• In a wonderful post, Body and Soul discusses Bobby Kennedy’s ability to emphasize and persuade, and in passing responds to a post of mine about Dennis Kucinich. Alas, I must agree with Jeanne’s assessment of Kucinich.

• Check out this impressive website (from the staff of Representative Henry Waxman) detailing how the Bush administration “manipulates, distorts, or interferes with” scientific research that contradicts right-wing ideology. Well worth your browsing time. (Via Tapped).
• Martha Nussbaum’s article in the current Dissent, “Genocide in Gujarat,” is a must-read. Especially useful for readers like me, as a primer on issues of Hindu Nationalism and Hindu/Muslim conflict in India. Via Half the Sins of Mankind, who has an interesting discussion with a reader (including criticism of the Nussbaum essay)
• In the last decade, over 300 young women in a border city of Mexico (Ciudad Juárez, near Texas) have been murdered by a serial killer, or more likely by multiple copycat killers. Amnesty International has investigted the Mexican government’s response to the killings, and is not impressed: “The pervasive failure of the authorities to address these cases is tantamount to tolerance of them.” Read the Amnesty report here, and a New York Times story here.
• Groupthink Central reports on a growing surge of masculinity - or of something people like to call “masculinity,” anyway - on the right.
• Over on Volokh Conspiracy, David Bernstein has an excellent post on the Jews being “God’s chosen people.” The “chosen people” schtick isn’t a statement of Jewish superiority; it’s more a way of saying, “God is picking on us.”
• Speaking of Jews, Religion in the News points out the support of many on the right for bills that in effect make it legal for some employers to discriminate against Jews. This isn’t really news, of course, but it is ironic in light of all the recent fuss about alleged Democratic discrimination against Catholics.
• An article by Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery, “The Prisoner of Ramallah,” presents a positive portrait of Yassar Arafat - something I don’t think I’ve ever read before in my life. )Via Aron’s Israeli Peace Weblog.)
• “Basic Income” is the proposal that every person in a country - no matter how rich or poor - should receive a basic, minimal level of income. Here’s an interview with Philippe Van Parijs, one of the more prominant supporters of Basic Income plans.
• Two absolutely wonderful, ass-kicking, keyboard-pounding hypocrit-bashing posts from Real Live Preacher about Christianity and homosexuality: one that’s just indescribable, and one which argues that there’s no scriptural basis for homophobia. (Via Long story; short pier).
• An interesting (and distressing, and depressing) MSNBC story about violent misogyny in Muslim immigrant ghettos of France. Influenced by the worse of Muslim fundimentalism, some Muslim men have been practicing beatings and gang-rapes to “punish” women and girls. Some female immigrants are organizing, lobbying for better police protection and organizing emergency housing.
• This, umn, tribute to racing really cracked me up. It also cracked a couple of my firends up. Does that mean it’s really funny, or just that my friends and I are immature?
• Amy at The Fifty Minute Hour has a message for “men who feel proud of themselves because their gender was enlightened enough to give women the vote: IT TOOK YOU DAMN LONG ENOUGH.”
• Nathan Newman points out that privatizing military services has left US troops living in squalor. Praise the free market! Paul Krugman in the Times makes a similar argument.
• Angry Bear does the math and finds that the “red states” - home of so much whining about federal spending - get more from Federal spending than they repay. In most “blue states,” the opposite is true.
• The Head Heeb reports on an infuriating (but not too surprising) case from Botswana, in which a court ruled that there is no such thing as marital rape.
• Some activists in San Francisco have hit on a funny anti-Starbucks protest: soaping up Starbucks windows and posting “closed” and “for lease” signs. (Via Boing Boing).
• Mark Kleiman has an interesting post on prostitution and slavery. “To my mind, someone who pays for and uses the sexual services of a slave is morally — and, if I got to write the laws, would be legally — a rapist, since he has engaged in sexual relations with an unconsenting party. And in a country where sexual slavery is known to be an issue, I’d make that a crime of strict liability, as carnal knowledge of a minor is: the customer should be responsible for assuring himself that the person he’s about to have sex with has consented to it. ”
• Joanna Grossman points out that a recent court decision in New York - regarding which parent decides when parents can’t agree on the child’s name - pretends to use a “best interest of the child” standard, but in effect discriminates against mothers.
• Prometheus 6 is unsurprised by USA Today’s poll regarding the Bryant case, and so am I.
• This story is all over the blogosphere, but for the benefit of my few readers who haven’t run into yet: Fox News is suing Al Franken. Why? Because Franken uses the words “fair and balanced” in the subtitle of his new book. Nice to see that the right-wing press has such a profound committment to free speech. (Via Making Light).

