Marriage News Watch, July 7, 2014

Matt Baume is still on the road.

Reviews in Brief: Warren Ellis’ "Ocean"

I’ve been doing some catching up (well, a lot of catching up) and ran across Warren Ellis’ Ocean in my stack of unread comics. As one might expect of Ellis, it’s pungent and heavily political, and it’s a good tight story.

UN Weapons Inspector Nathan Kane is on his way to the Jovian moon Europa – it seems the staff of Cold Harbor, the UN outpost station there, has discovered something in Europa’s all-encompassing ocean that could be of concern.

Also of concern is the much more elaborate and better-equipped station belonging to DOORS, a super-conglomerate that includes not only various sub-corporations, but a couple of countries.

And then there’s the matter of someone trying to kill Kane before he ever gets to Cold Harbor.

The political content is sometimes pretty blatant, sometimes not so much: the idea of a huge corporation being able to undertake investigations on another planet with much more in the way of resources to command than the equivalent government facility is almost too familiar: add together government priorities and perennial lack of funding, and there you are. What’s not so obvious are things like the staff of the DOORS station having to give up their own personalities and become, literally, corporate cogs for the duration of their employment.

Ellis’ dialogue is, as always, very naturalistic and very refreshing, full of the asides, non sequiturs and wisecracks that make up just about anyone’s daily conversation. And characters become distinct and individual with a few broad strokes – not fully developed, but developed enough to make us believe them.

Chris Sprouse and Karl story, respectively penciler and inker, have turned out artwork that is almost perfect – not too much detail, but enough, with frames lean enough to avoid obfuscating the narrative; layout is pretty standard frame-follows-frank, but there’s enough variation that they don’t get repetitive, and the frames themselves are lively enough to hold interest. The efforts of the various colorists are pretty much seamless, and the colors give just enough shading to avoid an overly flat rendering.

And it’s Warren Ellis. If you haven’t read it, go find it.

(Wildstorm, 2009;collects Ocean, #1-6)

Saturday Science: About This "Mom and Dad" Thing (Update)

As in "every child deserves a mom and dad" and the variations thereon we hear from the anti-gay mob when arguing against same-sex marriage (because in their minds, marriage = children). This, of course, is the short, easy version of Tony Perkins' perennial whopper, "Social science has conclusively proven that children to best when raised by their married biological parents." Unfortunately for Perkins, that's not true (no surprise there, but it certainly doesn't stop him from repeating it at every opportunity), which is something we knew already, but a series of studies coming out of Australia recently indicate that not only is it not true, the reality is slightly weighted in the other direction.

As witness this study from the University of Melbourne. It seems to be ongoing, but the preliminary findings are illuminating, to say the least:

On measures of general health and family cohesion children aged 5 to 17 years with same-sex attracted parents showed a significantly better score when compared to Australian children from all backgrounds and family contexts. For all other health measures there were no statistically significant differences.

And all the Tony Perkinses of the world have to offer is that pathetic political hit-job by Mark Regnerus. Pity.

Update: The full study is out.

More Hobby Lobby

I'm going to have to take the time to read the decision, which I admit I haven't done yet, but the quotes from Alito's majority opinion are appalling, when they make sense at all. Dahlia Lithwick notes:

Having read the opinion only briefly I am not at all clear on why Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, is so certain that he can hold the line here to closely held corporations and that the parade of “me too” litigants promised by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing in dissent, won’t show up on the court steps in the coming months and years.

Short answer: Neither Alito nor anyone else is going to hold the line, because they (the conservative wing of the court) have no interest in denying corporations anything. As for the "me toos," they've already started -- although not in court -- yet.

It's even worse than that. Lithwick notes:

For one thing we are—going forward—no longer allowed to argue the science. “It is not for us to say that their religious beliefs are mistaken or insubstantial,” writes Alito.

If we're not allowed to argue the science -- Alito did hold that belief trumps reality, after all -- we're screwed on all sorts of fronts. (Anyone want to guess how long it's going to take for Liberty Counsel to file a suit against laws banning "reparative therapy" on the grounds that they violate someone religious belief that sexual orientation is changeable?)

We might as well kiss anti-discrimination laws good-bye, unless the Court at some point backpedals on this one. After all, it only took seventeen years to overturn Bowers v. Hardwick.

