Judge Meant

As surprising as sunrise, conservatives are enraged. The judge was gay. The judge was gay. THE JUDGE WAS GAY.

Funny. Everyone knew it, including all the lawyers for both sides. Why do you suppose there were no objections? (When I asked the question in a comment thread, it was met with silence.)

Because even the lawyers defending Prop 8, who could find only two lousy witnesses for their sides (and by lousy, I mean idiotic and laughable) knew the obvious: if they objected to the judge because his sexual orientation made him prejudiced, the other side would (I'd have to hope) do so about a straight judge. What argument can be made for the one that can't be made for the other?

I'm sure those lawyers must have given it some thought. But some things are so obvious that even bigoted denialists have to recognize them. How it must have stuck in their collective craw: our arguments are fine for political campaigns when directed at the thoughtless and willingly misled. But if we make them under the brightest of lights, in courtrooms, where they'll be subjected to actual scrutiny by people who know how to think (enough, anyway, to be noticed), we'll have to try to make sense.

Damn.

Simple

With respect to the Prop 8 ruling, a person I know writes to me and asks,

...tell me if it fits with what your understanding of the Constitution provides. One man, overruling a majority in a vote, on a Proposition approved as constitutional by the State Supreme Court.

Yes: good move No: he was one man against the majority...
Real simple.

Since the person wants a simple answer, clearly, it's "Yes. Good move." But, sadly, for what appears to be a majority of Americans, and probably nearly all teabaggers, all the RWS™, it's far from simple. Because these people, these self-described patriots who claim fealty to the Constitution (while wanting to amend it severally and serially and cynically, for votes), don't have a clue about what it says. And, to the extent that they do, they simply ignore it.

To those who are outraged by this decision, this decision by a conservative judge, argued, among others, by a Republican former Solicitor General, I say, READ THE DAMN RULING. You might learn something about the law, and why we are a nation of laws, the role judges have in protecting minorities, upholding principle and law. I admit it's not often seen nowadays; but it's a shining example of judicial restraint. It's the opposite of judicial activism. It's a non-ideological finding of fact. It's, well, conservatism. At its best. Which we rarely see any more.

As simply as I can say it: we have laws, and we have a judiciary whose job -- its most important job, anyway -- is to keep people from running roughshod over those laws. A majority can't legally ignore the Constitution. State courts can't invalidate the Constitution. If people don't like the Constitution -- and god knows Republicans really don't -- there is a constitutional way to change it. You can't do it by state proposition. Period. People who don't get that either fail to understand the idea of constitutional democracy, or don't really love the country as established and defended for the last two hundred thirty four years. Simple.

I get that many religious people are horrified by homosexuality. In the case of many of the most public of them, clearly it's because they loathe themselves for being homosexual. For them, I feel sorry. (I'm a liberal.) For the rest, it's because their interpretation of their religious literature tells them that homosexuality is some sort of an abomination. Okay, fine. Believe it. There's nothing I can do to convince them otherwise, any more than I can convince them the earth is older than six or twelve thousand years, that evolution happens, that homosexuality is not a choice for any but a small percentage, that the climate is changing. Believe what you must. If humans valued fact, we wouldn't have religion. Or teabaggers.

As the judge said, there's simply no argument to be made against gay marriage other than a religious one. None. All the arguments -- about kids, about degradation of straight marriage, about agendas -- are simply false, as was factually established during the trial. Excluding gays from the right of marriage is discriminatory, it's religious based, it's predicated on hate for a class of people the recognition of whose rights produces no demonstrable harm to a state, to the country, to anyone; and the denial of whose rights offers no demonstrable good to those doing the denying, and only harm to those discriminated against. It's obvious. I've been married for thirty nine years. When gays got the right to marry in a couple of states, it did nothing to my marriage. Nothing. There's no way it could. (DOMA. How despicable, what a laughable title for an act. How shameful that Bill Clinton approved it.)

If you don't approve of gay marriage, don't do it. If you don't like gays, don't associate with them. Don't let them in your church or your home. Hold up nasty signs and shout at them if it makes you feel good, if your low self-esteem or shaky sexuality, your perverse view of WWJD demands it. If you think gay is a choice, an infection that you can catch, well, you're sadly misinformed, ignorant of fact, and a perfect match for the Tea Party. Join up. It's your right, it's all your right. What's not your right is to vote away the rights of others.

What in god's name is the harm to you caused by gay marriage? Down the street, around the corner, in another state? What is the state's interest in being involved?

The judge, who must be an incredibly brave man whose life, I'd have to say, is now at risk (given the hatred regularly whipped up by the RWS™), did what any person with open eyes and guts of steel -- free of prejudice, valuing the idea of the rule of law -- would have done. He struck down a law that has no place in America; a law that clearly denies rights to people with no justification; a law for which there is no constitutional argument. That a majority chose to harm a minority is no excuse. It's exactly why we have federal courts. It couldn't be clearer why we need them. And why it's a tragedy that so few people really get it. Even those on state courts.

Judicial review is as basic to America as fruited plains. Without it, we'd be Iran, or Soviet Russia. But that's not simple, it's not easy. It's hard. Democracy is hard. Respect for minorities, for the law, is hard. Accepting the rights of those with whom you disagree is hard. Being a RWS™, being a teabagger, is not hard. It's about wishing away reality, because reality is hard. It's about anger and fear, with no need to produce solutions. It's about giving in to the basest instincts, and calling it patriotism. Or something.

Unless there are more judges like Judge Walker out there, we're on our way to oblivion. And the people who are taking us there, who are responsible, are pointing their fingers in exactly the wrong direction.

