Direct from an HRC email:
The amendment needed a 2/3’s majority; the final vote was 227 for, 186 against.
I’ve sent a thank you note to my representative, one of the Republicans who voted against the amendment.
“Alas” reader David points out this National Review article claiming that the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling overturning “Terri’s Law” “is an embarrassingly bad decision legally.” (If you’d like background info on this ruling, you can read the AP article about the ruling, or the ruling itself (pdf file). Links via Abstract Appeal.. For background on the Schiavo case generally, check out these links.)
The writer, a lawyer with the wonderful name Walter Weber, is one of the lawyers hired by Terri Shiavo’s parents to keep Terri’s body alive. If this article is an example of his legal acumen, however, then I don’t think it’s the judges on the Florida Supreme who should be embarrassed. Walter Weber writes:
Nonsense.
Every time a governor pardons someone convicted of a crime, he “overturns” a judicial determination of guilt, and the judicial imposition of a sentence. So what?
So what? So overturning judicial determinations of guilt is a power the governor is specifically granted by the Florida State Constitution (and even then, the governor can’t go it alone - to issue a pardon, two cabinet members must support his decision).
Weber complains that “The supreme court of Florida made no effort to reconcile its decision in Bush v. Schiavo with the pardon power.” Probably that’s because the Court didn’t imagine that any of their critics would ignore the incredibly basic fact that the Governor’s pardon power is specifically granted by the Florida Constitution, whereas “Terri’s Law” is not.
Walter Weber continues:
Actually, if the court has already ruled on that specific evidence, then yes - separation of powers means that the state child-protection agency may not intervene further. A state social worker doesn’t have the right to overturn a judge’s decision.
But suppose it’s new evidence? Then of course, the social worker has every right to act upon the new evidence - which will lead, in due time, to a new trial and a new judicial ruling. In either case, the final decision is made by the judicial branch, and no other branch can overrule it.
Weber gives a couple more examples, but they’re the same thing - cases in which a new issue or new evidence turns up after a judge has ruled.
According to Weber, a new action made in response to a new event is the same thing as “overruling” a judge’s previous ruling. To see why Weber’s argument doesn’t hold water, consider this example: Joe Blow is arrested for jaywalking, serves his time, and is released from prison. Then he jaywalks again, and is arrested again.
Question: By arresting Joe Blow a second time, have police overturned the court’s previous conviction of Joe?
Of course not - that would be ridiculous. But that’s exactly the conclusion Weber’s flawed reasoning leads to.
Weber doesn’t know where this rule comes from? That’s stunning.
The law wasn’t “made up” by the judges - it comes from the Florida Constitution. Specifically, it comes from Article 2, Section 3, which says “No person belonging to one branch shall exercise any powers appertaining to either of the other branches.” (There are exceptions to that - but “Terri’s Law” isn’t one of them.)
Finally, Weber asks “how much discretion is too much?” But the court’s decision included a lengthy discussion of the discretion issue - yet that discussion, and the court’s logic, is totally overlooked by Weber’s essay. Instead, Weber claims - falsely - that the governor has virtually unlimited discretion in other cases, such as granting pardons and emergency powers, so it’s unreasonable of the judges to want some limits in this case.
But Weber is simply wrong to imagine the governor has unlimited discretion in the other cases he cites.
The “Terri’s Law” ruling was unanimous, and came to the conclusion that virtually every legal expert who isn’t employed by Terri Schiavo’s parents predicted. In fact, the court had no real choice but to rule this way - because they have no power to overturn the Florida Constitution.
I can understand why Weber - faced with a legally laughable case - is ignoring the Florida Constitution to try and make a respectable-looking argument. As my housemate Charles pointed out, the real question is, why is the National Review printing this nonsense?
[Edited to remove some snark.]
Bean blogged about the South African Marriage scam. All Africa.com reports, the alleged King Pin has been caught.
Prime time TV, cartoons, internet diplomas, and same sex marriage, all wrapped in one story. How can I pass it up?
