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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Yup! They're Just Like Straights! Kathryn Lopez at National Review Online has an article about the attempt of Democrats to demonize Alabama Attorney General Pryor as some sort of anti-homosexual bigot, because he rescheduled a trip with his 6 and 4 year olds to Disneyworld so that they wouldn't be visiting during Gay Day. (Thanks to Juan Non-Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy for the pointer.) As both Juan and Kathryn point out, this is not a sign of bigotry, but of good sense. There are pictures over at www.gayday.com showing last year's festivities--and let's just say that once you've seen some of the pictures of the events at Disneyworld, and associated venues, you wouldn't want your kids there. I suspect that if every American had to look at some of these pictures, the semi-tolerant state of public opinion in America about homosexuality would change, pretty dramatically. Click here, or here. or here. Yeah, there's a lot of pictures on that site that are pretty innocent--but what does it say about homosexuality that on a site where you would expect homosexuals to put their best foot forward, they put these sort of pictures? I am seriously considering putting Disney on my list of corporations that I will no longer patronize. Put My Money in My Tip Jar Or I Won't Blog For Days! Actually, I'm going to do research in the Washington State University, Pullman and Eastern Washington University libraries. I don't expect to do any blogging until July 6th, when I return. I probably won't be checking my email, either. Mark Kleiman Agrees With Me: Mark It On Your Calendar Professor Kleiman liked the result of the Lawrence decision, but seems to agree with me that it was wrongly decided: Substantively, I'm delighted with the Court's decision.... But as a Constitutional matter -- speaking here not as a Constitutional scholar, which I am not, but merely as someone with a citizen's level of interest in Constitutional law -- yesterday's decision strikes me as something of a far fetch. That's because the proposition that private adult consensual sexual conduct has only private consequences and is therefore not an appropriate subject for legislation seems to me so implausible. That Ten Commandments Case In The Alabama Supreme Court If you haven't been following this case, here are the essential facts. The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court put a 2 1/2 ton granite monument in the middle of the Supreme Court building's rotunda, with the Ten Commandments on it. There has been a series of actions in federal courts, and the Chief Justice has lost (I believe) every round. The complaint is that the Ten Commandments monument is a violation of the First Amendment's religious establishment clause, and that the imposing nature of the the monument serves primarily a religious purpose, not a secular one. You can read the Court of Appeals decision here. (Thanks to How Appealing for the link.) My own view on this is that the Chief Justice has gone too far. I don't think he was wrong when he hung a copy of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom some years ago, and I don't think there's anything inappropriate in having the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, especially because it is one of the foundations of our legal system. (Well, it was until last week.) The Chief Justice in this case seems to have gone out of his way to demolish any secular purpose argument--and he's not being at all dishonest or coy about it, as the decision makes very clear. What I do find interesting, however, is this complaint from the plaintiffs: The three plaintiffs are attorneys whose professional duties require them to enter the Judicial Building regularly, and when they do so they must pass by the monument. None of them shares the Chief Justice’s religious views, and all of them consider the monument offensive. It makes them feel like outsiders, and two of the plaintiffs have altered their behavior as a consequence. Id. at 1297. As we noted earlier, one of those two has incurred expenses in order to minimize contact with the monument, purchasing law books and online research to minimize use of the state law library and hiring messengers to file documents in the courts located in the building.Wait a minute: if there were a monument to Buddha, or a Temple of Reason (French Revolutionary style), or a monument to atheism (what would that be? A big empty box?), I might be upset about it, and challenge it on First Amendment grounds--but it wouldn't cause me to stop using the building. I could understand if this were a graphic sexual act being depicted, or art depicting rape, or mayhem, or a continuous running loop from Night of the Living Dead. This leaves me with two possible explanations for the offense: 1. These are people so profoundly hostile to the Judeo-Christian mindset that they can't stand to be in the same room with this slab of granite. There are fundamentalists who claim that they get around some people, and they can sense the "demonic" nature of their spirits, and can't stand to be around them. But somehow, I can't picture that the attorneys are in this worldview. 