Still Fighting After All These Years

(Cartoon by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal Constitution and located here.  Click on image to enlarge and then hustle on back.)

Mike Luckovich's cartoon is as timely today as it was when it was published last year (at least I think it was last year ... ).  We're still fighting the War On Women, and what is particularly disheartening is that there are women fighting on the wrong freakin' side!  Robin Abcarian had a particularly thoughtful analysis of this phenomenon in one of her recent columns for the L.A. Times.  In it, she noted that three conservative women spoke on a panel at an Heritage Foundation event.  (She has happily provided a video of that panel at the top of her column.)

Has feminism made women miserable?

Oh God, are we really having this discussion?

Yes, we are.

That, in fact, was the gist of an all-female panel discussion at the conservative Heritage Foundation which chose to "celebrate" Women’s History Month last week by inviting a trio of professional women to trash the very movement to which they most assuredly owe their status in the workplace.

 

Not to mention the respect they are accorded by formerly male-dominated political bastions like the, um, Heritage Foundation.

 

But why let details like that stand in the way when you are, as the panel promised, “Evaluating Feminism, Its Failures and Its Future”? ...

It took a few minutes of watching the video before I realized that these women have nothing good to say about "feminism" because, by their definition, it’s the ideological opposite of "conservative."

To them, it does not stand for the political view that men and women are equal, that women should be able to control their own reproductive fates, that no government entity, educational institution or business should be able to discriminate against anyone on the basis of gender. Instead it's a synonym for “liberals” or “Democrats.”   [Emphasis added]

 I suppose I should be amused by the fact that the three women who indeed "owe their status" to the feminist movement.  Mona Charon (newspaper columnist, occasional talk show guest), Mollie Hemingway (Senior Editor of the Federalist), and Karen Agness (founder of the Network of Enlightened Women -- for college women) all seem to be clueless as to the unlikelihood of their achieving what they have without the movement pushing ... pushing ... pushing.  But I am not amused at all.

Like too many conservatives, these women have taken the stance of their male counterparts:  "I've got mine and to hell with the rest of you."

I'm gonna hate myself for this, but all I can say right now is, "You stupid bints!"

EEK! Teh Gaii!

(Click on image to enlarge and then return, or else.)

David Horsey's column on the gay marriage cases before the Supreme Court of the US is an interesting one.  He uses an analogy that is a bit different than the one usually cited.

During oral arguments, some of the nine justices appeared uncomfortable jumping into the gay marriage debate at all. Much time was spent arguing about whether the petitioners on the pro-Prop. 8 side had legal standing to bring the appeal. Determining that they do not, the court could let the lower court’s ruling stand. They could also simply uphold the 9th Circuit’s decision. Either way, the justices could avoid a broader judgment that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marry in all 50 states.

Also wanting to stop short of that outcome, yet still urging the justices toward a somewhat broader middle ground, Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr. offered a position that would open the way to same-sex marriage only in states such as California that already give homosexual couples every legal benefit accorded married persons except the right to marry. Because such states have essentially conceded that there is no societal harm in established domestic partnerships, those states cannot reasonably contend there would be harm in letting same-sex partners marry, Verrilli argued. ...

Oddly, no one pointed out that homosexual couples actually are producing children through sperm donors and surrogate mothers. They are also becoming parents via adoption. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy noted that, in California alone, 40,000 children are being raised by homosexual parents. In the modern world, there is more than one path to parenthood.

Seeking more solid ground for their skeptical view of same-sex marriage, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the other court conservatives rallied around the idea that moving too fast on same-sex marriage would be unwise because it is a novel idea that breaks with tradition. Theodore B. Olson, representing the anti-Prop. 8 side, offered the obvious and most pertinent rejoinder: interracial marriage was illegal until the Supreme Court invalidated laws against it in 1967. Such laws enforced a traditional view and were supported by large majorities, not just in the South, but all over the country. Yet the court went against the majority of Americans and against the status quo in that decision.   [Emphasis added]

Most have used the analogy to Roe v Wade, which fundagelicals have long decried as coming out of left field with no juridical precedent.  These cased are  closer to that of inter-racial marriage and the abolition of slavery in which there really was no precedent and in which there was no public outcry.  In that respect, Horsey has nailed it.