Rumors had been swirling around that a character on the Simpsons would turn out to be gay. The world has been wondering, who? FXCM reveal it is Patty, one of Marge’s sisters. After being rejected by every man in Springfield, Patty will turn to women. She will be seduced by a lesbian in a bar, and the two will become a couple. Evidently, Homer will turn to the internet to become a licensed minister after which he will join Patty and her new love in marriage.
I’m not sure what to think of all this. Patty becomes a lesbian because she’s rejected by men?! Homer is technologically savvy enough to surf the web? And becomes a minister? What will become of Selma? Will she be lonely sitting home alone smoking cigarettes and watching MacGyver? Or will she take up with Principal Skinner? Or Ned Flanders? I’d suggest a woman for Selma, but are there any unmarried female characters unrelated to Marge and her sisters?
I guess, I’m hoping I hear what others think. No need to watch the show to form an opinion; if you have one, fire away.
Hugo Schwyzer is discussing prostitution, and in particular a proposal to “punish U.S. servicemen who visit overseas prostitutes.”
Rep. Chris Smith - who is the worse enemy of women’s rights in Congress on issues like abortion rights, UNFPA, same-sex marriage, and the global gag rule - is a leader in congress when it comes to opposing International Trafficking of women. This is, as Hugo points out, one of those rare cases where right-wing evangelicals and feminists agree on a topic. (Bean tells me that she read that funding for fighting International Trafficking has gone up significantly since Bush took office).
I certainly agree with Hugo when it comes to prostitution (actually, I agree with Hugo about virtually every issue, except for abortion). In particular, I like this new law, because it focuses on punishing johns (in my opinion, prostitution should be decriminalized, but being a john should be a frequently-enforced felony). However, I’m actually posting because a comment Hugo made in his post points out a difference between his view of masculinity and my own. Hugo wrote:
Implicit in Hugo’s writing is the idea that “real manhood” and “masculinity” can be positive constructs. To Hugo, masculinity is a vessel. The problem is that the vessel has been filled with bad ideas, such as “to be a man, get laid a lot” or “to be a man, you better be able to physically beat down fags and women, at the very least.” If the “masculinity” vessel were to be instead filled with positive ideas, then the conception of “real manhood” would become a tool for progressive, pro-feminist change.
I disagree. No matter what you try to fill it with, talking about who is and isn’t demonstrating “real manhood” is implicitly setting up a hierarchy of “real men” and “non-men.” And when boys are told they aren’t “real men,” they learn to hate themselves; and meanwhile, other boys who are desperate to remain “real men” will do almost anything to defend their manhood. (I’ve written previously about my theory that this need to protect masculinity is a major motivation for date rape.) It would be better, in my view, to try and teach boys that manhood is nothing that can be lost, and therefore nothing to feel insecure about.
Furthermore, when you set up a hierarchy with “real men” at the top of it, inevitably - no matter how good the intent - it is implied that girls and women rank low on that hierarchy. What, after all, could be less like a “real man” than someone who is not a man at all?
Finally, if there are positive virtues we ascribe to “real men” and masculinity, aren’t we implicitly saying that men have some special claim to those virtues, or that women are less likely to embody them?
I’ve written here about Terri Schiavo - a woman in Florida whose mind has long since died, but whose body is being kept alive at the insistence of Terri’s parents, and over the objections of Terri’s husband - a few times. After a court ruled against Terri’s parents, the Florida legislature - kow-towing to the Christian right - passed a law saying that Jeb Bush could overturn the court’s decision. In an earlier post, I wrote:
Happily, as Prometheus 6 reports, the Florida Supreme Court has now overturned “Terri’s Law.” This doesn’t mean that Terri Schiavo’s mindless body will finally be allowed to die, because there are still ongoing court cases; but it does establish that the executive branch doesn’t have the right to overturn any court decision Jeb Bush disagrees with.
(For folks wanting more information about Terri’s law and the Terri Schiavo case, here are some useful links.)
UPDATE: I just now ran into this series of truly excellent posts on the Terri Schiavo case, over on RangelMD.com. Required reading, especially if you’re interested in the medical aspects of this debate.
