex partner.

What makes the case particularly interesting is that this is happening in China. It is the first such suit ever in that country.

Sun is basing his claim on what could be considered a technicality: The original text of the Marriage Law does not say one man and one woman, but a husband and a wife, which are not necessarily gendered descriptions.

Meanwhile, hormone and electroshock treatments to "cure the gay" are still practiced in China. Technically, they are illegal, but the police don't seem to do much about it.

A decision on Sun's suit is expected within six months.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/01/08/lawmaker-proposes-removing-husband-and-wife-from-utah-law/21294045/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/roy-moore-alabama-chief-justice-orders-state-judges-to-disregard-same-sex-marriage-law-a6799726.html
http://www.towleroad.com/2016/01/protesters-decry-alabama-chief-justice-roy-moores-gay-marriage-ban-video/
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/01/07/alabama-court-stops-then-resumes-issuing-same-sex-marriage-lic/21293486/
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gay-marriage-internment-sterilization
http://www.ibtimes.com/greek-parliament-passes-bill-recognizing-same-sex-unions-2237451
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/14/greek-parliament-moves-towards-legalising-same-sex-unions
http://www.towleroad.com/2015/12/greek-orthodox-bishop-urges-faithful-spit-gay-freaks-nature-civil-union-debate/
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/5/1466279/-One-of-Greece-s-respected-religious-leaders-says-homosexuals-are-created-by-God-and-deserve-respect?detail=email
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/962038.shtml
http://www.care2.com/causes/gay-marriage-lawsuit-in-china-signals-possible-change-on-horizon.html

233.3 - Good News of the Year 2015: SCOTUS says bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional

Good News of the Year 2015: SCOTUS says bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional

And, this being the first show of the year, it's also an opportunity to take a quick look back at what I consider the Good News of the Year for 2015.

We had some good news over the course of the year:

- Four states with did away with or suspended the use of the death penalty, those four being Connecticut, Maryland, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania.

- The US re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba.

- A highly-effective Ebola vaccine has been developed.

- Despite the barriers thrown up by SCOTUS, some states have found ways to tighten gun control laws that have gained approval from the courts.

- The Keystone XL pipeline was rejected.

But the Good News of the Year, for me, was an easy call: It came on June 26, the day the Supreme Court announced its decision that state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.

As I said at the time, make no mistake: This is an historic decision. This is our generation's Loving v. Virginia, which struck down bans on interracial marriage. This is our Brown v. Board of Education, which banned racial segregation in public schools. This case, known as Obergefell v. Hodges, will in the future be referred to as a case that significantly advanced human rights in this country.

As I had cause to say then and later, this was not the end of the issue of LGBTQ rights or, as it turned out, even of marriage rights, as Kim Davis's nonsense proved.

But none of that changes the, again, historic nature of the decision and it is my Good News of the Year for 2015.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/07/2105-scotus-rules-on-same-sex-marriage.html

226.2 - Update: Same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights advance in Chile, retreat in Italy

Update: Same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights advance in Chile, retreat in Italy

Next up, some updates on the issue of same-sex marriage and, more generally, LGBTQ rights. This time with a bit of an international flavor.

On the Good News side, as of October 22, the nation of Chile recognizes civil unions for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The bill, the product of four years' work, was signed into law on April 13 and went into effect six months later. These civil unions offer some of the rights of marriage, including being able to make health care decisions on behalf of their same-sex partner and to receive pension and survivor benefits. Same sex couples legally married outside Chile will be granted civil union status.

These are civil unions, not full marriages, but there are signs Chile may be moving in that direction: Back in January one of the two houses of the Chilean legislature actually passed a bill recognizing same-sex marriage - but the other one rejected it, leading to the civil union compromise.

South America is making some strides on this. Yes, I know the map is in Spanish; you can figure it out, including that the bar graph shows support for same-sex marriage in different countries. What's easy to see is that Chile is now one of six South American nations, representing more than 80% of the population of the continent, with some form of recognition for same-sex couples: Two have full same-sex marriage rights, while four have civil unions. And in one of those, Brazil, same-sex marriage has been approved, but the matter is on appeal, so for now it's just civil unions.