He is, however, pessimistic on the outcome.

Me, I'm a bit more hopeful.  One of the justices is in an inter-racial marriage ... one of the (ahem) more conservative ones.

Not So Equal, Not So Protected

I've long opposed the death penalty, primarily because I don't believe the state should be in the business of killing people for killing people. There are other reasons for opposing the ultimate punishment, of course, and the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times reminds us of that:

Among the compelling arguments against capital punishment are its inherent brutality and its potential for error. But documented patterns of racial discrimination in sentencing are also well established and deeply troubling, particularly in cases in which the crime victim is white. A 2005 study of homicides in California from 1990 to 1999, for instance, drawing on FBI data, found that 2.1% of the offenders suspected of killing non-Latino whites were sentenced to death, compared with only 0.68% of those suspected of killing non-Latino African Americans.

North Carolina had hoped to offset that disparity:

In 2009, North Carolina's Legislature passed the Racial Justice Act, which allows defendants to make the case — at a pretrial hearing or after conviction — that statistics show that the death penalty has been imposed significantly more often on defendants in their geographical area because of their race or that of the victim. (Similar legislation was introduced in California in 2010 but languished in committee.) If the judge determines that race has been a factor — not in the individual case but statistically — then the death sentence may not be sought or would have to be vacated. Instead, the defendant would be sentenced to life without parole.

That was a rather dramatic, yet sensible approach. Unfortunately, Republicans now control the state's legislature and are busy trying to scuttle the law. While more overt forms of racism are gradually being weeded out, the less visible and often unconscious forms are still in play, which means that the punishment for the same crime differs based on race and/or ethnicity, a violation of the Equal Protection clause.

Admittedly, the use of statistical data is a departure from traditional notions of justice, which focus on the facts of the individual case. But it is possible that the system may be skewed as a whole without a judge consciously taking race into account when sentencing. Presenting statistical evidence could give a judge second thoughts about his unconscious biases. [Emphasis added]

Exactly so. It's at least a step in the right direction towards eliminating this barbaric practice.

Our Very Own Taliban

I am always amazed at the selective memory some folks have when it comes to their junior high school civics class. They remember the part about "majority rules" when it comes to elections, but, especially when it suits them, they conveniently forget the US Constitution's admonitions on equal protection for all citizens. It's happening again.

What was once a moral argument has morphed into a debate over the democratic process and the propriety of judges overturning laws approved by voters. It raises one of the oldest conflicts in the nation — the tension between "majority rule" and a Constitution designed to protect the rights of individuals against the majority.

"I thought the people voted on it," said Russell Wade, 72, who was watching children body-boarding in the waves below Huntington Beach Pier this week. "I guess it doesn't matter as long as certain groups don't like what the voters decide. The people voted on it and it should be left alone. Period."

Of course, the "morality" is still there, and is certainly not hidden by the "majority rules" argument, as Mr. Wade makes clear:

But Wade, who has been married for 52 years to his high school sweetheart, believes there are laws that trump those made by man.

"I'm a Christian and marriage is, like the Bible says, a union of a man and a woman," he said. "I'll stick with what the Lord says. No matter what any court says, I have to live by a higher law."

Now, I don't mind if Mr. Wade decides to live by "a higher law." I would fight to keep him from being forced to marry a man against his will. However, that's not what he's talking about, I'm certain. What he wants is to impose his version of "a higher law" on all of the rest of us. And that I do mind.

In fact, to a great extent Mr. Wade's version of a higher law reminds me a great deal of the Taliban's version of a higher law. Women suspected of unbecoming behavior (like getting an education or peeping out from behind a full veil) are punished severely, even horribly disfigured, as a recent Time cover reminded us. Christians suspected of proselytizing (by handing out food stuffs to the poor) are summarily executed, usually in soccer stadiums to which the local citizenry are "invited."

No, thank you, Mr. Wade. I prefer our constitutionally guaranteed equal protection before the law to your sanctimonious bibliolatry.

Oh, and while your riffing through the Old Testament for a rebuttal argument, let me direct you to the New Testament short verse which comes to mind in dealing with people who, like you, prefer a doctrine of hate to one of love:

Jesus wept.