Via Mahablog.

Today's WTF? Moment

OK -- this one stopped me:

An Indianapolis woman has sued the city's police department, contending that an order to remove an "Unmarked Police Car" bumper sticker from her minivan violated her rights to free speech, the group representing her said on Monday.

A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on Friday argued that Indianapolis police did not have the right to question and make demands of Pamela Konchinsky after pulling over her vehicle earlier this month.

"We contend that the police officers who detained and interrogated our client without legal grounds to do so violated her constitutional rights," ACLU attorney Kelly Eskew said in a statement. "The promise of our Constitution is that these lines cannot be crossed."

According to the complaint, Indianapolis police officers told Konchinsky the bumper sticker would make people think she was impersonating a police officer and could get her shot, before demanding that she remove it from her rear window.

Digby has a good reaction to the "could get her shot: argument:

If this is a big problem then I'm going to guess that cops should stop wearing uniforms and driving around in those black and white cars.

Another Take-Down

of the Hobby Lobby decision, which is not only piss poor on its own merits, but completely ignores precedent, and the "religious freedom" argument that it's based on. From Perrspectives:

To hear the best and the brightest of the conservative movement tell it, Americans' freedom of religion is in dire peril. At Liberty University in April, Texas Senator Ted Cruz cautioned, "Religious liberty has never been more under attack." Ben Sasse, the Nebraska GOP Senate candidate, went even further in declaring that "the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life," adding "government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances." Competing with Cruz in the 2016 Falwell primary, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal used his Liberty University commencement address to similarly warn his audience. "Make no mistake," Jindal said, "The war over religious liberty is the war over free speech and without the first there is no such thing as the second."

Coming as it did in the run-up to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, the right-wing outcry about a supposed war on religious freedom is especially galling--and more than a little ironic. After all, less than two months ago in Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Roberts Court ruled that sectarian Christian prayers used to open a town council meeting did not violate the constitutional prohibition against government establishment of religion. On Thursday, the Supreme Court in McCullen v. Coakley ruled that 35 foot buffer zones created to protect patients entering family planning clinics in Massachusetts were unconstitutional. (As Sarah Posner summed up the opinion limiting women's protections from verbal harassment and threats of violence, the Court in essence concluded that "your uterus is 'an important subject' about which your fellow citizens 'wish to converse.'") In April 2011, a 5-4 majority upheld an Arizona law designed to evade restrictions on school vouchers by giving gives taxpayers there a dollar-for-dollar state tax credit of up to $500 for donations to private "student tuition organizations." Meanwhile at the White House, President Obama has continued to pour billions of Americans' tax dollars into George W. Bush's so-called "faith-based initiatives," despite his unfulfilled 2008 campaign pledge to protect beneficiaries and employees alike from discrimination practiced by grant recipients.

It goes on, in detail. Worth reading.

Another One Bites the Dust

This time, it's Kentucky's turn to have a marriage ban discarded. And the judge, John G. Heyburn II, came up with some choice observations:

In striking down Kentucky's ban on gay marriage, a federal judge Tuesday rejected Gov. Steve Beshear's argument that the ban is needed because only opposite sex couples can procreate and maintain the state's birth rate and economy.

"These arguments are not those of serious people," wrote Senior U.S. District Court Judge John G. Heyburn II

.

And this one hits a key point:

In a 19-page ruling, Heyburn said he recognized that many Kentuckians oppose same-sex marriage for religious reasons, but added, "In America, even sincere and long-held religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been outvoted."

The ruling:

Kentucky Gay Marriage Ruling

There's a clearer version at Scribd -- for some reason, this one came up kind of garbled.

And one other thing that has everyone tickled pink: Heyburn was appointed by George H.W. Bush, with the support of Mitch McConnell.

Via AmericaBlog.

Hobby Lobby

I suppose I have to comment on this one, the worst decision to come down since Citizens United -- not only are corporations people, they got religion. The Hobby Lobby decision seems, from what I've been able to find (I haven't read the full opinion yet -- just found a link as I was doing this post -- Mother Jones has it here, including Justice Ginsburg's dissent [see below]), to be an even worse exercise in logical gymnastics than its ideological forebear.