So there is progress and good news there.

Under the heading Not Good News, however, is the fact that about a week ago, Italy’s highest administrative court issued a verdict that in practical fact nullifies over 100 same-sex marriages that had been recognized there. That is, over 100 couples who had been married are suddenly unmarried.

The recognition of those marriages had resulted from some local Italian officials, including the mayor of Rome, having grown tired of the national government's intransigence on the issue. So they recorded same-sex marriages that had been performed legally outside Italy on civil registries, effectively recognizing those marriages. A lower court said that the marriages were valid unless challenged individually by the Italian government.

The new ruling, a victory for the anti-justice reactionaries, overturns that lower court decision, giving the central government the power to annul all those marriages in a single swoop, which it is sure to do since that's what it wanted to do all along. Italy thus remains the only mainland European nation to refuse to offer any sort of legal recognition to same-sex couples.

Interestingly, even here there is some thread of good news: This decision comes at a time when support for same-sex marriage is becoming a majority position in Italy: In a poll from a couple of months ago, 51 percent of voters said they would support same-sex marriage and two thirds, 67 percent, said they were in favor of civil unions.

Sources cited in links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Chile
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/29/chile-same-sex-civil-unions-_n_6569912.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Brazil
http://www.care2.com/causes/nullified-italy-just-wiped-out-what-little-gay-marriage-recognition-it-had.html
http://www.thelocal.it/20150527/tide-turning-in-italy-over-gay-marriage

Left Side of the Aisle #226

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of November 5-11,  2015

This week:

Good News: Keystone XL on life support
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/2/keystone-xl-pipeline-project-doubt-after-builder-a/
http://www.newsweek.com/keystone-xl-pipeline-isnt-dead-yet-heres-what-you-need-know-about-what-comes-390383
http://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-says-it-plans-to-complete-keystone-xl-review-despite-request-to-halt-1446591393

Update: Same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights advance in Chile, retreat in Italy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Chile
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/29/chile-same-sex-civil-unions-_n_6569912.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Brazil
http://www.care2.com/causes/nullified-italy-just-wiped-out-what-little-gay-marriage-recognition-it-had.html
http://www.thelocal.it/20150527/tide-turning-in-italy-over-gay-marriage

Update: Dismissal of discrimination suit and loss for HERO in Houston show continuing need for federal protection
http://www.care2.com/causes/a-missouri-court-ruling-proves-why-we-need-a-federal-lgbt-rights-bill.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/10/25/us/ap-us-gay-rights-next-battleground-states.html?_r=2
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/us/houston-voters-repeal-anti-bias-measure.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/houston-equal-rights-measure-in-hands-of-voters/2015/11/03/fc0b39ae-829c-11e5-8bd2-680fff868306_story.html
http://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/why-is-the-lgbt-movement-struggling-to-uphold-a-simple-law-i#.vvbL6X3BA
http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/a/aa042205a.htm

Boots on the ground in Syria
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/world/obama-will-send-forces-to-syria-to-help-fight-the-islamic-state.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/world/middleeast/isis-is-target-of-turkish-bombing-raids.html?_r=0
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/30/politics/syria-troops-special-operations-forces/index.html?eref=rss_politics
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article39271314.html

Clown Award: Sen. James Inhofe
http://time.com/3725994/inhofe-snowball-climate/
http://www.care2.com/causes/snowball-throwing-climate-denying-senator-may-crash-paris-climate-talks.html
http://www.politico.com/story/2009/12/inhofe-gets-cool-reception-in-denmark-030769

Outrage of the Week: Promises on global warming fall short of minimum needed
http://newsroom.unfccc.int/unfccc-newsroom/indc-synthesis-report-press-release/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/11/03/3718146/misleading-un-report-confuses-media-paris-climate-talks/
http://news.mit.edu/2015/study-persian-gulf-deadly-heat-1026
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/10/26/report-says-climate-change-could-push-persian-gulf-temperatures-lethal-extremes/8RvxLlDbgnl0co4PSywagP/story.html
http://www.boston.com/news/weather/2015/10/22/will-probably-the-hottest-year-ever-recorded/fSdg7KHBbenvlcOdhP8FcP/story.html

