red fuzzy jesus

Perry et al v. Schwarzenegger et al: Initial Thoughts

Obviously, I’m thrilled with the decision because it went the right way.  But, there are additional things to point out to explain why the decision was even better than expected.  Nobody who followed the oral arguments would think Judge Walker, or any judge, would uphold Proposition 8.  But, he went further than just striking it down.

 

The reaction to the decision on the right has been shrill but stuck to a familiar canard.  Judges should not overturn the clear will of voters.  It is an indictment of judicial review rather than any real reason why California needs Proposition 8.  It is an interesting political strategy but not a valid legal one.  An attorney arguing before a judge needs to expand his or her argument beyond, “Your honor, you shouldn’t be hearing this case.”   

 

But, did they throw the case intentionally or were they subconsciously aware the case in favor of Proposition 8 was so weak.  Remember, it was the pro-Prop 8 side that fought over and over again to keep evidence from being released and to keep the hearings as secretive as possible.  They did not want the public to see the facts in the case.  Their call for the unchecked will of the majority is distorted by their efforts to conceal information from the public. 

 

They say now that they never had a chance because Judge Walker is gay.  Supposedly a gay sexual orientation robs a legal professional of his impartiality.  But, at one time during the trial, Judge Walker expressed concern that the pro-8 side had called just two witnesses and begged them to mount a stronger defense.  They didn’t.  And no prominent figure in California politics came forward to defend 8.  It was limited to far-right interest groups.  Even though Governor Schwarzenegger is the named defendant in the case, he wouldn’t come near it.  On the day the Perry decision was released he said,

 

"For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves. At the same time, it provides an opportunity for all Californians to consider our history of leading the way to the future, and our growing reputation of treating all people and their relationships with equal respect and dignity.

"Today's decision is by no means California's first milestone, nor our last, on America's road to equality and freedom for all people.”

 

Then, Governor Schwarzenegger asked the judge to no stay his decision,

 

“Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called today for the immediate restoration of same-sex marriage in California, urging the federal judge who overturned Proposition 8 to impose his ruling while the case moves through the higher courts. Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry "is consistent with California's long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect," said a legal brief written on behalf of Schwarzenegger.” 

 

Oh my word!  So much for defending that terrible proposition.  The only groups willing to argue in favor of it are those that make a career out of anti-gay animus.  It further weakens their case that they cannot find a single politician or expert or anyone who isn’t already on the payroll of one of these groups.  If the harm they argue is real, one would think it would be apparent to someone outside the shrinking religious right echo chamber.

 

I am still perplexed as to what this meant.  There are possibilities:

1. Their strategy all along was to lose and then blame those awful activist judges.
2. They knew their side has weak arguments and delivering some of them in court and having them rebuked would hurt an overall political campaign against equality.
3. Deep down they know there is no harm and that their position is based on animus.  You can translate animus into fear in a political campaign (the gays are taking over your children’s schools, etc.) but you’re unlikely to scare a judge that way.  You need actual facts, precedent, and legal theory to argue a case before a judge. 

 

It may be a combination of these and things I’m not even considering.  Jeremy Hooper ran a fascinating piece on Good As You called ‘Eating Their Own’ in which one anti-gay legal strategist criticizes another for their handling of Perry.  But, as I said in my letter to Peter LaBarbera, is it a question of strategy?  Is it really that they aren’t selling the product better or is it that the product is an empty can nobody wants to buy after looking inside?

 

One thing that was so amazing about Judge Walker’s decision in Perry is that he calls the can empty.  He looked at the arguments presented by both sides and realized, clearly, that one side just had more to say.  There was more substance including sound research, documentary evidence, legal arguments, legal precedents, on and on.  The other side had a nebulous claim of pending harm that – even when pressed very hard by Judge Walker – could not be defined.  Remember the “Coming Storm” ad from NOM.  The coming storm is a metaphor for… I’m not sure.  Apparently those who made the ad are not sure either. 

 

The decision in Perry was also great because it applied strict scrutiny and suspect class status to gay citizens.  Put too simply, that means California needs to have more than just a rational basis for Proposition 8 and the specific exclusion and political targeting gay people have endured for decades must be considered when reviewing a law that targets and excludes them.  This will make it virtually impossible for the Pro-8 side to win on appeal. 

 

So, the case will almost definitely be appealed to the 9^th Circuit where I would be shocked if the decision were overturned.  Then the pro-8 side is likely to ask for it to be reviewed by all the justices on the 9^th Circuit with a similar result.  The next stop is the Supreme Court, which doesn’t have to hear the case.  They grant cert to a very small number of federal cases that request it.  But, this one will be a big one and by that time the roster of the Court might have changed.  So, either the 9^th Circuit’s decision will become the law of the land for that region or the Supreme Court will take up the issue.  Who knows what the outcome would be at that point.  However, if gay marriage was considered by the Supreme Court I would want it to be within the context of a case about Proposition 8 because, as Judge Walker pointed out, the Proposition 8 campaign was so seedy and had so much willful misinformation that the Supreme Court would have a hard time justifying reinstating it. 