Digby has a choice quote from Justice Alito's majority opinion, and a pointed rejoinder:

"According to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients."

Fascinating. They aren't "abortifacients." That is simple scientific fact. But they say they believe they are and their "belief" trumps objective reality.

This is straight out of the Teabagger Bible. If this is the level of intellectual acuity in the Court, we are all in serious trouble.

Scott Lemieux does a survey of all the holes in the decision.

Today, a bare majority of the Court held that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, employers do not have to adhere to federal regulations requiring that health insurance offered to employees cover contraceptives if the requirement conflicts with their religious beliefs. The majority opinion supporting this view, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and joined by the Court's four other Republican appointees—all men—is a disaster. It is unpersuasive and illogical, and creaes a standard that is unworkable. It also reflects an instructive lack of concern for the interests of the women, whose statutory rights will be burdened by the majority's decision.

Read on at the link -- it's worth it.

Justice Ginsburg's dissent was blistering, by all reports, and she raised one question, among others, that the majority didn't seem to register, implicit in this observation:

"The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive coverage."

In other words, what about the religious freedom of employees?

I may come back to this -- I have a lot to do today, and I'm still working in fits and starts.

Marriage News Watch, June 30, 2014

They were late, so I'm late.

And the delicious Matt Baume is still on the road:

Hope You Brought a Shovel

Because the bullshit is knee deep.

The impetus is that today the Tenth Circuit handed down a ruling upholding the district court decision overturning Utah's marriage ban, and a district court judge found Indiana's marriage ban unconstitutional.

The reaction from the usual suspects is, you might imagine, apoplectic. Brian Brown, for a change, sounds almost rational. Well, as rational as he can manage these days. He must still be glowing from the success of his March for Marriage, when 20,000 -- uh, 10,000 -- well, almost 2,000 (maybe) "supporters of marriage" were bussed in after being told they were getting a free sight-seeing trip to the nation's capital.

This time, the real hyperbole is coming from other sources -- first, the always mendacious Tony Perkins:

While disturbing, today's rulings come as no surprise given the rising disdain for the rule of law promoted by the Obama administration. These latest rulings are not just about redefining marriage but they are a further attempt by the courts to untether our public policies from the democratic process, as well as the anthropological record. While judges can, by judicial fiat, declare same-sex 'marriage' legal, they will never be able to make it right. The courts, for all their power, can't overturn natural law. What they can do is incite a movement of indignant Americans, who are tired of seeing the foundations of a free and just society destroyed by a handful of black-robed tyrants.

There's more, of course -- gotta get Roe v. Wade in there, even though it has nothing to do with marriage rights.

Maybe I should explain something to Mr. Perkins: people who were being harmed by marriage laws founded on prejudice and lacking rational basis went to court, the defenders of those laws had their chance to defend, and our side won. That's the rule of law. It's a little different in a secular society than just saying "Because God says so," but that's the way things work here.

And at the risk of repeating myself, not to mention a number of Supreme Court decisions, the rights of minorities are not subject to "the democratic process."

The real prize today is Bryan Fischer wannabe Matt Barber, via Joe.My.God.:

Federal courts in Indiana and Utah on Wednesday blatantly disregarded the will of the people and subversively imposed same-sex “marriage” on the citizens of both states. The judicial oligarchy (tyranny of the few) continues flexing the muscle of its apparently unchecked power. The death of democracy is undeniably upon us. Each victory for the homosexual activists represents another nail in America’s coffin. The light of morality and freedom is being brutishly snuffed out right before our very eyes. It’s a national tragedy unfolding at an accelerating pace.

I find the idea that the federal courts are subversive to be a little beyond hysterically funny. And do note that he felt it necessary to define "oligarchy" for his readers. Someone should remind him that if he keeps using big words, he's going to lose his audience. The rest of it is fully up to Fischer standards, except he forgot to pull in the End Times.

Of course, the thread running through all three screeds is the contempt these men have for the American system, especially the very idea of an independent judiciary. But then, it seems that evangelical "Christians" are must as much control freaks as Catholics are.

Marriage News Watch, June 23, 2014

And Matt Baume is still on the road -- this week in Fargo. (Fargo?)

