Author Archives: Sheila

Boys Will Be Homophobic Boys

This session of the Indiana General Assembly considered–and defeated–an anti-bullying bill offered by State Senator Tom Wyss.  The bill was similar to measures being considered in other states, and all of them have been offered in response to several high-profile cases where teenagers have committed suicide after relentless bullying by their classmates or peers.

You’d think such a bill would pass easily. Who, after all, is in favor of bullying? But in Indiana, the proposal was opposed by the Christian Right because–wait for it–it might protect gay youngsters. Obviously, a bill to prevent young men or women from picking on other youngsters perceived to be gay would violate the rights of those who don’t like gays.

If you think I am making this up, permit me to reproduce a paragraph from a recent issue of the Indiana Family Association’s weekly email.

“AFA of Indiana opposes the act of bullying of all students, regardless of the motives of the bully or the perceived status of the victim. However, many bullying bills and programs have become a Trojan Horse for the homosexual demands groups. There is a danger here in unfairly casting students with traditional values as bullies, silencing legitimate views, or creating specially protected classes of children as opposed to focusing on actual acts of bullying. There is an outstanding web site on this issue that parents, teachers and policy makers should investigate. True Tolerance has information about the problem of bullying as well as the concerns surrounding many of the school programs and the ulterior objectives of some homosexual activists pushing this agenda.”

In other words, AFA is against bullying. However, when the target of that behavior is gay, they are concerned about the “real motives” involved. Protecting gay children from abuse is just part of the “homosexual agenda,” intended to stigmatize those who express their disapproval of homosexuality with enthusiasm.

Reminds me of a case that the Indiana ACLU handled when I was Executive Director. A twelve-year-old in a southern Indiana middle school was being routinely beaten up on the playground, and despite frequent complaints from the parents, the school administration’s response was “boys will be boys.” The principal actually told the ACLU lawyer handling the case that the victim of the abuse brought it on himself, by “acting different.”

Bullying gay kids is just the expression of the bullies’ 1st Amendment rights. And the AFA is so solicitious of  our constitutional liberties.

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No Knowledge Required

I was driving to the gym this morning behind an obnoxiously huge SUV sporting a bumper sticker that said “Greg Ballard. Leadership in Action.”

Now, I realize there’s a campaign underway, and that political operatives produce these slogans. I’ve run for office, so I also know that candidates are very tempted to believe their own hype. But all I could think of after reading that bumper sticker was how carelessly we throw words around and how little we value knowledge and expertise.

My personal evaluation of Greg Ballard’s term in office is that he has been anything but a leader, at least as I would define that term. But what’s worse, he has exemplified the widespread belief that you really don’t have to know anything in order to be a public official–a Mayor or Governor or Senator. (Sarah Palin considers it an absolute virtue to be clueless–she ran for Vice President sneering at “elitists” who went to “fancy schools” and I don’t remember anyone calling her out on that particular charge.)

I teach public administration, so I’m pretty touchy about the notion that anyone who’s run a business or led a marine division can run a city. We don’t choose doctors who didn’t bother with medical school, or lawyers who failed the bar exam. We don’t let people drive until they can demonstrate they know how to operate a vehicle. But we make it a political virtue not to understand the differences between public and private finance, be familiar with the tools needed for economic development, or aware of best and worst practices in areas like zoning and transit and public safety.

Greg Ballard is what happens when we elect someone Mayor just because he seems like a pleasant fellow, and showed “leadership” by being a Marine.

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An Idea Whose Time Has Gone

The Indiana General Assembly is once again debating whether to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. That debate has been criticized as a distraction from the State’s pressing fiscal problems, and it is. But the proposal, HR6, is also bad public policy—whether or not one approves of same-sex marriage.

In my law and policy class, I employ a standard framework for analyzing proposed laws. The threshold question—required by the Constitution’s limitation on the powers of government—is whether the subject-matter falls within the proper scope and authority of the state. If it does, we investigate further, testing whether there is broad consensus on the existence and nature of the problem to be solved, whether the proposed law will solve the problem, and whether there are likely to be unintended negative consequences if the measure becomes law.

Applying that framework to HR6 is illuminating.

The regulation of marriage, in our system, is a state responsibility, so HR6 arguably meets that threshold. It’s all downhill from there.

Broad social agreement about the need for a law is an element of legitimacy. (That’s why people debating new policies point to polls showing support for their position.) In this case, whatever consensus there may once have been against same-sex marriage is demonstrably past-tense.

Same-sex marriages are legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.  New York, Rhode Island and Maryland recognize same-sex marriages conducted elsewhere. Several other states recognize civil unions. Religious doctrine is equally fragmented and increasing numbers of churches and synagogues bless same-sex unions. Surveys of public opinion show a public that is almost equally divided on the subject.

Will passage of HR6 solve the problem? No.

Even if one believes that same-sex marriages are a “problem,” enacting HR6 will change nothing. Indiana law currently prohibits recognition of such marriages and that prohibition has been upheld by our courts. The only way we’ll get same-sex marriage in Indiana is if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Equal Protection doctrine requires it—and if that happens, a state constitutional ban would be unenforceable.

And what about those unintended consequences?

Several of Indiana’s largest employers have warned that enactment of HR6 will hobble them as they compete for the best employees. Economic development professionals warn that passage will make it more difficult to attract new businesses to the state.

Public employers—universities and municipalities with policies or ordinances granting health insurance and other benefits to employees—fear that HR6 will invalidate those benefits. (At IU, that would make us considerably less competitive for faculty, whether straight or gay.)