 

There is another option that is extremely unlikely.  The pro-8 side might stop at the trial court level, where the fallout is limited to California.  They may even try to fight the political battle again rather than a legal one.  I don’t think this will happen but it’s possible.  If so, they can contain the damage from Prop-8 and lose the issue in a state that was likely to overturn 8 via voting next election cycle anyway. 

 

That brings me to a final point.  Part of me wishes there had been a political victory rather than a judicial one.  I think the “activist judges” crap is nonsense from the right.  But, I can remember election night watching the Presidential election get called quickly for Obama only to focus, nervously, on California’s election returns.  The final vote took days to be announced and I kept refreshing my computer as hope faded.  I want to see the rights of a minority – my minority – win in a political arena.  And it’s happening.  It will happen some more. 

 

Those that argue against “activist judges” need to be questioned on the major civil rights cases of the 20^th century.  Were those also not the purview of the courts and instead the sole domain of a panicked and bigoted public?  They should also answer larger questions about how a liberal democracy is to protect against tyranny of the majority or guarantee equal protection without courts playing such a role.  There’s a discussion to be had there and there are solid arguments against judicial review.  But they do not make those.  They cry about judicial activism but run to those same “judicial activists” to overturn majority based policy whenever some kid isn’t allowed to wear an offensive t-shirt at school or when college Christian clubs intentionally exclude some members of the student body while taking activity funding from everyone. 

 

They don’t really want to argue against judicial review.  They want to cry about gays being treated as equal to them because they don’t have much of an argument to make other than a guttural aversion to that form of difference.  And they know that doesn’t play well in courts no matter who the judge is. 

 

One thing is sure.  Times are changing.  They are changing quickly.  They are changing because animus can be stimulated for short-term political gains but is not a long-term education, political, or legal strategy.  And, though the right refuses to admit this, there are just too many parallels with previous civil rights battles.  We’ve seen this movie before and the movie always seems to go by quicker with subsequent viewings.  It’s an exciting time to be alive! 

Letter To Peter LaBarbera following the Prop. 8 decision.

This is the letter I emailed Peter LaBarbera after the decision in Perry et al, v. Schwarzenegger et al (the Prop. 8 decision) came out.  Perry was released on the eve of Peter's "Truth Academy".  LaBarbera claims the point of the academy is to train people better in countering the "lies" of the "homosexual agenda" and provide a venue to discuss issues in a way disallowed by the "Gay Thought Police" in academia.  But, one should note that the people in charge of the political campaign and judicial defense for Prop. 8 had the most training in countering the so-called agenda.  And, LaBarbera took CIA-worthy measures to screen students for his "academy" out of fear a "homosexual activist" would sneak in.  So much for free thought, but what about training?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I take a lot of solace that your “Truth Academy” is happening right after the Prop. 8 decision was announced.  You purport to teach people how to counter the “homosexual agenda”.  However, the people in charge of the Prop. 8 campaign in 2008 and the legal team established to defend it were educated people extremely skilled in their various professions.  Skilled politicians tasked with selling a message and skilled attorneys experienced at litigation went before the judge.  And still, Prop. 8 was called what it is, irrational discrimination. 

 

“It [California] has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result, see FF 64-66; moreover, California officials have chosen not to defend Proposition 8 in these proceedings.”

 

You can claim that there is harm.  However, when forced under oath to demonstrate harm it is impossible because there IS NO HARM.  The problem for your side isn’t a lack of training.  The people working to sell Prop. 8 to California voters and defend it in court have a lot of training.  The fault is a fundamental flaw in your position. 

 

You can blame “activist judges”, as I’m sure your side will do.  You never once look at your losses and blame inadequate argumentation.  You continue to lose in court over and over again and fail to realize that the argument is the problem rather than a lack of training or obstinate judges. 

 

All your side had to do was go into that courthouse and demonstrate the harm.  The National Organization for Marriage had an ad about a coming storm.  It’s a nice metaphor but if there really were some coming threat or harm that should have been easy to explain in court.  Instead, Judge Walker saw both sides present their best arguments for and against Proposition 8 and concluded:

 

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

 

Simple.  Straightforward.  Correct.

 

Proposition 8 was about discrimination and saying, without any basis, that one group of people is better than another.  Your Truth Academy can train people in messaging but the facts behind the message do not change.  It’s not a matter of training to sell something better or get better at arguing the ridiculous.  When given equal time for two sides to make their case, one side wins and the other side loses because only one side is grounded in rationality while the other relies on subjective religious interpretation that is unconvincing in court. 

Holding My Breath

Although I voted in VA this morning, I am more concerned about electoral outcomes in Maine and Washington.  If we lose I will shrug it off with the assurance of inevitability... i.e. it's not if but when.  If we win I will be elated because it will show we are on the other side of the apex while I am still relatively young. 

Equality March Recap

The Equality March was pretty incredible and inspiring today for the usual reasons such events are.  There were tons of people from all walks of life.  There were unexpected allies and celebrities there.  There was moving music and some really clever signs. It was a good pick-me-up but I'm not sure how useful it is.  I don't mean to always play the cynic but I question how effective any such march is.