2. The attorneys are pretending to be so offended that they can't use the building, so that they have a valid excuse for claiming injury. I think these claims of being so offended that they can't even use the building anymore need to be seriously evaluated. It's bad enough that both Roe v. Wade (1973) and the companion suit involving Doe were apparently decided based on lies by Roe, and false filings by Doe's attorney. Do we really want more court decisions based on probably false statements? Another Victory for Free Speech & Freedom of Religion From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Indiana County teacher's aide Brenda Nichol, suspended for wearing a cross in school, won the first round in her federal court battle yesterday when a judge said her employer must reinstate her.The school district had a policy prohibiting "employees from wearing 'religious emblems, dress or insignia,'" including a cross that Ms. Nichol wore. Just to add insult to injury to the Constitution, "singles out religious symbols while allowing jewelry containing secular messages." So this is not only a violation of freedom of speech, but also freedom of religion. I really, really would like to hear the rationale for this policy, other than the bare hatred of religion that typifies many public school teachers. Oh, it wasn't the ACLU that took this court. It was the ACLJ "American Center for Law & Justice, a Virginia-based law firm founded by Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson." The ACLU has more important clients these days than the Bill of Rights, I guess. Article in The New Republic About Lawrence Jeffrey Rosen's article in, of all places, The New Republic, says much of what I have been saying (in more detail, and with a bit more polish) about why the Lawrence decision was bad: And the answer, for liberal and conservative defenders of judicial restraint, should be unequivocal. Yes, as a constitutional matter, Lawrence is worse than Roe. The Court could have struck down Texas's sodomy law on the narrow grounds that it violated the equal protection of the laws by forbidding homosexual but not heterosexual sodomy. But instead the Court embraced and extended a sweeping and amorphous right to sexual liberty that is even harder to locate in the text or history of the Constitution than the right of reproductive autonomy that the Court discovered in Roe. By resurrecting an unprincipled and unconvincing constitutional methodology, the Court will energize the conservatives who have lost the culture wars, and will allow them to cast themselves as judicial martyrs rather than political losers.Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer. Monday, June 30, 2003
Humor Just received from a friend: Follow these instructions exactly: 1. Go to http://www.google.com (actual google home page). 2. Type "weapons of mass destruction" as the search string. 3. Hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. 4. Check out the resulting web page very carefully (it's not what it seems). Why The NRA May Be Right To Not Rush a Second Amendment Case to the Supreme Court There are a lot of gun rights activists who are upset with NRA's reluctance to go to court with a Second Amendment case. These recent decisions by the Supreme Court are strong arguments for why that reluctance is sensible. In the University of Michigan law school case, the Supreme Court decided that even though the Fourteenth Amendment is explicit that there will be no discrimination based on race, discrimination based on race, as long as it's not made too explicit, is okay. In the other case, the Supreme Court ignored precedent, rewrote some of Colonial America's sodomy laws, and then used due process and a lot of armwaving to strike down a state law of the sort that has been present for centuries--and then discounted everything more than 50 years old as not particularly relevant to their decision. ("In all events we think that our laws and traditions in the past half century are of most relevance here.") And you suddenly are going to trust the Supreme Court to make a decision about the meaning of the Second Amendment? All your arguments in favor of an individual right are based on: 1. Historical evidence that will be ignored, just like colonial Connecticut and Plymouth's homosexual sodomy laws were ignored. 2. Precedents of both federal and state supreme courts that are largely more than 50 years old. 3. Notions of individual rights that are even older. Against this, the gun control side has the same elites that wanted the sodomy law struck down. I think the NRA may be right not to rush to the Supreme Court of Urban Elitism. Labels: gun rights A Defender of O'Connor's Affirmative Action Decision Admits What AA Is All About Stanley Fish, "dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago," defends Justice Thomas's dissent, by pointing out that Thomas is defending a principle of law--non-discrimination based on race--but admits the real reason that affirmative action exists: A proper assessment might begin by challenging the assumption that neutral principles, abstracted from history, are capable all by themselves of deciding issues that arise only in historical circumstances.In short, affirmative action is an attempt to help black people achieve an equality of result that large numbers of liberals clearly don't think black people can achieve on a level playing field. There is no more damning indictment that I can imagine of what liberalism has become, than