Bean has a computer, running windows xp home edition, which has just recently started crashing constantly - often within a minute or less of boot-up. This is a problem.

The error says something about “the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service terminated unexpectedly” (see image to right).

If any Alas readers have any suggestions to post, or has a computer-maven pal they could ask to pretty please look at this post, we’d really appreciate it. (But please remember, we’re computer illiterates, so detailed step-by-step suggestions are especially appreciated!) Thanks!

The folks at Little Green Footballs are in an uproar over a cartoon again. This recent cartoon, by American cartoonist Tony Auth…

Bears a disturbing resemblance to this one, a Nazi propoganda cartoon from the mid-1930s.

Some folks regard this as proof that the Tony Auth cartoon is “obvious, gut-churning antisemitism.” But I’m not convinced. The Nazi cartoon is unquestionably antisemitic, because it came out in a time when the star of David refered to Jews and to nothing else.

Since then, however, the State of Israel was born, and chose to put the star of David on its flag, as Israel’s official symbol. It is the Israelis - not antisemites - who in this case chose to transform the six-pointed star from a symbol representing Jews to a symbol representing a state and its policies. Once Israel had made that choice, the star of David became fair game for political cartoonists criticizing Israel.

Furthermore, it’s clear that Auth’s cartoon isn’t referring to Jews in general - it’s referring to the Security Fence, a particular policy of the Israeli goverment.

If Israel’s supporters find the politicization of the star of David antisemetic, then they should complain to Israel - not to Tony Auth.

UPDATE: Just ran across this post at Hatcher’s Hack, saying pretty much the same thing I said (but he posted it first). He concludes:

The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 passed congress last month and is fairly certain to be signed by President Bush. (An earlier version of the bill had a less stirring, but no doubt more realistic, name - the Prison Rape Reduction Act). To some extent, the bill - which allocates $60 million annually to research and discussion of the prison rape problem - is a case of “too little, years late,’” Still, better than nothing. From the Washington Post:

This will be (as far as I know) the first nationwide, representative study of prison rape. As such, it might add hugely to what we know about this problem. But will knowing more about exactly how many prison rapes happen each year really help prevent rapes, I wonder?

I’m curious as to what the panel’s recommendations will be. I’m not sure that prosecuting prison rapists will necessarily be effective - after all, in the end, all we’re doing is sending them back to prison, where they’ll rape again. But prevention is difficult. For instance, as this FindLaw article points out, the Supreme Court’s 1994 Farmer v. Brennon decision - which established that prisoners could sue prison administrations for allowing rapes to go on - had the unintended effect of encouraging wardens to turn a blind eye to rape (since if they didn’t know, they weren’t responsible).

My instinct is that the entire prison culture needs to be changed - and the way to do that is to hold the wardens of high-rape-incidence prisons responsible, regardless of what they claim to know. I don’t know if the political will exists for that solution, though.

Demosthenes quotes from a Michael Waltzer interview, and in doing so reminded me that Waltzer wrote an article about Israel and Palestine that I admired and blogged about last October.

Reading the Waltzer interview led me in turn to Elizabeth Anderson’s essay, “What is the Point of Equality?” (Not online, sorry). Anderson argues that many academic philosophers - by framing the question of equality in terms of “unequal native talents” and the like - have missed the point. Here’s a passage I enjoyed:

Interesting stuff… and very relevant to current debates about same-sex marriage, in my opinion.

Relevant link: Check out the discussion on Half the Sins of Mankind, too (mostly of the Waltzer interview, but there’s a little bit about Elizabeth Anderson)..