When I worked in downtown DC near the White House there was some sort of protest or demonstration every single day.  Granted, few were as large as this but I think politicians understandably build up an immunity to demonstrations.  A large crowd of people carrying signs and chanting rhyming slogans only does so good.  The follow-up is what's important.  It's heartening to see so many people so frankly pissed off by the administration's inaction.  But I wonder how many of them are also going to make a donation to the fight in Maine or Washington. 

I find a lot more value in making a donation or calling or writing a representative than marching and chanting.  The latter makes the participant feel better.  The former makes the contributor's life better.  

Gore Vidal Interview

Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’

The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it.  - Tim Teeman

full (excellent) article: 

“I’m not into partnerships,” he says dismissively. I don’t even know what it means.” He “couldn’t care less” about gay marriage. “Does anyone care what Americans think? They’re the worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which good advertisers know how to provoke.” You could have been the first gay president, I say. “No, I would have married and had nine children,” he replies quickly and seriously. “I don’t believe in these exclusive terms.”

Impaired mobility doesn’t bother him — he “rose like a miracle” on stage at the National — and he doesn’t dwell on mortality either. “Either you accept there is such a thing or you’re so dumb that you can’t grasp it.” Is he in good health? “No, of course not. I’m diabetic. It’s odd, I’ve never been fat and I don’t like candy, which most Americans are hooked on.”

There is a trace of thwarted ambition about him. “I would have liked to have been president, but I never had the money. I was a friend of the throne. The only time I envied Jack was when Joe [Kennedy, JFK’s father] was buying him his Senate seat, then the presidency. He didn’t know how lucky he was. Here’s a story I’ve never told. In 1960, after he had spent so much on the presidential campaign, Joe took all nine children to Palm Beach to lecture them. He was really angry. He said, ‘All you read about the Kennedy fortune is untrue. It’s non-existent. We’ve spent so much getting Jack elected and not one of you is living within your income’. They all sat there, shame-faced. Jack was whistling. He used to tap his teeth: they were big teeth, like a xylophone. Joe turned to Jack and he says, ‘Mr President, what’s the solution?’ Jack said, ‘The solution is simple. You all gotta work harder’.” Vidal guffaws heartily.

Dominionism and Epistemology

I have decided to post the main piece of writing I've been working on this semester as a PDF.   It has been submitted to several Political Science journals and is awaiting peer review.  Below is the précis only followed by a downloadable  copy of the full document.  Enjoy:

Précis

Dominionism is an authoritarian ideology that combines political hegemony with metaphysical certitude.  A key impediment to any authoritarian leadership is the capacity of subjects to question and counter its claims to power.  Human reason and critical analysis provide the inspiration to subvert an authoritarian regime.   This paper examines an American political movement that works within the confines of liberal democracy to supplant liberal democracy.  Critical to its agenda is the undermining of institutions that cultivate reason in citizens.  The underlying difference in the conflict between dominionism and reason is best understood as a competition of epistemologies.

Download dominionism_and_epistemology.pdf

Hate Crimes: Fact and Fiction

For several months now the Democratic lead Congress has batted around the idea of adding new categories to already existing federal hate crimes laws.  The house approved it but the Senate attached it to a defense bill that had to be shelved till a later date.  The new categories are gender, disability, and sexual orientation.  Predictably, America's professional anti-gay activists have launched into apocalyptic seizures over the idea of including sexual orientation. 

The religious right, however, has not come up with a single argument against hate crimes laws.  After reading the right wing "news" sites and activists propaganda for months I have noticed that not one religious right group has argued against hate crimes laws in their totality.  This is because to argue against current hate crimes laws they would have to somehow explain why religion and race should not be protected categories. 

The strategy they have chosen to follow instead is two fold.  First, they claim adding sexual orientation to hate crimes laws would give the government the power to punish thoughts and words.  Second, they argue hate crimes law protect certain classes of citizens over others.  Both of these claims are absurd and would be comical if not for the power and influence of these bigots. 
 

MYTH 1: Hate crimes laws are a new concept currently being debated by Congress.

FACT: To read the materials on the religious right web sites one could easily conclude that hate crimes laws are not a reality already.  The fact is, hate crimes laws have been around for four decades.  The questions before Congress now is whether to add new identity categories to existing federal hates crimes laws.  Since the mid 1960s hates crimes laws have added specific punishments when an act of violence is used to threaten a community based on race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion.  At issue now is whether to add sexual orientation, disability, and gender to the list of protected categories. 

When the religious right argues against hate crimes laws it is important to note that they have enjoyed the protections of hate crimes laws for forty years.  They do not argue against the existence of hate crimes laws, per se, only expanding the protections to people other than them. 

MYTH 2: Hate crimes laws make it less of a crime to attack a straight person than a gay person. 

I have already addressed this ridiculous scare tactic at length in what I call the "grandma delusion."  The religious right stretches the truth to claim that somehow you won't be punished for beating a straight, white person.  It is a pathetic claim.  Nothing in the text of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act ranks people based on who they are. 

