One of the Many Reasons Elections Matter

Yesterday’s post focusing on GLBT rights reminded me that we’re heading toward June and Gay Pride. As we prepare for the annual Pride celebrations, two things are clear: 1) GLBT Americans are winning the fight for civic equality, and 2) the nature of the remaining threat to that equality has changed.

I won’t belabor the first observation; anyone reading this blog can recite the “wins.” Same-sex marriage is recognized in more and more states, Fortune 500 companies are falling over themselves to be welcoming–to extend benefits and institute policies mandating fair treatment. Popular culture and even pro sports are accepting their no-longer-closeted celebrities.

All of these indicators point to a sea change in the attitudes of average Americans, and that change is confirmed by survey research. The days when coming out meant risking ostracism from friends and families, or difficulty getting a job, aren’t altogether over, but we’re getting close.

The threat today comes from the Neanderthals we keep electing–the theocrats who insist that America is a “Christian Nation,” who reject science, who believe women should be “subservient,” barefoot and pregnant, and that GLBT folks should be closeted (or worse).

Just a couple of examples:

A couple of days ago, the Indianapolis Star revisited a controversy that arose a couple of years back over allegations that a Ball State University Assistant Professor was teaching creationism, aka “intelligent design.” BSU’s President, JoAnn Gora–somewhat belatedly–issued a letter confirming the institution’s commitment to science, and its recognition that intelligent design is religious dogma, not science. (To do otherwise would have massively degraded the value of a BSU degree.)

Subsequently, the Indiana legislature’s God Squad made threatening noises; the explicit message was that requiring faculty to teach real science in science classes “violated Academic Freedom” (!) and the implicit message was that it would cost the University when the time for state appropriations rolled around. Last week, the Star reported that the professor involved was promoted. Whether he is still teaching Intelligent Design is unclear.

Indiana’s legislators aren’t the only ones waging war against genuine academic freedom, diversity and modernity generally. South Carolina’s not-ready-for-this-century lawmakers voted to slash funding for two of the state’s largest public colleges in retaliation for the introduction of books with gay themes into the schools’ freshman reading programs.

In February, the South Carolina House of Representatives voted to cut $70,000 — the entire cost of the offending programs — from the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina Upstate.

These two incidents—which, unfortunately, are anything but isolated—should sound alarm bells.

Red state legislatures are dominated by frightened old heterosexual white guys whose unspoken motto is “Stop changing the world, I want to get off.” The broader society is making its peace with complexity, diversity and inclusion, but these lawmakers, and the Rabid Righteous base that elects them, is waging a last-ditch effort to turn back the clock.

These guys—and they are almost always guys—are able to be elected thanks to a combination of voter apathy, vote suppression and gerrymandering. Those who go to the polls in states like Indiana and South Carolina are opting for candidates who reject science, progress and inclusion in favor of a constricted and literalist religiosity.

In 1966, Richard Hofstadter wrote Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. That anti-intellectualism–characterized by the elevation of sloganeering over analysis and “biblical truth” over complexity, evidence and education—is  still with us; it characterizes the Tea Party and too much of today’s GOP.

It poses a threat not just to GLBT folks, but to all of us; it’s a formidable barrier to our ability to create a sane and tolerant society.

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Our Attorney General’s “Professionalism”

One of the cardinal rules of the legal profession is to zealously represent your client–to put the interests of that client first. To be an effective and ethical lawyer, you must put aside your personal prejudices and obsessions, and focus upon the job you’ve been hired to do.

Back when I was in practice, we all knew which (few) lawyers took their clients’ money and proceeded to posture to the media, or file unnecessary pleadings, or otherwise use the lawyer-client relationship for self-aggrandizement, personal gain or ideological vendettas.

Which brings me to Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller.

The Attorney General is elected to protect the legal interests of Hoosiers. Zoeller, however, has consistently used the position to advance his personal religious beliefs, intervening in national high-profile, culture war cases having the most tenuous connection (if any) to Indiana. He has been especially eager to volunteer in cases involving gay rights; he spent enormous time and energy–and taxpayer resources–opposing same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court’s Windsor case.

Last week, a federal court in Indiana required Indiana to recognize the out-of-state marriage of Amy Sandler and Niki Quasney.  Niki is battling a particularly aggressive cancer, and has been told that she is terminal. The couple has two children, ages 1 and 3. Niki wants to be recognized as married in her home state while she is still alive; she wants the comfort of knowing that her family will receive the legal protections that all other married families in Indiana receive.

Zoeller immediately announced his intention to appeal. As Lambda Legal noted,

No other attorney general in the country has chosen to appeal after a court has protected the marriage of a same-sex couple on a temporary basis as a lawsuit moves forward because one of the partners is terminally ill. For example, the Ohio AG declined to appeal a court’s temporary order protecting the marriage of a man fighting Lou Gehrig’s disease as his lawsuit challenging the State’s marriage ban moved forward, even as the Ohio AG fought to uphold the ban.

When a Lambda attorney characterized the decision to appeal as “a display of cruelty,” Zoeller’s spokesperson accused the organization of an “unprofessional approach in their utterances toward opposing counsel, one not consistent with standards of civility and respect that Hoosiers and Hoosier lawyers uphold in our legal system.”

Excuse me?