Corporate lawyers warn that the language of HR6 could be read to prohibit even private companies from providing benefits to unmarried partners. (HR6 by its terms applies to all unmarried couples, not just gay couples.) Proponents deny that possibility, but ultimately, it is an issue that will be litigated, and lawsuits are time-consuming and expensive.

Of course, there are also the uncertain consequences of creating a precedent by writing discrimination into the Constitution. If we can marginalize one disfavored group, why not others? Immigrants? Muslims? Atheists?

At the end of the day, this is an argument between two very different versions of morality and beliefs about the role of government.

A dwindling number of Americans believe that homosexuality is a chosen, immoral behavior, and despite growing scientific consensus that sexual orientation is immutable—that people are born homosexual or heterosexual—they want to use the power of government to stigmatize gay people.

Others of us believe that denying people equal treatment under the law because of who they are—whether that second-class status is based upon race, gender or sexual orientation—is not only unconstitutional, but deeply immoral.

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Spring is Coming

This has been an awful winter—the kind that makes you think that spring will never get here.

It has also been an awful political winter; as I have groused on these pages for months, we are in an extended season of crazy—a prolonged hissy-fit of finger-pointing, propaganda and outright bigotry. Sane citizens can be forgiven for wondering whether a political spring will ever come.

Interestingly, in much the same way as early green shoots are a signal that daffodils and tulips are on their way, there have been a number of polls and other indicators promising an end to our political winter.

So while Republican Presidential hopefuls keep playing to their base, it helps to recognize that that base is aging and shrinking, and that appeals resting on tired “us versus them” formulas have an expiring shelf life.  Like the snow, they’re beginning to melt.

As I noted in a recent blog post, Mike Huckabee (the “nice” Republican!!), recently attacked the President by saying something to the effect that Obama couldn’t be a “real” American, because he wasn’t a small-town Boy Scout with a father who belonged to Rotary. Hate to break it to you, Mike, but these days, very few people would pass that sort of “Americanism” test.

For his part, Newt Gingrich, who is also courting the GOP base, has suddenly become a vocal defender of traditional marriage. Newt wants to impeach President Obama for his decision not to defend the constitutionality of DOMA in court.

I hate to tell Newt this, but in the 21st Century, traditions are changing.

A new survey from Pew has confirmed what any objective observer can see: a continuing and rapid rise in support for same-sex marriage since 2009. Currently, 45% say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, while 46% are opposed. In Pew surveys conducted in 2010, 42% favored and 48% opposed gay marriage and in 2009, just 37% backed same-sex marriage while 54% were opposed.

And despite the current war on women being waged in Congress, Pew found that opinions about abortion have also liberalized. In 2009, for the first time in many years, the public was evenly divided over whether abortion should be legal or illegal in all or most cases. But support for legal abortion has recovered and now stands at 54%. Historically, people who support a woman’s right to choose have been far more likely to support gay rights.

Independents have become more supportive of both gay marriage and legal abortion since 2009. Roughly half of independents (51%) now favor same-sex marriage, up from 37% in 2009. And 58% of independents say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 47% in Pew Research Center surveys two years ago.

When you look at the age breakdowns in these and other polls, you’re left with an inescapable conclusion: if we can just hang in there until the old farts in my age cohort die off, spring really will come. And the old farts know it.

That’s why we’ve seen frantic efforts in several states without constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage—including Indiana—to insert such bans now. Homophobic legislators know the culture is changing, and fast, and they want to pass these measures before their failure is inevitable.

Before spring comes.

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Politics and Propaganda

I opened the Sunday Indianapolis Star to a front-page story about Governor Mitch Daniels’ claim that public employees make more than their private-sector counterparts. The article discussed the issue in the “fair and balanced” way we’ve come to expect from “journalists” today, dutifully reporting on the “he said/she said” dueling studies–without bothering to tell readers which studies were sound and which were utter garbage.

I am absolutely confident I could conduct a study demonstrating that people who exercise less break fewer bones–if i didn’t bother to control for things like overall mobility and severity of breaks that did occur. I can see the headline now: Study shows that less exercise leads to better bone health.

There’s a reason academic journals insist on peer reviews.

The Star gave equal weight to two studies. One simply compared overall wages of private and public employees. It found public employees doing slightly better. The other study controlled for factors like education, duration of the workday, etc. In other words, it compared people with similar skills and educational training to each other. (What we used to call “apples to apples” comparisons.) That study–surprise!–did not confirm the Governor’s charge.

The article also reported that Indiana has fewer public employees than it did when Daniels assumed office, and it attributed that decline to privatization. But privatization, an inaccurate term for contracting out for services, does not reduce government employment, except in the very narrow sense of “on the State’s payroll.” If the government is paying someone to perform a task, that person is effectively an employee of the government. It may be harder to recognize that fact, because his compensation is being paid through an intervening party (who gets a cut, not incidentally, called profit), but when government is paying someone for providing services and dictating the nature of those services, that someone is effectively a government employee.

A study that really should be conducted would investigate just how many of these de-facto state employees there are in Indiana. (Several years ago, at an academic conference, a well-known scholar explained to me that the federal government had the equivalent of 18 million additional employees. They weren’t counted as federal workers, because they worked for private contractors, but they were employed full-time providing public services.)

Whether you are a proponent or opponent of government contracting–and as readers of this blog know, I’m firmly in the “it depends” category–this sort of game-playing goes beyond disingenuous. It’s not just inaccurate; it’s propaganda.

It would be nice if we had journalists who could tell the difference.

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