If a person breaks spray paints his name on the front of your store they are guilty of vandalism.  If a person spray paints his name and "kykes go home" on the front of your store with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans then they have not merely committed the crime of vandalism.  They have vandalized a storefront AND used that act of vandalism to send a threatening message to the Jewish community causing Jewish people to live in fear or not do business in that area.  Hate crimes laws recognize the duel crime of the latter situation.

Likewise, if a person mugs someone for money they have committed a violent robbery.  However, if a person is picking off guys leaving a gay bar for brutal beatings with homophobic slurs, that attack is not just against the individual but used to threaten the community as a whole.  A hate crimes law would punish both aspects of the crime. 

It is important to note, again, that this understanding of a hate crimes law has protected Christians and people of any faith for forty years.  Hate crimes laws were originally passed as a response to church burnings in the South.  People recognized then that burning a black church is not a simple act of arson but arson with an explicit threat to the black community.  The religious right has enjoyed hate crimes protections for years and hidden behind them when attacked for their often hateful and bigoted rhetoric.  They do not oppose hate crimes laws, they oppose others being protected by them. 

MYTH 3: Expanding hate crimes laws to include gays and lesbians is equivalent to passing thought crimes laws.

This is a pervasive lie repeated ad nauseum on all the religious right sites.  A small sampling of this hysteria can be seen in the following:
"[T]he bill would elevate homosexuals to a special protected status. So if a pastor stands up in the pulpit and says homosexuality is a sin ... it will be considered hate speech, …and if this law passes, the federal government will go after people who say those kinds of things."  cite
"This is an effort to silence people who want to step up and talk about morals because some [people] don't want to be made to feel guilty,"  cite
"What they're attempting to do here in America, the birthplace of freedom, is to criminalize Christians for simply sharing the truth of God's Word -- and we cannot stand for that," cite

Hate crimes laws specifically address violent crimes; not speech, not thoughts.  Nowhere in the text of the law is there any prohibition on speech or thoughts.  Furthermore, such a law could never survive judicial review even if it somehow got passed. 

It is worth asking why the religious right makes up a reason to oppose adding sexual orientation.  There is no way possible that a law is going to pass Congress or be held up in court that bans specific speech.  There are no good reasons to oppose adding sexual orientation to hate crimes laws so in order to keep gays and lesbians from being protected they have to manufacture a threat to speech with no evidence this will or has ever occurred. 

MYTH 4: Pastors who preach sermons giving the "biblical" view of homosexuality could be prosecuted.

What the religious right calls the "biblical" view of homosexuality is their own unhistorical interpretation of select verses that have little or nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus.  That said, they have the right to preach whatever view about whatever god they want. 

No pastor or any person is in legal jeopardy for expressing an opinion about homosexuality or any other matter.  After forty-some years of hate crimes laws it is still legal for a pastor or anyone to stand before a congregation and spew all sorts of hatred.  The KKK can still march down any street in America and hold any rally they want.  Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and any other faith imaginable has the unrestricted right to believe whatever and teach whatever.  The only time a pastor can be prosecuted for inciting violence is when he or she specifically directs an audience to go attack someone and a listener follows orders.  Inciting someone to commit violence has nothing to do with hate crimes laws. 

For four decades there is no evidence that any pastor has ever been arrested for preaching about something that supposedly violates a hate crimes law.  If this had ever happened the religious right would repeatedly tell the story in all their propaganda.  In many states and cities, gays and lesbians already have hate crimes protections.  The issue now is whether to add that category to federal hate crimes laws.  Although no one in the religious right can name a single instance in which an existing hate crimes law in any state or city has resulted in pastors being targeted for their speech, they still espouse the idea that somehow adding gays and lesbians to hate crimes laws puts pastors at risk.

They oppose adding gays and lesbians to federal hate crimes laws because they have an irrational animus toward gays and lesbians.  Rather than just be honest about that animus they make up false threats like the fear mongering about pastors and free speech. 

One could argue against the existence of hate crimes laws altogether.  One could say that having any protected category violates the Equal Protections clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  I would probably still disagree with that person but at least that argument would be intellectually honest.  However, as shown over and over again, intellectual honesty is not the religious right's forte. 

CEO vs. Minister: Election 2008

The election of 2008 is the longest run for president ever.  Eighteen months before the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries are held the candidates are campaigning as if they were two months out.  My Sunday morning talk shows tend to be split evenly between two topics; the Iraq mess and sizing up candidates for president.

There are literally hundreds of polls one can access right now that try to make some statement or prediction about the race.  There’s every variation of the direct match-up poll anyone can think of.  There’s Clinton v. Romney.  There’s McCain v. Edwards.  There’s Obama against any unnamed Republican nominee.  There are likeability polls and electability polls.  There are polls with Bloomberg included as an independent candidate – even though he hasn’t announced his candidacy – and there are polls that leave him out. 

None of these polls mean anything right now.  We don’t know enough about anyone to make these numbers significant.  A majority of Americans can’t identify Romney or know anything about him.  If they know one thing about him it’s that he is Mormon.  But then further questioning reveals people know very little about Mormonism and have snap judgments similar to some Freudian word association exercise.  Still, they somehow know they like him more than Senator Clinton. 