Unless something goes terribly wrong, a couple of months from now I expect to co-own this house. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.

See the sides of the house? You might think it was stucco - but you’d be mistaken. It’s not real stucco - it’s Eifs.

Eifs. Rrrrrrr….

A month ago, I had never heard of eifs. Now I hate it with a passion. I am contemplating replacing most of the swear words in my vocabulary with eifs, as in: “eifs you, you eifshead!, Eifs off!, Ee’s such an eifshole,” etc..

In the meanwhile, if you know of anyone who can replace siding with reasonable skill (and at a reasonable price) who works in Portland, Oregon, please let me know.

A ton of right-wing sites have been linking to this Washington Times article since it was printed last month.

Right away, notice the Times‘ baseless comparison: All gay relationships versus “first marriages in the United States.” That’s apples and oranges - the legitimate comparison would be first gay marriages vs. first straight marriages, or all gay relationships versus all hetero relationships.

But that’s not all that’s wrong with how right-wingers are using this study.

Maggie Gallagher - the anti-gay-marriage-maven of the Marriage Debate blog - has relied a fair amount on this study this week. First, she used it to argue that marriage won’t change gay men:

Then - after Dale Carpenter argued persuasively - with studies - that gay men aren’t all that promiscuous after all, Maggie responded:

So Maggie is relying on the Dutch study a lot - and she’s right, it’s not a junk study. But Dr. Xiridou’s study was intended to track means of AIDS transmission - not to be a representative study of promiscuity among gay men. I’m not certain - I haven’t been able to find a copy of the study thus far (there are many scientific journals named AIDS this or that) - but I suspect Maggie’s and other conservatives’ use of Dr. Xiridou’s study is illegitimate, because they don’t understand how the data was gathered.

First of all, Dr. Xiridou didn’t gather her data herself - according to her abstract, “estimates of parameters relating to sexual behavior were obtained from the Amsterdam Cohort Study.” Now here’s where it gets interesting - reading the background of the Amsterdam Cohort Study, we can get some clues of how their data was gathered.

It’s hard to say from this exactly what is happening - but it sure seems doubtful that this data can be used to prove any of the points Maggie wants it to prove. Why not? Let’s count the ways. (If you don’t want to read the whole list, just read point five - it’s a doozy).

1. Maggie wants to use this data to prove that the Dutch marriage law, instituted in 2001, hasn’t had any effect on behavior. But it’s not clear if any of the data used in Dr. Xiridou’s study was gathered after 2001.

2. It’s very clear that the Amsterdam Cohort Study does not contain a representative sample of Dutch gay men - so, regardless of when the data was gathered, it’s dubious whether any of Maggie’s broad conclusions are supported by this data.
3. Nor, as far as I’ve been able to find out, does Dr. Xiridou’s study provide the data in a way that makes it possible to compare married gay men’s behavior with nonmarried gay men’s behavior. But without this information, it’s irresponsible for Maggie to imply that gay married men are promiscuous.
4. Dr. Xiridou’s study - at least as I’ve seen it described - reports average behavior. But averages can easily be distorted by a small number of extreme cases. A small number of very promiscuous gay men might raise the “average number of partners” figure very high - but that doesn’t tell us anything about how many partners the typical gay man has.
5. At least some of the men in the sample were specifically recruited based on being promiscuous. The first wave of data included only men who had “at least two sexual partners in the six months prior to intake.” In other words, Maggie may be examining data that excluded non-promiscuous men, and using the results to claim that gay men on average are promiscuous. That’s ridiculous.
6. Another wave of the study was specifically aimed at young gay men. Might young men be (on average) more promiscuous - and less interested in marriage - than gay men in general? It’s certainly a possibility.

Now, it’s possible that there’s more information, unknown to me, that makes this data applicable the way Maggie (and other conservatives) have been using it. As I said, I’ve been unable to read the study itself thus far.

But if my understanding of this study is accurate, then it’s irresponsible of conservatives to use this study the way they’ve been using it. If so, Maggie Gallagher (who seems to be honest) will no doubt admit her error and stop citing this study. But there’ll be snowball fights at the Alamo before the Washington Times prints a retraction.