Move to investigate Exxon goes mainstream
http://www.thenation.com/article/even-hillary-clinton-thinks-its-time-to-investigate-exxon/
http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/18092015/exxon-confirmed-global-warming-consensus-in-1982-with-in-house-climate-models

223.5 - Clown Award: Commissioner Karen Miller of Blount County, Tennessee

Clown Award: Commissioner Karen Miller of Blount County, Tennessee

Now for one of our usual features, the Clown Award, given as always for an act of meritorious stupidity.

The winner of the Big Red Nose this week is Karen Miller, a member of the board of commissioners of Blount County, Tennessee. She has introduced a resolution asking God not to smite the county because Tennessee is issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Yes, literally.

After a bunch of "whereas"es typical of right-wing blather, including references to "Natural Law," which is right-wing speech for "we want it this way but don't have a good reason why so we just say it's supposed to be this way" along with claims that Amendments 9 and 10 of the Constitution mean that the Supreme Court can't overrule state laws  and followed by a call to all state officials to defend "natural marriage" from "lawless court opinions and the financial schemes of the enemies of righteousness," the resolution ends with this, and I'm quoting:

We adopt this Resolution before God that He pass us by in His Coming Wrath and not destroy our County as he did Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities. As the Passover Lamb was a means of salvation to the Ancient Children of Israel, so we stand upon the safety of the Lamb of God to save us.

We adopt this Resolution begging His favor in light of the fact that we have been forced to comply and recognize that the State of Tennessee, like so many other God-fearing States, MAY have fallen prey to a lawless judiciary in legalizing what God and the Bible expressly forbids.

Karen Miller

The commission was supposed to take up the resolution at a meeting earlier this month but the meeting was unexpectedly adjourned minutes after it began without even agreeing on an agenda for the next meeting. It would appear that other commissioners, or at least a sufficient number of them, are not as worried about being smote - and yeah, that is the right form - being smote by God as Ms. Miller is.

The Tennessee Equality Project was out in force to protest the resolution and say they will be again if it is on the agenda again.

Which it may well be because Karen Miller says she is not giving up and will introduce the resolution again, again calling on God to "pass by" Blount County while, it would seem by the text of the resolution, the deity remaining free to lay waste to the entire rest of the state of Tennessee.

Karen Miller. Bigot. Religious wacko. Clown.

Sources cited in links:
http://wate.com/2015/10/05/tennessee-equality-project-fights-blount-county-resolution-to-save-county-from-gods-wrath/
https://mgtvwate.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/resolution.pdf

219.1 - Kim Davis and the religious right

Kim Davis and the religious right

I'm going to go on about this at some length this week because after this I hope to put it aside until there is some real development.

Kim Davis

So Kim Davis has been set free because Judge David Bunning, who jailed her for contempt, said he was satisfied that in her absence her assistant clerks were following the law and issuing marriage licenses to all qualified couples, including same-sex ones.

He did this, I think mistakenly, without obtaining any promise from her that she would not interfere with those assistant clerks continuing to do so, although he did warn her against doing it. Frankly, I don't expect her to follow the law now any more than she did before, particularly since Davis has already told Bunning that she would not allow any same sex marriage licenses to be issued from her office, even if she wasn't the one signing them. So I strongly suspect we will be right back here before too long.

Anyway, she was freed to the cheers of a throng of supporters crying "Amen" and "Praise Jesus" with - get this - "Eye of the Tiger" blaring from the PA.

Which, when you come down to it, is the real issue here: not Kim Davis, but her supporters and what they tell us about the desires and intentions of the right wing and the religious fanatics who have a significant voice in driving it. Kim Davis is not the issue, she is just the current focus of the issue.