About the only poll that matters is the indicator of endurance also known as cash-on-hand.  Obama has pulled way ahead of Clinton in the fundraising department, which threatens her inevitability posture.  And John McCain is pathetically lagging behind and has been forced to cut staff; a near certain indicator his candidacy is all but doomed. 

The hard fast figures of campaign cash provide some useful information at this point but the remainder of the polls does not.  Polls are so easily manipulated that a vs. or a preference poll with unknown quantities and untested candidates is little more than a political 8-ball the news networks are shaking daily.  But, polling could be useful right now if the right questions were asked.

Largely, the nation’s temperature is not being taken.  What I mean is that there is not enough empirical data readily available for 2007 that indicates trends and attitudes.  People are ticked off about the Iraq war and concerned about global warming.  We know these things.  We also know people are fickle and any flavor of the week issue can suddenly spike in import.  What we don’t know and could be gleaning useful information from are attitudes regarding character traits and the degree of pragmatism people are looking for now.

There are many metaphors for the presidency.  Some see the chief executive of the country like the chief executive of a large company.  S/he has to have a specific vision and agenda for the company’s product (standard of living, security, etc.) and budget that can get board (congressional) approval.  Others allegorize the presidency as some limited monarch who delivers edicts for which the legislative branch either has to have the courage to oppose or the patriotism and duty to back.  How we each view the presidency affects how we vote.  Are we looking for a good CEO, a royal, an authoritarian, a friend, a diplomatic negotiator, what? 

In 2000 we wanted a good guy to be our husband and father.  After Clinton’s indiscretions we wanted a good Christian.  We wanted the guy that stood up and said Jesus was his favorite philosopher because he changed his life.  We wanted the guy that said the Bible was his favorite (or only) book and seemed sincere about it.  We wanted the beer buddy who found the lord but, awe shucks, still knew how to have a good time.  We wanted a back slapper who quoted hymns and moral man with a direct line to God. 

In 2004 we wanted someone who would protect us from the terrorists and the gays.  Marriage amendments were introduced in swing states with dire warnings about the fabric of society and God’s hand of protection over our nation.  Everything with which we disagreed was lumped into the label of terrorism and fear was the currency of authority. 

In both elections, we didn’t care if the candidate was a moron as long as he was moral.  We didn’t care if the candidate had any managerial skills as long as he called on the correct higher power.  Now, with the Iraq mess and W’s approval rating sunk lower than Carter’s and approaching Nixon’s bottoms it’s likely we are rethinking our presidential preferences.  There are lots of polls that say people don’t think Hilary Clinton is sincere when she talks about her faith.  There is little data out there that indicates whether one’s faith level and faith label is really going to figure into voters’ decision process this time around. 

It may be my grad school elitist idealism talking or maybe just my bleeding-heart optimism but I really believe a lot of voters are going to care more about who can actually run a country well than who squeezes the Bible the tightest.  There really is a skill set associated with leading a country and being a good hypothetical drinking buddy or knowing the right Christian sloganism doesn’t guarantee you have those skills. 

George W. Bush is not a total idiot.  He’s a near genius at manipulating the religious proclivities of millions of voters.  He knows how and when to invoke God-talk and he does it brilliantly.  But he’s not well read.  He hadn’t traveled abroad prior to becoming president.  He didn’t grasp the difference between Shi and Sunni Muslims before invading Iraq.  He chooses the ideology of tax cuts (for the rich) while ignoring the practical reality of wartime budgeting.  He focuses on moralizing.  Last week he again vetoed the stem cell bill.  The result is that excess embryos will be thrown in the garbage rather than used in medical research.  It’s mind numbingly stupid to think the former is preferable to the latter but it makes perfect sense in Bush world.  We elected someone who puts the demagoguery of “culture of life” above advancing Science and medicine.  Great religious devotion.  Bad governance. 

This time around we just may be looking for someone with intelligence and pragmatism rather than a dad or a minister.  I want my president to run the country well more than I want someone who best reflects my moral ideology.  And I think there are broad statements one can make about voters now that mirror that change in mindset. 

It’s difficult for me to say now who might win or even who I would want to win.  My number one issue is national healthcare.  I know in the recent Democratic debate there was a lot of discussion about the various candidates’ healthcare plans and in the Republican debate there was a lot of discussion about appropriate torture methods.  Coverage of the race right now though does not interest me because there is a deficit of useful information.  I’ll be waiting for Pew Research and Gallop to provide some numbers on attitudinal trends and I’ll be watching candidates to see what they think are their selling parts.   Are you trying to impress me with your church membership or your withdrawal timetable?  Right now all I hear about is fundraising and head-to-heads.  Once the race can be examined from the angle of aggregate attitude then I’ll renew my political junkie membership.  It’s going to be a long campaign season. 