Let me tell you what is “unprofessional.”

What’s “unprofessional” is using your elected position to further a theocratic agenda at the expense of voters who elected you to a secular office.

What’s “unprofessional” is volunteering your efforts–and spending our tax dollars–on cases that don’t involve Hoosiers.

What’s “unprofessional” is taking positions on behalf of all Indiana citizens with which a significant percentage of those citizens vehemently disagree.

What’s “unprofessional”–and utterly despicable–is homophobia so ingrained and obsessive that you would deny a dying woman the comfort of knowing that her children will be protected, by appealing a temporary order that applies only to her family. 

And what is really “unprofessional” is having the chutzpah to complain when someone points out your own lack of humanity and respect for the limits of the position you hold.

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It Shouldn’t Require Sensitivity Training to Know How Wrong This Is

After a public uproar, a California school board has apologized profusely for an eighth-grade assignment that asked students to “explain whether or not you believe the Holocaust was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain.” The assignment also included extensive text lifted from a Holocaust denial and conspiracy website as one of three sources students were to use in fashioning their arguments.

As a part of the school board’s mea culpa, it is requiring teachers to take sensitivity training.

Really? Do they think this assignment shows a lack of sensitivity? How about a complete abdication of pedagogical responsibility, which is generally assumed to involve helping students learn the difference between historical fact and fantasies produced by fevered imaginations.

As one horrified columnist wrote

Along with entries on the history of the Holocaust from About.com and the History Channel, they offered the students supporting “material” titled “Is the Holocaust a Hoax?” that was taken from a Christian site. The document cites the execution technology “expert” Fred Leuchter, a leading denier, and presents a “theory” that Anne Frank’s diary was forged. “Israel continues to receive trillions of dollars worldwide as retribution for Holocaust gassings,” the document continues. “Our country has donated more money to Israel than to any other country in the history of the world—over $35 billion per year, everything included. If not for our extravagantly generous gifts to Israel, every family in America could afford a brand new Mercedes Benz.”

This is the sort of thing that happens in a society where there must be two sides to every issue, a society in which the media pursues “balance” at the expensive of objective, verifiable fact. Would the clueless authors of this assignment require students to consider whether the sun goes around the earth, rather than vice-versa? Or perhaps they could argue whether the colonists or the British won the Revolutionary War?

Then when they grow up, they can dismiss results of all the previous fact-finding investigations, and debate what they think really happened at Benghazi.

Listen, you twits: teaching that the holocaust actually happened is not a bow to the “sensitivities” of the families of Jews, gays, gypsies and righteous Christians who perished. Teaching about things that we know have happened is what we do in classes called history.

In the real world that diminishing numbers of us inhabit, some things are true, and some things aren’t. Education should teach students how to tell the difference.

Students need to know that facts are facts, whether some people choose to believe them or not.

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He’s Baaack…

Sometimes, the only reason I see things is that former students send them to me. Unfortunately, the things they send tend to be infinitely depressing.

A few days ago, a former student sent me a link to a story about crazy Alabama Judge Roy Moore. You’ll remember Moore from his previous term as Chief Judge of the Alabama Supreme Court (note to self: never, ever move to Alabama), when he commissioned a five-ton stone engraved with the Ten Commandments and had it installed at the Courthouse door. It was removed after the Federal Courts ruled it a gross and obvious violation of the First Amendment religion clauses–something you’d expect a judge to know.

Moore subsequently ran unsuccessfully for President on a Christian-Theocrat ticket of some sort. Most recently, he ran for–and won–his old seat on Alabama’s high court. (Note to self: remember this example of why we should not elect judges).

So, like Jaws (only more scary), he’s baaack.

Speaking at the Pastors for Life Luncheon, which was sponsored by Pro-Life Mississippi, Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court declared that the First Amendment only applies to Christians because “Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammed didn’t create us, it was the God of the Holy Scriptures” who created us.

Moore had more:

Discussing Thomas Jefferson’s use of “life” in the Declaration of Independence, he said that “when [Jefferson] put ‘life’ in there, it was in the womb — we know it begins at conception.”

He later said the “pursuit of happiness” meant following God’s law, because “you can’t be happy unless you follow God’s law, and if you follow God’s law, you can’t help but be happy.”

And I bet Roy Moore will be happy to explain exactly what God wants. Which just happens to be what Roy Moore–in his twisted little mind–wants.

(Note to self: uncurl from fetal position–it’s bad for the back.)

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Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln, How Was the Play?

A group of Nobel-winning economists recently issued a report calling for an end to the War on Drugs. In part, their statement read

“The pursuit of a militarized and enforcement-led global ‘war on drugs’ strategy has produced enormous negative outcomes and collateral damage,” says the 82-page report. “These include mass incarceration in the US, highly repressive policies in Asia, vast corruption and political destabilization in Afghanistan and West Africa, immense violence in Latin America, an HIV epidemic in Russia, an acute global shortage of pain medication and the propagation of systematic human rights abuses around the world.”

I guess the drug war has a few negative consequences….

When you insist on criminalizing behavior that ought to be treated as the public health issue it is, you shouldn’t be surprised when those sanctions do horrendous collateral damage.

Alcohol prohibition didn’t work; neither does drug prohibition. There are better ways to address the problem.

But we never seem to learn.

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