I meant to post this yesterday, but didn’t end up having time… I’m afraid I’ve also lost the source links to most of these, so apologies to everyone I should credit but didn’t.

• In The Antichrist of North Carolina, Barbara Ehrenreich describes her brief stint as a famous commie after the University of North Carolina assigned her book Nickeled and Dimed to incoming students.

• Body and Soul muses about “cruelty lessons” - how easy it is to become numb. (And why the hell hasn’t it been a giant story that Bush has been using a no-fly list to harass anti-war protesters?) Jeanne’s post also draws extensively from an essay by the incredible Sara Roy.
• For only $20, you can have a minor celebrity (a Star Trek actor, say, or the guy who starred in American Werewolf in London) phone you or a friend. For thirty bucks, you can have them leave a message you’ve written on a friend’s answering machine. In other news, our civilization is so in decline.
• Jack Balkin (of the blog Balkinization) criticizes Justice Scalia’s committment to the theory of originalism, which comes and goes depending on how convenient originalism is to Scalia’s conservative politics. “And all the while he insists that people who disagree with him are making illegitimate arguments, and are imposing their personal preferences on the Constitution.”
• Hans Zeiger, an 18-year-old Eagle Scout, writes that the ACLU ruined “Boy Scout camp” by pointing out that it’s illegal for an organization that discriminates against atheists and gays to run a camp on San Diego’s public property. My feeling is, yay ACLU! If the Scouts don’t like it, they’ve got a simple solution available - stop discriminating.
• According to a BBC report, Anna Diamantopoulou, the European “social affairs commissioner,” is considering outlawing gender discrimination in insurance rates. This would help men in some cases (car insurance), and help women in other cases (health insurance, pension annuities).
• Sometimes I forget that “Comic Book Store Owner” on The Simpsons isn’t an exaggeration. Check out this list of questions enraged Battlestar Galactica fans asked Ronald Moore, the producer of an upcoming new Battlestar Galactica series.
• For folks interested in reading more same-sex marriage discussion, Noli Irritare Leones has collected some links for you. Also, don’t miss this Eugene Volokh post arguing in favor of gay marriage, and this interesting Debitage post bouncing off some of the discussion here on Alas.
• The Right Christians has a really fascinating post about the confirmation of gay bishop Gene Robinson. He (she?) argues persuasively that Robinson’s confirmation is just the latest step in a decades-old process of increasing openness. (If the permalink doesn’t work, scroll down to “Been There, Done That” on August 6).
• While you’re at the Right Christians, read through the Progressive Theory of Everything, which argues that progressives need to start appealing, in our thought and our rhetoric, to a “nurturing parent” theory of politics, in order to counter the right-wing “strict father” appeal. It sounds silly summed up that way, but it’s pretty interesting stuff.
• Oh, gross! Yet fascinating and sometimes oddly beautiful. Check out “Another Day at the Office,” a photo blog by a professional medical photographer, featuring close-ups of human insides. I found the opened-up hand particularly compelling. Via Boing Boing.
• Yule Heibel links to an article which describes a spatial demonstration of income inequality in America. “95% of Americans get to live within a 43-mile stretch of each other in Kansas, while the top CEOs get to live in Kabul, Afghanistan.”
• This article in Nature points out that people who easily “catch yawns” from other people, are also generally more empathetic and self-aware. The article also features a hilarously lame “just so” evolutionary theory: “Contagious yawning may have helped our ancestors to coordinate times of activity and rest. ‘It’s important that all group members be ready to do the same thing at the same time,’ Baenninger says.”
• The Dead Man Eating Weblog lets us know what condemned killers choose for their last meals. Oddly interesting for a few minutes. Via Lumpley
• This Tohu Bohu post in favor of Affirmative Action - and arguing that “fairness” must be judged on a macro scale, not based on single events - is really excellent.
• A book review of The Armchair Economist at Defective Yeti mentions the economist’s opinion that the best way to keep drivers safe is to get rid of seatbelts and “install sharp spikes on their steering wheels.”
• Groupthink Central quotes from a Salon article showcasing the worst of the worst at a young Republican convention.