Ding Dong

The death of Jerry Falwell created an exercise in mature sensitivity for many activists this week.  While some had to be pleased with the news of his passing, public acknowledgments of it on the part of his enemies remained staid and polite.  On Good As You, the site’s author said “demonization just doesn’t agree with us” and that he and his partner “genuinely wished [Falwell] well.”  On Fallwell.com, a site devoted to the single mission of countering Jerry Falwell, they expressed sympathy to Falwell’s family and said,  “…there is no satisfaction in hearing of his passing. It was his homophobic bigotry and intolerance that we wanted to die, not him personally.

But one columnist in particular was not so sensitive and grown up about it. Cathleen Falsani of the Chicago Sun-Times unapologetically saw his death as a good thing. It isn’t that anyone dying is something to celebrate unless you’re a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.  It’s that Jerry Falwell devoted his career to victimizing every group not in the exactly-like-Falwell circle of the Vin diagram.  He was a leader in the most divisive political movement in America since the civil war.  And he found a new outlet for the losers of the civil rights movement bitter and bloated on sour grapes. 

Falwell was a pioneer of the religious right movement.  Where did that movement originate?  In a piece celebrating the life of Falwell, CNN’s summarized Falwell’s mission as “reclaiming America for God.”   (So much for the myth of a liberally biased mainstream media.)  Jerry’s decision to form a political movement for this “reclamation” came in the early 70s.  Now what could have happened just prior to the 70s that “reclaiming America” could be code for?  All those Southerners and like-minded racists that opposed the civil rights movement in the 60s did not just accept defeat and march to the funeral home.  They looked at the changes in America and the advancement in equality and swore then to more venomously and more stealthily attack liberalism. 

But they didn’t just attack minorities. They really attacked religious liberty.  Of the many inspirations for forming the Moral Majority, Falwell cited “kicking God out of public schools.”  What he meant by that, of course, was the Supreme Court’s decision against requiring kids in New York to recite a very specific sectarian prayer.  According to Falwell and those that think like him this amounted to outlawing religion.  But to many this represented the ability to worship as you choose.  Having the government dictate how and when you pray and what you say to God was not very Christian or American.  But for Falwell, that was the centerpiece for his advocacy; preventing people from believing what they want and practicing those beliefs.  And he worked to coerce every facet of government in the enforcement of his narrow beliefs.  For that reason, Falwell’s career should be seen as so much more than merely anti-Gay. 

Jerry Falwell gained a lot of criticism, attention, and much craved money from attacking gay people during the latter years of his life.  And most of the fair-minded eulogies in the press have focused heavily on that aspect of his career.  But it is important to remember that gay people were not the only targets of Jerry Falwell.  Although absent from news coverage since the mid-term elections, Falwell’s “sermons” and activism had largely switched focus to illegal immigrants and Muslims.  Having pounded on the gay fear button for over a decade, he was beginning to see diminishing returns in the amount of news appearances and donations it garnered him.  So he changed up the target to other unpopular groups to revive his appeal to the more base and banal characteristics of human sheep. 

What makes Falsani’s article so moving is her willingness to admit a sense of relief when she learned of his death.  She labels this emotion, “Ding dong the witch is dead.”  In it she describes feeling like a taunted child who no longer will be bullied by that man.  But Falsani isn’t gay.  Nor is she Muslim or Jewish or black.  She’s a Christian woman who experienced the most vitriolic attacks from Falwell and in many ways felt the impact of his bigotry most severely. 

Of all the targets-de-jour Jerry has served up over the years as agents of social collapse no one has suffered more than true, Bible-believing Christians.  Jerry Falwell was a pioneer in a larger movement to seize on the organization and communal obedience of Southern churches and reorganize them into political machines.  In two books, Jimmy Carter, America’s Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher president, describes with horror having to stand and watch his denomination change in the 60s and 70s.  What once was a place of spiritual orthodoxy was taken over in the church hierarchy by political operatives.  Gradually, Christianity was redefined for many as a political party concerned with electoral gains.  Only that which could be taken out of context and reinterpreted for immediate political gain was allowed to remain of the red-letter words of Jesus. 

This isn’t to say that Christianity was always a force of truth and justice throughout the world before it became politicized by the anti-civil-rights crowd.  People in every religion have committed atrocities in the name of every religion.  But religion in America for so long was something sacred.  Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out a century earlier that religion had been such a driving force in America because of its importance to individual lives as opposed to its coalescence by a political party. 

In 2007 Falsani feels relieved to no longer be bullied by Jerry Falwell because his death represents the death of one more person with a checklist of political positions one must sign off on before they feel comfortable in a house of worship. 

Of all the harm Falwell did to this minority or that minority, his greatest victims were Christians.  Because of him and the religious right movement, Christianity in modern America has a guilty association.  Those that value Science or education or the arts in the slightest are reluctant to self-identity as Christians because that identity has been co-opted by something decidedly not Christian.  Those that have a personal relationship with God may be loath to admit it lest they be misunderstood as affiliated with those political thugs. 

It may be overly optimistic but I really think the influence and efficacy of the religious right is on the decline.  They are dually an asset and liability in Republican politics today that it is difficult to predict what effect – if any – they will have on the 2008 elections.  They still run the party.  But how long can a party be run by a group of crazy relatives most prefer to hide in the attic?  On one hand McCain made a pilgrimage to Liberty University to make amends with those he once called “agents of intolerance.”  On the other, McCain is skipping Falwell’s funeral.      