And, yeah, the question pissed me off.

[Update, 8/8: I'm not the only one who sees the judge's decision as conservatism at its best.]

Random Thoughts

What took him so long?

Some things are simply beyond understanding.

Alaskans really are nuts.

Speaking of which, there's this.

Many times during the campaign, John McCain said "I know how to catch Osama bin Laden." Now that the election is over, I wonder if he'll tell President Obama, or if Obama will ask for the secret.

Obama chooses Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. Republican reaction runs the gamut. Common ground will be hard to find. The more I think about it, the more I think it's a fine choice: he's tough and smart and, from most reports, committed to finding solutions and ways to govern broadly.

My biggest hope for the Obama administration is that it will indeed be broadly inclusive and pragmatic. I think it will; his team of economic advisers seems to be a good example. Serious, non-partisan. It's what we'll need across the board.

Prop 8

I'm re-posting here something I originally wrote on my other blog. Having lived in California for several years, having friends and neighbors who were gay, I find the ballot measure there to ban gay marriage particularly upsetting. In short, there's simply no reason for such a measure other than hatred, fear, or, at best, misguided belief.


During training, in San Francisco, our landlords were Dan and Del, a couple who'd been together for several years, and who remained together for another twenty-five or more, until Del died. Loving, thoughtful, and kind, they were the best landlords ever; eventually we bought the house we'd been renting from them, and they gave us a great deal. Terrific guys. We visited them whenever we returned to SF. I talked to Dan recently, not long after Del had died, in his seventies I think.

Here are a few things that I consider inarguable.

First: By logic, and by mounting scientific evidence, sexual preference is largely determined by genetics or other biologic factors. (Logic = in a society that discriminates and harasses and to a large extent reviles, who'd choose to be gay?) I recognize there's a spectrum, and that people at all points on the spectrum are capable of experimentation. But for most -- and especially those committed enough to want to marry -- it seems beyond obvious that homosexuality is not a matter of choice. Corollary: You can't catch gay. Additional corollary: if you think your god considers gays sinners, it seems he's the one making them, which says more about your god than about gays.

Second: For all of recorded history, in every culture, in every religion, in every country, there have been homosexuals. It's part of life. (And considering their contributions, a very positive part of it.)

Third: There is no argument against gay rights other than religious. In order to oppose gay rights, you have to believe one thing that's demonstrably wrong, and another that's unprovable; that is, you have to believe both that homosexuality is a choice, and that it is an abomination in the eyes of your particular version of the Person- or Persons-in-the-Sky. But on this planet there are lots of views of the sky-people and what they do and don't want. One is entitled to one's, but not to foist it on others. "Defense of Marriage" is a bogus argument of the bumper sticker variety: I've seen no discussion, nor any attempt to have one, other than simple declaration, that explains why my heterosexual marriage of thirty-seven years is in any way threatened or diminished in value if gays are allowed to marry. None. What evidence there is on the subject is to the contrary: in Massachusetts there has been no decline in heterosexual marriage since gay marriage was approved. The same is true in countries that allow it. (The opposite, in fact, seems to be the case.) Which is, of course, exactly as expected: there simply is no line that can be drawn between allowing gays to marry and the decline of heterosexual marriage. Nor need it be said: heterosexual marriage has been on the decline for decades; gay marriage appears only recently.

Fourth: Lots of good-hearted people feel uncomfortable about and around homosexuals. Many religions, in fact, seem in very large measure predicated on dealing with sexual discomfort of all sorts. Hide women, cover them up. Separate them from men. Marry a bunch at once and keep them all silent. Sexual pleasure is sinful. Especially the personal kind. Religious mores, as they apply to sexuality, seem based on repression, which in turn is based on fear of one's own sexuality, displaced on others.

I don't like anything about brussels sprouts. I don't even like looking at them. Yet it doesn't threaten me that others do; nor do I feel the need for a law to keep others from eating them. From a secular point of view, there is no reason to oppose gay marriage. It has no impact on society, one way or the other. Objections are based on religion, or on personal discomfort, neither of which are the business of civil law. Unless it can be shown that gay marriage is in some way a threat to our country (it can't), there is no justification for passing laws to prevent it. (It's fair to ask if there's harm to kids living in a gay household. But the evidence is to the contrary. Which is also intuitive: growing up in a love-filled home ought to be good for any kid. How many kids are in homes where they're not wanted?) And since sexual preference is biologic, it would be expected to have no impact on that of the child. Questions? Sure. Grow up more tolerant? The horror! Moreover, the logical extension of preventing it would be to forbid lesbian women from having babies. I'd think even religious conservatives would recoil from the state mandating who can bear children. Right? Right?...)

Among the oft-heard and stupid phrases one hears in the public square, at or near the top of the list is "the homosexual agenda." (Although, recently, "terrorist fist jab" has a special sort of transcendent lunacy that's hard to top.) It's freighted with hatred and fear, and implicit misunderstanding. Those who use the phrase, it seems to me, must be a little uncertain about their own sexuality: afraid they might be susceptible. After all, those who doth protest too much... That there is an "agenda" at all is pretty laughable, other than the desire to have the same civil rights as everyone else. Or is there something more sinister? Laws outlawing bad fashion? Outing closet thespians? Seems to me wanting an end to harassment and the right to marry hardly qualifies as an agenda. Unless breathing does, too.

Two adults love each other. They want to marry. Where's the harm? If a church doesn't approve of gay marriage, it shouldn't perform them. If you don't like gay marriage, don't do it.

Stick that on your bumper!