So no, Kim Davis is not the real issue. She is one person, but what's significant is that she is one person who is being turned into the symbol, the poster child, for anti-gay bigotry and don't let anybody try to tell you that it's anything else.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckleberryhound was at the rally when Davis was released and he said “We don’t gather here because we hate anybody. We gather here today because we love God and this country. And we do not want to see this country become the smoldering remains of a great republic."

And what will make for the US being reduced to smoldering remains? By all appearances, it's being unable to discriminate against LGBT people.

So again, Kim Davis is not the issue. But I want to pause there because there are some things I do want to say about her.

First, I can accept that Kim Davis really does believe what she is saying about same-sex marriage. She is hopelessly, totally, perfectly wrong, morally, ethically, and legally, but I can accept that she really does believe it. What I am curious about is what she believed on the topic before what she calls her conversion experience, which she dates to about four years ago.

Which before I go on brings up something else. I mentioned last week, lots of people mentioned, that she is on her fourth husband - although you could say it's her third because she married the first one, then the second one, then the third one, and then the second one again - and she had twins as the result of an extra-marital affair while married to her first husband.

Now while I think it is relevant to mention all that, it is part of the context, it is part of the history, I don't think we should dwell on it because she will say (and has said) that as part of her conversion she was "forgiven" for all that and that she is a different person now, the latter of which you can accept may well be true even if you don't believe in the former.

However, I still wish someone would ask her what were her views on same-sex marriage before her conversion. Frankly, I would suspect that she held an "anti" view even then - which would mean that she is not against it now because of the Bible but rather that the Bible is now the justification for that prejudice.

Obviously, I don't know that for certain but I'm reasonably confident. First because polls say a majority of those in Kentucky even now are against same-sex marriage and it would be reasonable to expect the figure was even higher four years ago, so she would be part of a heavy majority. And second, because it is a pretty constant pattern for people who have such conversion experiences to not change their social and political opinions in its wake. People generally don't find that if they were tolerant of various things before they suddenly are against them or that if they were intolerant of those things before that now they are suddenly much more open-minded. As a general rule, those sorts of attitudes don't change much. There might be some degree of shift in one direction or the others, some change in emphasis, but overall, not a lot of difference.

So the idea that Kim Davis could be using the Bible as an excuse for her prejudice is not at all unreasonable.

But even so, I can believe that, with all the passion of the new convert, she is sincere in believing it's all about "God's authority." I can believe, that is, that she believes this is for her a matter of conscience. I believe in the power, the dignity, of the human conscience and I believe in the inviolability of the human conscience. As a result, I can respect, even admire, her willingness to go to jail rather than do something she honestly believes is against her conscience.

What I can't accept is her insistence that she should be able to continue as a county clerk, that she should get exactly what those of her ilk are always claiming same-sex couples are after: special treatment, special rights. Which of course same-sex couples aren't, they are only looking for equal rights, but special treatment is exactly what she is demanding.

Your conscience says you can't do the job? I understand - perhaps more than you think, because I have in the past quit a job over a matter of conscience. Which is exactly what she should do: You can't do the job, you quit and do something else. But no, not Kim Davis, not her lawyers, not her supporters, no, they say she gets to keep the job, the rest of us just have to change the rules to suit her.

Rev. Emily Heath

That is what she and her lawyers are demanding: special exemptions carved out for her convenience, special treatment for her so she can deny equal treatment to others. That is hypocrisy.

At least partly in response, Rev. Emily Heath of the United Church of Christ recently wrote about her own decision to not apply for a job as a chaplain in a federal prison because of her opposition to the death penalty, deciding she could not work in a system that upheld the option of killing someone:

"Religious liberty is guaranteed in this country. But that does not mean that every job needs to bend to your particular interpretation of your faith. If you really believe doing your job is violating your faith, then stepping aside would be a small price to pay for the love of the Gospel."

But apparently quitting her $80,000-a-year job is too big a price for Kim Davis.