this argument that essentially says, "They aren't capable of making it into law school without being given an extra special boost that we don't give to Asians." Racism remains a problem in America today, no question. There is a group that believes that black people are too stupid to make it without special treatment--now, half a century after Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and after more than 25 years of affirmative action programs. That group are liberals. Jacob Levy Demonstrating That He Is Part of the Cultural Elite Levy passionately argues that the Lawrence decision was a good thing--and makes the claim that unlike Roe v. Wade (1973), which played a major part in creating a Religious Right, the Lawrence decision won't have a similar effect: Lawrence will not replicate any part of this, for a couple of reasons. First, there is no sleeping giant to wake. The reactivation of southern white Protestant politics has happened already; and that politics hasn't gone back into hibernation.... The number of people who feel deep moral horror or revulsion at its legality is much, much smaller than the number who feel that way about abortion.Levy is incorrect on several counts here: 1. The Religious Right was not, and is not, specifically southern. It is big in places that are not southern, such as Idaho, eastern Washington, Utah, many parts of California back some distance from the millionaires' beachfront homes, and many parts of the Midwest. There are significant numbers of Religious Right voters even in the Northeast. 2. There is a sleeping giant to awake. The vast majority of churches that I have attended lean fundamentalist (I'm probably too liberal theologically for much of the flock, although the pastors and I usually see more eye to eye). The vast majority of the people that attend those churches are not terribly interested in politics. Even the pastors tend to be relatively apolitical, concentrating almost all of their energy on ministry. The Lawrence decision, not because of its direct effect on sodomy laws, but because of the invitation by Justice Kennedy to challenge existing marriage laws, is going to make a lot of people start paying attention. Groups like Moral Majority were big--23 years ago. Most of that generation fell asleep politically about 1984, and some of their children are going to see this as a wake-up call. 3. Levy thinks that there is no deep revulsion to legalization of sodomy. Well, there probably isn't any deep revulsion out there with respect to heterosexuals, but there is still considerable discomfort about homosexuality, and I hear it on a pretty regular basis. Not hatred, mind you, but the sort of revulsion that goes with gay pride parade exhibitionism: Despite this year's historic backdrop, the events in cities around the country maintained their colorful, Carnaval-like atmosphere. They featured naked cyclists, fluffy pink boas and floats swaying with singing drag queens.There are, of course, people who have real deep hatred of homosexuals--who think of me as a hopeless liberal on this subject. Most of them aren't terribly political, in my experience--but this will provoke someone of them to vote with this issue in mind. UPDATE: The public nudity thing isn't just San Francisco, of course. Toronto's gay pride parade: The parade route was lined a half-dozen people deep with faces reflecting just about every facet of the city's multicultural makeup. Elderly couples stood alongside punks with Mohawks, shameless men wearing only leather codpieces, and women completely comfortable hanging out topless in the hot sun.New York as well, of course, had these reminders that gay people really aren't like everyone else: NEW YORK (AP) -- Topless lesbian motorcyclists and men dressed as Brazilian carnival queens marched in gay pride parades across the country, an annual celebration made all the more joyous this year by the Supreme Court's landmark ruling striking down laws against sodomy. Another of Those Land of the Giants Props In the 1960s, Irwin Allen produced what is among the worst science fiction series ever created: Land of the Giants. The only series that I can recall that topped it for bad science, bad acting, and bad dialogue, was Lost in Space. But ever since, I have been partial to the outrageously inappropriately sized objects that you sometimes find--huge wrenches, little tiny functioning firearms--and this recent photograph of a telescope that someone is trying to sell. What a Difference 9/11 Made Interesting article from the Palm Beach Post about a local rally by the Million Mom March--only four people showed up. Last week, the Million Mom March had a shindig on the front steps of West Palm Beach City Hall to commemorate national ASK Day, a day designed to remind parents to ask whether guns are in the houses where their children play.The rest of the article is a reminder that along with cynical, manipulative, dishonest politicians pandering for votes by supporting restrictive gun control, there are people like this, who have lost sons and daughters to criminal attack. Unfortunately, these are rather near-sighted people, who can't seem to focus beyond the muzzle of the gun, at the criminal pulling the trigger. I've written before about how 9/11 quite unexpectedly changed the gun control debate in America: There are momentous events that, overnight, change how a