Some Dean supporters in the comments have been accusing Kucinich supporters of being impractical idealists. They agree with Kucinich’s positions - or so they say - but they don’t think it’s a good idea to worry about ideals while Bush is in office. Be pragmatic, they say. (Stop being so selfish, they go on, verging into personal insults - but let’s not go there.)

The funny thing is, I think of myself as very pragmatic.

Here’s the thing - the pragmatic question for progressives right now is not “which candidate can beat Bush?” (Personally, I think that IF Bush loses, it’ll be the economy that beats him, not any particular candidate). The pragmatic question is - or should be - “what can I do to best guarantee that when Dean or whoever runs against Bush, progressives at least still have a seat at the table?”

The way to do that is NOT to join the DLC in declaring that progressive views are unelectable and should not even be considered.

I think the best way to support progressive views is to support Kucinich - but be pragmatic about it. Pragmatism tells us a few things:

1) Kucinich is almost certainly going to drop out of the race before the primary voting April.

1a) But the longer Kucinich stays in the race and the better he does before dropping out, the more reason the winning candidate - whoever that might be - has to include and pay attention to progressive views in his candidacy.

1b) The longer and better Kucinich stays in the race, the more plausible future progressive Democrats will seem when they run in future Democratic primaries.

1c) On the other hand, if even progressives are unwilling to support progressive candidates - not even nine months before the primaries, when supporting a progressive is perfectly safe - then that just proves Nader right: there is no place for progressives in the Democratic party.

2) On the very remote chance that Kucinich does not drop out before actual primary voting begins, it’s perfectly easy to switch to supporting Dean - or some other, more “electable” candidate - then.

2a) From a pragmatic point of view, it doesn’t matter much to Dean or any “electable” frontrunner if you support him now or not; they have all the support they need right now. That’s what makes Dean a frontrunner. It’s later on, when the voting crunch time comes, that your support really matters.

2b) If Dean (or whoever) is really incapable of winning the Democratic primary if progressives support Kucinich, then he’s incapable of winning against Bush, and the “electable” argument can’t be used to support his candidacy. Bush is a far tougher opponent to beat than Kucinich is (sad to say).

3) If you’re not willing to support progressive views now, you never will be willing to support a progressive candidate. There is no safer time to support a progressive than early in a primary race. If you can’t support progressives now, you can’t support them ever.

Conclusion: The pragmatic thing to do is support progressive views when you can, and support other candidates when you have to.

In March or April - come voting time - maybe progressive Democrats will have to support a non-progressive candidate, in the name of beating Bush. I might do so myself, when the time comes. But now is not that time. Refusing to support progressive candidates right now does nothing at all to hurt Bush; all it does is help push progressive views and candidates even further into irrelevancy.

Historian Gar Alperovitz, among others, has argued that US leaders knew they could have gotten a surrender from Japan, without dropping the bombs. There are a number of impressive quotes in support of this idea, like….

For a summary of the most radical "dropping the bomb was unnecessary" view held by any respectable historian, check out Gar Alperovitz's 1995 "Foreign Policy" article. I'm not sure that I buy all of Alperovitz's conclusions, but that the war could have been ended without either the A-Bomb or a full invasion of Japan is a fairly well-supported view. (Of course, some right-wing historians - notably Robert Maddox - disagree. But theirs is not the mainstream view.)

The issue wasn't if the Japanese were prepared to surrender - but if they were prepared for unconditional surrender. Then and now, many experts believe that the Japanese would have surrendered if they had assurance that they would be able to retain their Emperor in some capacity. As Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki announced on August 9, 1945 (three days after Hiroshima, the day Nagasaki was bombed) "Should the Emperor system be abolished, they [the Japanese people] would lose all reason for existence. ‘Unconditional surrender’, therefore, means death to the hundred million: it leaves us no choice but to go on fighting to the last man.”

What Americans usually forget is that the Japanese didn’t surrender after August 5, 1945; nor after August 9. On the contrary, Japanese hawks were quite prepared to fight to the death after the dropping of the bombs; that the US so vastly out-powered them only added to the romantic fatalism driving their pro-war views.