You want more proof of the hypocrisy? Her lawyers have gone to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, the same federal court system whose orders she openly and repeatedly defies, demanding it order Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to let Davis refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

On the other hand, I have to add that maybe, just maybe, its not hypocrisy; maybe its something else. After Kim Davis was jailed, her husband Joe emerged to say "They have illegally put my wife in jail so we’re gonna ask Beshear to do his job or step down.” The lack of self-awareness truly is astounding.

Her supporters have made comparisons to Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Are they kidding or just nitwits, I say before noting they are not famed for their sense of humor.

Rosa Parks was a private citizen defying what she knew to be the law for the purpose of challenging it for the benefit of an entire community. Kim Davis is a public official, charged with following the law, who wants an exemption from her duties just for herself. As John Culhane put it at Politico.com, Kim Davis is "Rosa Parks' bus driver, denying a service to the public."

The comparisons to Dr. King are, if possible, more absurd. Not only was King, like Parks and unlike Davis, acting on behalf of many, but if Kim Davis feels a conflict between the law and her conscience, she is free to stop being a county clerk. When black Americans experience a conflict between the law and their conscience, their dignity as human beings, they are not free to stop being black. There simply is not comparison.

"You will follow my Bible!"

But this brings us back around to what I said was the real issue: not Davis, her supporters. Because like the man in the play said, "Ignorance and fanaticism are forever hungry and need feeding." And Kim Davis is the caterer of the moment.

Because with all their "Praise Jesus"'s and all their woo-hooing of Davis's invocation of "God's law," Davis's supporters are emblematic of the fact that there are those, too many of those, there are those who hold that members of government in their official duties must be allowed to carry them out in accordance with their personal understanding of the Bible - more properly, with the fundamentalists' understanding of the Bible. That is, what the shouted "Amens!" of the Bible-thumpers amount to is a declaration that the Bible, their interpretation of the Bible, overrules civil law - which, if it's not a working definition of a theocracy, I can't imagine what would be.

Oh, but "Wait, wait!" we'll get told! "It's the other way around! Its religious freedom! You're oppressing our religious freedom!"

Rev. Heath had a good response to that nonsense:

When someone is being asked to follow the law, and issue a marriage license, and they say they are being persecuted, I just don't buy it. You are being no more persecuted than I was when I decided not to be a prison chaplain. If you really believe doing your job is against your faith, then quitting would be an act of faith. Defying the law so two people you will never see again can't get married? Not so much.

Unfortunately, there are those, not many but even a handful is too many, there are indee3d those in government who hold that being expected to live up to their oath of office is religious persecution from which they should be freed by being able to decide what parts of that oath they will follow.

A few examples: In  Oregon, in the wake of a May 2014 federal court ruling that made same-sex marriage legal in that state, Marion County Judge Vance Day instructed his staff to refer same-sex couples to other judges and then, apparently wanting to avoid a discrimination claim even though discriminating was exactly what he was doing, stopped performing weddings altogether.

Two other clerks in Kentucky - Casey Davis, no relation, in Casey County, and Kay Schwartz in Whitley County - are also refusing to issue marriage license to same-sex couples based on the same bogus religious-freedom argument. You haven't heard about them because they have not yet been the target of any legal challenges.

And last month, the Ohio Supreme Court’s Board of Professional Conduct found it necessary to say judges can’t refuse to marry same-sex couples on personal, moral, or religious grounds - that is, they can't refuse to do their jobs. The very fact that they had to say it shows just how deep is the determination among some to refuse to face the reality of social change.

Because that's what this is: a refusal to face reality. We knew - or we damn well should have known - that the victory on same-sex marriage at SCOTUS would not be the end of the issue, that the dead-enders would throw up every roadblock they could. And they are doing just that. There is still a fight to be fought on same-sex marriage and even more on the broader question of LGBTQ rights.

But at the same time, let's keep in mind and take heart from what that reality is: The fact is that in most places in this country, same-sex couples can get married without problems, that most of those judges and magistrates and county clerks and whatever who do disapprove of same-sex marriage are saying "my job is to uphold the law so I will," and most of all that the reason Kim Davis is such big news is precisely because she is by far the exception.