Like many of the activists groups, I will not say I was jubilant about the death of anyone.  However, the religious right movement is graying.  Dobson, Robertson, Wildmon, and Sheldon are very advanced in years.  They are going to pass away and, hopefully, much of their ideology now appealing to the senior set will fall into history too.   The younger, kinder Rick Warren and Co. are more than happy to stand up and say, hey, we’re Christians too.  And by the way, Jesus actually said…

Jerry Falwell’s legacy is not based on anti-gay activism.  That may be getting a lot of attention in the press but gay civil rights are advancing speedily in spite of Falwell and his colleagues.  If Falwell’s career was judged on his ability to alter the course or speed of equality for gays then he would be measured a colossal failure and barely worth a footnote on the evening news.  Falwell’s great success was a modern redefinition of Christianity in America.  He could not prevent gays from marrying but excelled at unifying Christian iconography and slick political advocacy.  His fortune was really made by supplanted God as the entity deciding who is good and bad, Christian and heathen.  And his most brutalized targets were those he ran from the church and those he prevented from considering attendance. 

Falsani is probably spot-on in her expression of “ding dong the witch is dead.”  And what we need now is a Glenda the Good Witch to appear and say come out, come out wherever you are.  It’s safe you black, Jewish, Muslim, women, atheist, liberal, gay, and yes, Christian munchkins.  It may not be.  Falwell was only one in a whole mafia of “ministers.”  But it is a little safer to be whatever type of munchkin you are in a post-Falwell world and that, sensitive or not, is worthy of celebration. 

The Grandma Dillusion

Two bills have been introduced in Congress lately that mark significant progress in human dignity.  The first is a modification to hate crimes laws to include gender, sexual orientation, and disability status.  The second would make it illegal to fire employees based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation.  I know I tend to be a bit liberal but when I first heard about these two bills a few months ago I was surprised they weren’t already law.  I thought for sure it was illegal, or at least sue-able, to fire someone for being gay.  And I could have sworn women were already covered by hate crimes laws.  I was wrong.  The debate on the floor of the house before the passing of the hate crimes modifications was perfunctory, predictable, and hardly dramatic.  The bill is a shoe-in to make it to the Senate.    This does not echo the debate among interest groups.  There are some people out there that still believe you should lose your job for not following their religious orthodoxy.  And there are some out there who equate hate crimes protections for women, gays, and handicapped people to us becoming a Stalinist regime.  Guess who?

It is difficult to list, much less counter, all the insane and inane arguments against these bills floating among the “pro-family” crowd.  It is so tedious a task.  It certainly can’t be done in one article so I will try through a series to dissipate the dense fog that exists in these people’s minds.  Fortunately for the first category of ridiculous rhetoric there is a large degree of repetition.  That first argument against hate crimes laws being expanded to cover gay people is the argument I call the Grandma Dillusion. 

This insidious piece of “reasoning” uses a transparent manipulative tactic: take something that instills disgust in your followers and juxtapose it against something that engenders fondness.  For example, compare grandmothers to gay men and surely no red-blooded good Christian would support giving legal protections to the latter if it meant jeopardizing the former. 

A few examples of this are as follows:

Matt Barbar, one of the more spiteful men at Concerned “Women” for America explains hate crimes by saying, “All things being equal, this means that if your 5-foot-2-inch grandmother were attacked in her home and a 6-foot-4-inch homosexual linebacker who likes to wear lipstick and high-heels were attacked by the same assailant, the "gay" linebacker would be treated as more valuable to society, and the crime would officially be considered more egregious.”

Originality at CWFA is not a priority as Shari Rendall of the same group later writes, “A grandmother walking down the street should have at least as much protection under the law as someone who is leaving a “gay” bar.”

In discussing Conyers, one of the original sponsors of the bill, Janet Folger explains, “And he must hate…grandma. And I think it's a crime. You see, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee just introduced the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" which would not only restrict our speech and remove equal justice, but it would give senior citizens (and the rest of us) less protection than homosexual activists.  So, if you're going to mug someone, better make sure it's grandma (unless she's become a lesbian) – because if the guy whose money you steal happens to be a homosexual, you're looking at a triple sentence. Go after grandma, and it's one-third off! Hey, why don't we save everyone a lot of time and just hand out "Conyers' Coupons for Criminals!"  She even has cute little coupons to encourage violence against grandma.

Monica Boyer of Illinois Voice for the Family explains hate crimes laws by saying it would “[make] it a worse crime to assault a gay man walking out of a bar than attacking a grandma walking down the street.

Another former Concerned “Woman” for America, Robert Knight, warns of the dangers of hate crimes laws by saying, “Equal protection means your grandma and your friend who lives as a homosexual have the same rights when they walk down the street. Under a hate crimes law, someone who mugs your grandmother will not be prosecuted as vigorously as someone who commits the same crime against a homosexual. This says to criminals: ‘Mug Grandma; It’s less risky.’ Hate crimes laws aren’t about justice; they are about favoritism and special rights.”  He repeats himself here in the Baptist Press.   