So what did bring about the Japanese surrender? On August 11th, the Americans finally gave the Japanese Emperor and doves what they had been waiting for: surrender terms which said “the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers.” This amounted to an explicit statement that the Emperor would not be removed from office. After a few days of studying the terms, on August 14 the Emperor asked the Cabinet to accept the surrender offer; the Cabinet unanimously agreed to surrender that same day.

To the Japanese hawks, this was the one request for peace that could not be turned down. The Emperor was considered a god, after all. It was the Emperor’s request - not the two atomic bombs - that convinced the hawks in the Japanese Cabinet to surrender.

For further reading on the Japanese surrender, I recommend Doug Long’s essay Hiroshima: Was it Necessery?, as well as the Gar Alperovitz essay I mentioned above. Also, check out the Slactivist’s post on Hiroshima.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

I can’t say that this strikes me as a terribly important issue, but offhand I agree with the rulings: people shouldn’t be offered different prices for the same services on account of their sex. That seems pretty basic. On the other hand, this ruling does legitimize my belief that most of the things men’s rights advocates make a fuss about are basically petty and unimportant.

Ironically, gay marriage opponents are a bigger threat to marriage’s continuing legitimacy than gay marriage itself.

With each passing generation, anti-gay bigotry is seen as less acceptable. Fifty years ago, no politician would have dared to express support for gays in public; today, even conservative politicians feel obligated to stress that they’re not being judgmental of gays even as they support anti-gay laws. (Hence, asked about gay marriage, George Bush’s first response was “I am mindful that we’re all sinners. And I caution those who may try to take the speck out of the neighbor’s eye when they’ve got a log in their own.”)

Moreover, poll after poll after poll shows that the younger generation is far more supportive of gay rights - including gay marriage - than previous generations. This matches my experience; many of my heterosexual friends have questioned if they’ll get married or not because they’re not sure they want to be part of an exclusionary and homophobic institution.

If lesbians and gays continue to be locked out of marriage, marriage itself will lose legitimacy. It will be seen as something done by the homophobic and backward, rather than something decent, non-bigoted people do. If folks like Eve and Maggie Gallagher really want to preserve marriage as an institution, they better hope that they continue losing the same-sex marriage debate.

UPDATE: Will Baude of Crescat Sententia disagrees (politely, of course). The permalink doesn’t seem to be working, but you can go to August 7 2003 and then scroll down to “gay marriage.”

I read in Newsday that Jordon’s new parliment has rejected a couple of women’s rights laws - they turned down women’s right to get a divorce, and also came out against harsh penalties for “honor killings” of women. Why? Because the laws would “encouraged family disintegration.”

Oddly enough, that’s pretty much the exact same reason Maggie Gallagher and her fellow-travelers oppose gay marriage. And by Maggie’s logic, the anti-woman Jordanians are correct (I’m not even certain that Maggie disagrees with Islamic fundamentalists who oppose what Maggie calls “unilateral divorce”). Maggie’s argument comes down to a kind of social “precautionary principle” - unless we can say for certain that the overall effects of a change to any important social institution will not be negative, we should not change that institution. It is not that Maggie has anything against gay people; rather, she thinks the risk to society if gays have equal rights is too great:

But if we accept Maggie’s logic, we must conclude that no change to marriage, historically, has ever been justified. Giving women the right to divorce could, in theory, lead to higher divorce rates (and probably will in practice, if Jordon’s women ever get equal rights). Discouraging honor killings of women could, in theory, lead to greater promiscuity and adultery. Allowing blacks and whites to marry could, in theory, have discouraged racists from marrying and thus degraded marriage - just as Maggie argues allowing gay marriage will discourage homophobes from marrying today. Outlawing rape within marriage could have degraded marriage by giving women new grounds for divorce. Etc, etc.

In each of these cases - in the United States, at least - it was eventually decided that social justice is too important to put off indefinitely because of purely theoretical future harms to marriage. And, in retrospect, most of us feel that’s a good thing; we prefer non-racist marriage laws, we prefer women to have equal rights, and - in the near future, I believe - we will prefer gays to have equal rights, too.