Justice is coming, justice will come.

Sources cited in links:
http://time.com/4025308/kentucky-clerk-kim-davis-release/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-orders-kim-davis-freed-kentucky-jail-n423541
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/religious-liberty-marriage-licence_b_7985894.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kentucky-clerk-asks-court-to-force-governor-to-let-her-deny-gay-marriages_55edc301e4b03784e27637ed
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/kim-davis-is-no-rosa-parks-213127
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherit_the_Wind_%28play%29
http://time.com/4023824/oregon-judge-gay-marriages-refusal/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true

Left Side of the Aisle #219

Left Side of the Aislefor the week of September 10-16, 2015

This week:

Kim Davis and the religious right
http://time.com/4025308/kentucky-clerk-kim-davis-release/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-orders-kim-davis-freed-kentucky-jail-n423541
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/religious-liberty-marriage-licence_b_7985894.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kentucky-clerk-asks-court-to-force-governor-to-let-her-deny-gay-marriages_55edc301e4b03784e27637ed
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/kim-davis-is-no-rosa-parks-213127
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherit_the_Wind_%28play%29
http://time.com/4023824/oregon-judge-gay-marriages-refusal/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true

To Laugh, Not Weep: FDA approves Oxycontin for children as young as 11
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/same-govt-locks-people-jail-cannabis-just-approved-oxycontin-young-children
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-approves-oxycontin-children-young-11-n409621

Clown Award: David Brooks
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/opinion/the-anti-party-men-trump-carson-sanders-and-corbyn.html?ref=international&_r=1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders
http://fair.org/home/does-your-candidate-support-workers-interests-david-brooks-thinks-you-have-a-psychological-problem/

Outrage of the Week: new Pentagon manual could allow for indefinite confinement of journalists
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-dod-manual-journalists_55dd6b14e4b0a40aa3acc576?cps=gravity_2425_-1752368580054525173&kvcommref=mostpopular
http://www.dod.mil/dodgc/images/law_war_manual15.pdf
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/11/pentagon-war-reporters-unprivileged-belligerents-spies

Say It With Numbers: "Black Lives Matter = warfare on law enforcement" is a lie
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/04/1418344/-American-police-are-300-more-likely-to-kill-themselves-than-be-shot-killed-by-someone-else?detail=email
https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2014
https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2015
http://www.tnonline.com/2013/oct/29/suicide-rate-higher-among-cops
http://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/2012/02/10/cops-and-addiction/

218.3 - And not just Kim Davis

And not just Kim Davis

By the way, Kim Davis is not the only homophobic bigot who is learning that there can be a price to be paid for bigotry.

The Colorado state Court of Appeals decision has affirmed an earlier decision by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission that Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado and its owner, Jack Phillips, violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act when he declined to make a cake for a same-sex couple's wedding reception in 2012.

Phillips argued that his refusal to make the cake was based on his religious opposition to same-sex marriage, claiming he would sell the couple any bakery product except a wedding cake and so his refusal had nothing to do with the couple's sexual orientation.

The court didn't fall for it any more than the Civil Rights Commission did, stating the obvious that

the act of same-sex marriage is closely correlated to [the couple's] sexual orientation.

Jack Phillips

Nor did it fall for the claim that being unable to discriminate is a violation of his First Amendment rights. He argued that having to serve same-sex couples by making wedding cakes compels him to convey a celebratory message about the ceremony, which is similar in construct to the argument Kim Davis used and which I find utterly bizarre, particularly in a case like this. Have you ever, I mean ever, even just once in your life, looked at a wedding cake and thought "wow, the baker is conveying a celebratory message about this ceremony?" I mean, seriously, did you ever even think about the baker's opinion at all?

Phillips is not the only one to be on the losing side in a case like this. Colorado is now at least the fifth state - the others are New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and New York - to find that laws barring discrimination based on sexual orientation do bar businesses from turning away same-sex couples and appeals to God and claims of a "right" to discriminate based on your personal religious beliefs will not make the cut.