The Problem With Blogging

Right now, at least. The news cycle is so compressed that stories have been beaten to death by the time I get to them -- there's nothing left for me to say.

Also too, I seem to be in read only mode. Even reading is hard -- very little holds my attention. Hence, I spend more time watching movies and old TV series than reading. (Grimm Season Two is much better than the first season, which was good. David Giuntoli does angry and dangerous very well, and the main story arc is much more coherent.)

I'm even a little burned out on the Zoo, and when has that ever happened?

This, too, shall pass.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving (Update)

I found this little gem in a story at Pink News, uttered by none other than the Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum:

“The court has to stop being the judge and jury for the consciousness of America."

There's not a lot to say, except that he goes on, and it gets worse.

Update: And in still another interview, he manages to blame same-sex marriage for the mess the Republicans made of the economy.

For some reason, Blogger won't accept the embed code, but you can watch the video at the link. Just to give you a sample of the word salad:

Marriage is not, Santorum said, solely about “a romantic relationship between two people.”

“It’s also about,” he added, “a unity of men and women, for the purposes of having and raising children, and giving the child their birthright, which is to be raised by their natural mother and natural father. When we have less of that in America — then society struggles and suffers. Economically, it suffers; socially, it suffers; morally, it suffers — and children are harmed.”

So we get Catholic dogma, "Save the Cheeldren!", and the economy, all in one lumpy package.

Marriage News Watch, June 16, 2014

Matt Baume is going where the action is.

Giggle du Jour: The Running of the Goats

There's really nothing more to say:

Marriage News Watch, June 9, 2014

And the beat goes on:

She Gets It (With Footnote)

This jumped out at me this morning, from U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb's opinion striking down Wisconsin's marriage ban, in response to the state's argument that marriage is by definition about procreation (yeah, that one again):

Civil marriage is a legal construct, not a biological rule of nature, so it can be and has been changed over the years; there is nothing "impossible" about defining marriage to include same-sex couples, as has been demonstrated by the decisions of a number of countries and states to do just that.

Just as I've been saying all along: marriage is an entirely human concept. (Go ahead -- try to find "marriage" among other vertebrate species.)

The opinion is a good one -- solid and tight. Worth a read.

(Via Towleroad.)

A footnote, via Joe.My.God.

It's interesting, thinking back over these decisions, how many county clerks in various states have opened their offices for extra hours and on weekends to be able to issue marriage licenses immediately.

That says something.

Finally

All the Epinions reviews pages are edited and published -- check the sidebar for the new one, "Books: Art and Nonfiction," which has some of the most interesting titles.

I think I've just about decided to turn those pages into a master index, so expect some changes as I pull in writing from other sites.

Eventually.

The Religion Excuse

Recovery is coming slowly. I think it all just caught up with me and I'm just coming out of a case of severe exhaustion. But it is getting better. Better enough that I actually decided to do a post on something that caught my eye this morning.

I've been maintaining for a while that one can find in just about any sacred text from any religious tradition something that will justify doing what you wanted to do anyway. There's a very good post at Mahablog that delves into this idea in more detail. The key comment:

When we hear about violence associated with religion, we tend to think that religion caused someone to be violent. But it isn’t that simple. Most of the time, when you look closely at “religious” violence, there are all kinds of historical, cultural and political factors mixed in as well. This is true even of episodes like the Spanish Inquisition that appeared to be about doctrinal purity; much else lurked beneath the surface. Indeed, most of the time the historical, cultural and political factors are the real drivers of the violence, and religion is called in mostly to act as a moral cover or justification.

Add things like patriotism to the mix and you get a good picture of phenomena such as the Tea Party movement, for which "America" is inextricably intertwined with "the Bible" and "the Constitution" without any clear concept of what those ideas entail. There's the same tendency to cherry-pick those parts that the devout want to follow and ignore those parts that don't fit the agenda. Thus we find egregious assholes like Joe the Plumber coming out with comments like "your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”

Unfortunately, in any viable society, they do.

Read the whole post at Mahablog. I may come back to this later, after I've done some more thinking.

Marriage News Watch, June 2, 2014

OK, so it's a day late. Don't ask. (I spent the afternoon trying to breathe, after going to an air-conditioned movie theater. Some days, there's no way to win.)