Eve Tushnet yesterday blogged her brief against gay marraige. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me - and, despite Eve’s effort to put her argument in entirely secular terms, I suspect it wouldn’t make sense to most atheists.

Eve’s first step is a “just-so” story - she asks what the purpose of marriage in our society. By an amazing coincidence, most of the answers Eve came up with imply heterosexuality:

(Maggie Gallagher, answering a similar question, said “The three classic goods of marriage in our common tradition are children, mutual caretaking, and sexual regulation, not necessarily in that order,” which I think I find a little more convincing).

Quibbles aside, I agree that marriage historically developed to meet the needs of opposite-sex couples; for most of the history of marriage’s development, after all, there were virtually no publicly acknowledged same-sex romantic couples. However, it’s also true that in the United States marriage historically developed to meet the needs of same-race couples. Eve could argue, I suppose, that miscegenation laws weren’t an important element of marriage considered over thousands of years. But in that case, we must acknowledge that in most of the world, marriage historically developed to merge a family between a subservient class with few legal rights (women) and the master class (men).

The fact is, the original conditions that marriage was designed for no longer apply. The races now intermarry with no harm to marriage. Women and men are - if not entirely equal classes - certainly much closer to equal than when marriage first evolved (at some cost to marriage, in that fewer women nowadays stay in marriage out of fear of starvation). Despite these changes, however, marriage still serves to provide children with stable families; to be a ceremony of transition to adulthood; and to channel sexual desire.

Is there any reason to think this will cease to be the case if same-sex marriage is acknowledged?

None that I’ve seen. Eve has promised to write a post describing “the “mechanism” by which same-sex marriage will weaken reg’lar old marriage”; I’ll be looking forward to it, since it seems to me this is the big “missing link” in the anti-gay-marriage argument.

• Unimpressed discusses the “first mover advantage” and asks: even if opportunity did become equal between women and men and all races, wouldn’t white men still retain their “first in” advantage?

• Language Hat reproduces a couple of terrific accounts of life in the Great Depression gathered by 1930s WPA workers, and provides links to find more.
• Mark Kleiman talks about prison literacy programs: fiscally smart, seemingly effective, and politically a loser.
• Aron’s Israel Peace Weblog reprints an astonishing news story - an Israeli Arab (actually, part-Arab) has been “granted political asylum by the United States, on grounds of economic persecution due to his ethnicity and religion” by the Israeli government. Honestly, if the source wasn’t Haaretz, I’d wonder if the story were true.
• On a happier note, the Head Heeb reports on a program which allows Palestinians and Israelis to talk for free on the phone, in the hopes of increasing peace, understanding, and the like. I wonder if things like this aren’t too hippy-dippy to work, but maybe I’m too cynical. In any case, I’m pleased that someone’s making the attempt.
• In case you need convincing that many right-wingers are idiots, check out the new Right Wing News survey - “Bloggers Select the 20 worst figures in American history.” Highlight: Bill Clinton is far worse than Timothy McVeigh, by their lights. (Or maybe I should say, “by their dims.”) To be fair, some smarter right-wingers have been criticizing this.
• The dullest blog in the world. It really is. Via Suzanne.
• The Green[e]house Effect reports on a public housing project designed to be as environmentally efficient as possible, including decorations that are actually solar panels and wind design intended to make air conditioning unnecessary.
• PLA discusses “The Tao of Deb” - the costs that all of us are paying for Republican addiction to debt.
• Welcome Silipups, a blog written by a Palestinian living in Jerusalem, to the blogroll.
• Pedantry has an absolutely fascinating post on Islamic Financial Institutions (which have to find ways to function without charging interest to borrowers).
• A sarcastic kid has been charged with making a “bomb-threat” for putting the following note in his luggage, where the luggage-inspectors found it: ”[Expletive] you. Stay the [expletive] out of my bag you [expletive] sucker. Have you found a [expletive] bomb yet? No, just clothes. Am I right? Yea, so [expletive] you.” Boing Boing has the story.
• Usually, I hate blind links - you know, links that say, “go see this,” but give you no clue what “this” is. But in this case, I have no idea how to describe it, other than to admit that it gave me serious giggles. Via Boing Boing again.
• Eugene Volokh argues, I think persuasively, that it makes more sense to vote a party line for all elections than to worry about the merits of individual candidates running for individual positions.
• Trish Wilson has a giant, giant, giant post on Joint Custody. Unsurprisingly, Trish is against it (at least, when it’s mandatory instead of chosen), and she has the links explaining why you should be against it too.
• Kip and Penny have both posted links to this way-cool optical illusion, so I thought I would, too.
• The Associated Press reports on Afghan Women’s attempt to have sex equality written into the forthcoming Afghan constitution. I’m not optimistic, but I sure hope they succeed.
• Cowboy Kahil discusses the real division in the Democratic party - those who want to placate the South, and those who don’t.
• James Wagner points out a genuine historic milestone: “On 1st August 2003, with the entry into force of a new penal code in Armenia, the last law in any country of Europe outlawing relationships between people of the same sex will be eliminated.” Wow.
• Nathan Newman has posted a number of times on his opposition to judicial review - even judicial activism that may help the left in the short term. I tentatively agree that we’d be better off if the Courts didn’t practice judicial review at all; over the course of US history, judicial activism has been overwhelmingly a tool for helping the wealthy and right-wing. Given the reality that the Courts do practice judicial review, I’m not sure it makes sense for the left to give up fighting for favorable decisions when the right-wingers certainly won’t do the same.
• Neato! This AP story reports on a glove someone has invented which, when worn, will translate sign language into spoken language. Some Deaf activists are worried that this will harm Deaf culture; although I’m usually sympathetic to such worries, in this case I don’t see the harm. Via Boing Boing.