As I said, the bigots are slowly being brought to heel. Too slowly, but it is happening.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/us/colorado-same-sex-wedding-cake/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/08/13/colorado_cake_wars_decision_discrimination_is_not_free_speech.html

218.2 - Good News: homophobic bigots slowly being brought to heel

Good News: homophobic bigots slowly being brought to heel

On another front, it appears the bigots are slowly but surely being brought to heel.

You may have heard about the case of Kim Davis, the county clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, who has refused to issue marriage licenses ever since the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the one that declared bans on same-sex marriages to be unconstitutional. Davis insists that as an Apostolic Christian with a supposedly religious objection to same-sex marriage, she should be allowed to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That is, she should be free to impose her own lifestyle choices - because, after all, what religion you are really is a lifestyle choice, isn't it - on those who come before her. That is, more bluntly, she should be free to not do her job while still being able to keep it.

She was sued by four couples, two straight and two gay.

Kim Davis

US District Court Judge David Bunning ruled in favor of the couples, saying that Davis's claims about her religious belief do not free her from upholding her oath of office. On August 26, the 6th Circuit Court agreed. Bunning had stayed his ruling to allow the appeal to the 6th Circuit and after it ruled her lawyers wanted him to extend his stay while they appealed to the Supreme Court. He refused so they went to the Supreme Court, requesting it issue that stay. And on August 31, the Supreme Court refused. Kim Davis had lost.

Which meant that on September 1, Kim Davis had to go to her office and - refuse to issue marriage licenses, in direct violation of the court order. But while she is still defiant, it remains to be seen if that defiance will last and for how long when there start to be actual consequences. Judge Bunning is already being asked to hold her in contempt and there is a hearing set for September 3, which unfortunately is the day after I do this so I can't tell you what happened. I will say that the plaintiffs are asking for financial penalties rather than jail time for a contempt citation but I think that is a mistake. If she is fined, even a stiff amount per day she continues to refuse, you can be guaranteed that there will be cash pouring in from some crowd funding effort or another, potentially enough that she could actually profit on the deal, as has happened to other religious reactionaries who made a name for themselves by denying same-sex couples basic services.

Her argument is strained at best. At bottom, it involves claiming that issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple is a "searing act of validation" of same-sex marriage which would "forever echo in her conscience" - rather than such a license being, as any rational person would suppose, simply a declaration that the particular couple meets the legal requirements to get married.

And while issuing a license to a same-sex couple would "forever echo in her conscience," her highly selective conscience doesn't seem to be bothered by issuing licenses to previously-divorced people, even though, based on her claim about licenses for same-sex couples she would have to see that as a "searing act of validation" of divorce, fornication, and adultery, all of which were quite unpopular with Jesus.

Perhaps that's because they don't seem  to have been unpopular with Kim Davis. She is on husband number four. Five months after divorcing her first husband, she gave birth to twins. He was not the father. And no, neither was husband number two the father. Husband number three was.

And by the way, Kim Davis, what was the whole point of going to the courts, of crying for the protection of the courts, when you apparently were determined all along to simply ignore the rulings when they didn't go your way, determined to deny the courts' authority and instead appeal to "God's authority" over civil law and oaths of office, which sounds a lot like a Christian version of Sharia law? What did Jesus teach about hypocrisy?

Bottom line: This is not about God's word or "God's authority," it is about bigotry, pure and simple, a bigotry that now, hopefully, will exact a price on this particular bigot big enough to make her change her ways, even if changing her mind is beyond hope.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/31/politics/kentucky-gay-marriage-licenses-supreme-court/
http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/Supporters-opponents-gather-outside-Rowan-County-clerks-office-323227931.html
http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/08/26/appeals-court-upholds-gay-marriage-ruling-in-kentucky
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/31/supreme-court-rules-against-kentucky-clerk-in-gay-marriage-case/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-peron/the-phony-martyrdom-of-ki_b_8074338.html
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jesus+on+divorce
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/kentucky-clerk-gay-marriage-fracas-married-4-times-article-1.2345036
http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-hypocrisy.html