whole society thinks and acts, when the fantasies that many people hold must be abandoned. The change to our lives is sudden and obvious—like turning a light switch on or off. Suddenly, everything that went before seems quaint, or naive, or just overwhelmingly old-fashioned. These moments are the great dividing lines of a society, and while some of the changes are immediately visible, others may take weeks, months, or years to be noticed.While this article in the Palm Beach Post only alludes to how much things have changed in three years, it should be obvious that 9/11 is what changed it. I'm Sorry, This Sounds Like a Monthy Python Skit Vancouver isn't decriminalizing heroin and cocaine: they are providing supervision to make sure that addicts do it correctly. VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - Canada will open North America's first legal safe-injection site for drug addicts later this year, a decision that drew swift criticism from White House drug czar John Walters.I can understand decriminalization arguments. I have a lot more problem with something like this. The government isn't saying, "It's not our job to save you." I can understand and approve of methadone programs, whose goal is to wean addicts off of heroin (even though it seems largely to replace a destructive addiction with a harmless addiction). Instead, Vancouver is providing, I presume at significant government expense, facilities, equipment, and staff to facilitate heroin and cocaine use. The government is expressing its opinion of drug addiction by doing this: "Yes!" Watching California Government Evaporate I'm so glad that I don't live in that insane asylum anymore. LOS ANGELES -- Any day now, community colleges here may begin telling faculty members that they cannot be paid and students that summer classes are canceled.The Democrats are blaming the Republicans for refusing to give in big tax increases; the Republicans, unsurprisingly, refuse to assist the Democrats out of a mess almost entirely of their own doing. Every statewide office is held by the Democrats in California; the Democrats have had overwhelming majorities in both houses of the legislature for several years now; even the energy deregulation plan--which only deregulated part of the market, put the state government in the energy business, and helped to create this huge deficit--was written by a Democrat State Senator Peace. Considering the unrelieved leftist zealotry of the California Democratic Party these last few years (gun control laws aimed at guns that have never been criminally misused; a new gun control law that requires extraordinary paperwork to buy a handgun; a law that prohibits discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation--but that seems to include pedophilia a protected orientation), why should the Democrats expect Republicans to help them out right now? Jerry Springer: The Future of the Democratic Party? This AP wire service story about Jerry Springer's run for U.S. Senate is...amazing: Jerry Springer says his fame could help revitalize the Democratic Party if he's elected to the U.S. Senate next year.Yeah, the king of freaks runs for Senate. A February Ohio Poll, conducted by the University of Cincinnati, found 71 percent of those surveyed - the highest such number in the poll's history - had an unfavorable opinion of Springer.Which, I guess means that 29% of Ohioans watch Springer's show. Saying the nation's "elite" are making no sacrifices for the country, Springer criticized his own party for not offering people "anything to get excited about."Perhaps Springer could make a sacrifice for the country--and stop operating a public freak show tent. Sunday, June 29, 2003
Constitutional Amendment To Ban Gay Marriage Before Congress I found this wire service story about a proposed constitutional amendment preventing the federal courts from imposing homosexual marriage on the states: Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., was the main sponsor of the proposal offered May 21 to amend the Constitution. It was referred to the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution on Wednesday, the day before the high court ruled.I just finished sending the following letter to my Senators, Craig and Crapo, and my Representative, Butch Otter: I understand that a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman is before Congress. Please support such an amendment. The recent Lawrence decision by the Supreme Court was erroneous in its methodology (even though I'm not strongly upset by the result), relying on false statements about the nature of colonial and early Republic sodomy laws. Justice Kennedy's decision also contains an obvious invitation to challenge current marriage laws. As much as I would like the results of the Lawrence decision overturned by Constitutional amendment, I am realistic enough to know that there simply isn't the support for such an amendment overturning Lawrence. Banning homosexual marriage by amendment, however, does enjoy enough support to realistically get passed. Let's do it now--while we still have the political influence to make that happen.You can write a letter to your legislators as well. Do it now. UPDATE: Just to clarify: this proposed amendment wouldn't prevent a state from allowing homosexual marriage. It would, however, prevent the courts from imposing homosexual marriage. |