(Note: a lot of this post, I’ve cribbed from what I wrote in the comments to a previous post).

Having watched the controversy for a few days now, the most persistent argument against the Illinois rape law (actually, just an amendment to an already existing law) is that this legislation would result in men being thrown in prison for failing to stop “instantly.” For instance, Allison at Ain’t That A Kick in the Head writes:

And Don of Anger Management (who is able to admit when he’s made a mistake - a rare and admirable trait in the blogoverse) writes:

What struck me is that both of these writers put the word “immediately” in quotes, but what is it they’re quoting? Certainly not the Illinois law in question, which says nothing about “immediately.”

In Illinois (ignoring cases where “did she consent?” isn’t an issue, such as statutory rape or an unconscious victim) it’s not legally “sexual assault” unless there’s force or a threat of force. This new law doesn’t change that; even under this revision, prosecutors still need to prove use of threats or overcoming force.

Remember if the state can’t convince a judge or a jury that “threat of force or violence” was used, then the accused can’t be convicted of rape. The new amendment to the Illinois law doesn’t change that.

What the amendment does is make it clear that “but she consented before she changed her mind and said no” isn’t a valid defense. Other defenses - like “she’s lying!” or “I never used threat of force or force” - remain valid. And the burden of proof remains with the prosecution, not the defense. This is why Allison’s concerns that men will need “a signed contract and a stop watch” to defend themselves are misplaced.

Some folks have commented that men - and especially teenage boys - cannot be expected to be able to stop intercourse once they begin. There’s a point of no return, they argue, yadda yadda yadda.

Consider this counterexample: Imagine John Z. of the much-discussed “In re John Z” California case. He’s in the middle of the sex act; his victim is ineffectually attempting to pull away and saying wishy-washy things like “No, I have to go home now” and “if you really liked me, you’d respect me and not do this.” But John Z. can’t be expected to stop, because that’s beyond a teenage boy’s ability, right?

Okay, now imagine that in the middle of the scenario above, John Z’s mother walks into the room and says “John Z., what are you doing?”

Is it imaginable that John Z. would be “unable to stop” under that circumstance? That he would continue for another minute - or another five minutes?

Of course not. If something that really made him want to stop - like his mom watching - had entered the situation, John Z. would have jumped off Laura and yanked his pants on so fast he might have set off a sonic boom.

That’s the standard men (and boys) should be judged by, in my view - is this a situation where they could stop, if they genuinely felt it was critically important to stop?