A stellar piece of journalism from the “Christian” "news" source Agape Press reads, "So if your grandmother is mugged… it won't be a big deal, and the law enforcement authorities may have to put more of their revenues toward the mugging, say, of a homosexual guy walking down the street.”

On their website, the Campaign for California Families asserts, “If John Doe randomly picked a lesbian and killed her because he hates everyone with a homosexual orientation, he would be given a stiffer penalty than if he killed his grandmother because he hated her. That is, the lesbian would be valued more than the grandmother.”
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_hat11.htm

Never one to be left off the crazy train, the American Family Association argues, “Under this radical bill, an assault against a homosexual man in his 30’s leaving a gay bar would carry a stronger punishment than the same crime against a grandmother leaving the grocery store.”

And one of the frequent AFA contributors, AKA Shelly the Republican, makes it clear by saying, “Let me just make this clear – you will spend more time in jail for killing a gay who tried to have sex with you then some crackhead who beats a little old grandmother’s head in for the pocket change in her purse.”

There are literally dozens more examples of this.  No one in the religious right is concerned with coming up with an original argument against hate crimes, much less a serious one. 

Anyone with a bit of education can smell the rhetorical rat in these claims.  Of course it won’t be less illegal to kill grandma or anyone else under the proposed expansion of hate crimes laws.  The religious right argues against “hate crimes laws” as if they’re a new concept that hasn’t existed for decades.

The original hate crimes laws were introduced over 40 years ago during the height of the civil rights movement.  The same Southern Baptist religious conservative crowd that viciously opposed the original hate crimes laws in the 60s is the same crowd that opposes their expansion now.  The church groups and geographical location of the opposition has not changed – only the targets. 

The four original categories were race, nationality, ethnicity, and religion.  The first three are somewhat redundant but the fourth is enlightening.  For more than four decades members of the religious right, and any other faith, have been protected by hate crimes laws.  And yet it has never been less of a crime to beat an atheist grandma over the head than a Jewish one – no matter what they say. 

The idea of hate crimes law is not to elevate categories of people over others.  They are designed to address the layers in complex crimes.  The original introduction of hate crimes laws came after a series of church burnings and bombings in the South.  The idea is that if someone comes to your backyard and burns down your garden shed and no one is hurt the crime is simple arson.  However, if someone comes to your church and burns it to the ground and no one is hurt it’s more than just simple arson.  The burning of a church sends a message to all followers of that religion within a particular community.  It implicitly threatens them with violence simply because of the faith they choose to practice.  So, in the instance of a church burning, there’s the crime of arson coupled with the independent offense of threatening a larger community.

It is not that poor gardening grandmas are valued less under the law than churchgoers.  It is a recognition that more than a simple act of violence has occurred when considering the symbolism of burning a church.  It is the same with ethnically owned businesses.  If you smash the glass at Belk and steal some watches you have committed theft.  It is a serious crime that is prosecuted.  However, if you smash the window of a Muslim bakery and spray paint racial epitaphs all over the walls you have done more than just breaking and entering.  You have used that crime to send a message to all Muslims in the community not to do business in your neighborhood.  There is an additional layer of criminality when one considers the threatening message.

Adding gays, women, and people with disabilities to hate crimes laws follows a similar logic.  If someone mugs someone for cash it’s a mugging.  However, if some thug is targeting men who leave gay bars for violence then that crime is sending a message to all gay men.  It tells them they shouldn’t get together – that they should live in the shadows or face getting beaten over the head.  There’s an additional crime present in that threat.

I know that Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, etc. do not directly advocate violence against gay people.  That’s not to say they don’t contribute to it with their constant fire-and-brimstone message about gays and feminists destroying all of society.  But, they don’t outwardly advocate it to their followers.  They do, however, benefit greatly from it.  As long as misguided males use gay people as their personal punching bags there will be all the more reason to remain in the closet.  It’s not gay bars the religious right fears gays assembling in.  It’s HRC meetings. 

If you can keep gay people closeted with any method of fear then you can slow their political progress.  The religious right’s first priority is political power and this continues to be threatened by their opponents.  If it is now a federal crime to threaten the greater community with violence, their silly radio shows will never be enough to derail the latest wave of the civil rights movement. 

So, rather than arguing why hate crimes shouldn’t exist for anyone in the first place they rely on frightening fabrications about your grandma being killed.  Religion is a choice.  You may be born into a religious family but you willfully choose to adopt that faith as your own and you also choose the way you practice it.  It is not an immutable trait as evidenced by the frequent religious conversions and general wandering agnosticism so common today.  If that lifestyle choice deserves special protection under hate crimes laws then surely the arguably less chosen, less mutable identity trait of sexual orientation deserves equal protection. 

The religious right has no sound argument against expanding hate crimes laws.  The best they can do is scare followers.  Fear is a powerful motivator in politics.  But, fortunately, so are facts. While fear is effective it is also fleeting.  Facts, however, are more sustainable as a political tool and a better predictor of ultimate success.