Spain’s socialist government is moving rapidly to expand both women’s and gay rights. Expatica reports that Spain’s government is drafting a bill that will grant gays the same legal rights as heterosexuals with regard to divorce, inheritance, and citizenship. Adoption by gays will be restricted to Spanish children. In contrast, the opposition Popular Party supports same sex civil unions, and opposes adoption. With Spanish support for same sex marriage reported at 66%, unions of one sort or another seem inevitable.
Meanwhile, Spain is simplifying divorce. Earlier this month the news.telegraph reported that starting next year, Spain will permit divorce within as little as 10 days. It is estimated the typical uncontested divorce will take 2 months, and the total time will be restricted to 6 months. The news.telegraph reports the change is welcomed by Spaniards.
Spain’s prime minister Zapatero is also proposing easing abortion restriction and lifting restrictions on embryo research. More recently, the news.telegraph reports the socialist government is also proposing to keep religious education optional, remove crucifixes from public buildings like prisons, schools and military head quarters, subject religious teachers, who are paid by the government, to secular employment regulations and cut government funding of the Catholic Church by half. A self avowed feminist, Zapatero also plans to modify the law to permit female succession to the throne, and, more importantly, to crack down on domestic violence.
So many changes in so little time. As an American citizen, I know my opinion about all this is of little importance, but I can only smile and applaud!
====
Update (Friday Oct.1): CNN
The bill now goes to Parliament, where the Socialist government says it has enough support to pass the law, which could make gay marriage possible by next year.
Over at Hugo’s blog, Hugo has an excellent post discussing “guilty until proven innocent” - the way that many women, quite sensibly, feel obliged to treat every man they meet as a potential threat. Hugo’s reader “Burning” left an impressive anecdote in the comments, and with her permission I’m reprinting it here.
I highly recommend reading all the comments, by the way; the comments turned into a fascinating discussion of the “c’mon, give me a smile” thing, which I didn’t even know existed until my friend Jenn told me about it several years ago. (Hugo also devoted a follow-up post to the smiling issue.)
Anyway, with her kind permission, here’s Burning’s story.
In California, I would toss out a nutball grin to just about anyone, and never had any problems with it. So when I got to Chicago I did the same thing. From day to day there was a little bit of randomness - sometimes guys wouldn’t grin back, they’d just say “Hey there,” and look me up and down like a piece of meat. One asked me, “Where do you live?” - that was fun. But none of them followed me, didn’t bug me when I walked away from them, etc.
One Friday evening I was in Blockbuster, renting a movie. Tired from a long day, and just sort of trudging up and down the aisles. I came around a corner, staring dully ahead of me, and realized I’d just looked right at some guy standing outside the Blockbuster window - so I smiled at him then kept on with my dutiful trudge. Got up to the register, and just then he came into the store, walking right up to me. He stuck his hand out - “Hi, I’m Jim,” he said. I shook his hand, “Hi Jim,” I said, thinking for one random moment that maybe his car had run out of gas and he didn’t have a cellphone, or he needed some other thing. Nope.
“Do you like videos?” he said. I’m early twenties but look eighteen. Jim looked late forties, and eager. I turned away from him and looked at the clerk, basically doing all I could to quit signaling any sort of interest, and grunted noncommittally.
“What kind of videos do you like?” he asked, stepping closer. “It varies,” I said.
This wasn’t the answer he was looking for, so we went through a few iterations of that, then he said, “I have A LOT of videos at my house.”
At this point I’ve been signaling for the last few minutes that I don’t want to talk to him. And, part of this is my fault - I should have just explicitly asked him to leave me alone. But I was exhausted, and made the mistake of thinking he’d realize that a woman who wasn’t looking at him, facing him, replying in more than a monosyllable, and was completely expressionless, probably didn’t want to be talking to him.
He was also seriously into my personal space.
I’d just paid for the video and was trying to figure out what to do if he followed me out of the store, when one of the clerks (thank God for her) said, “Hey Jim, c’mere a sec!” She was standing on the other side of the counter, with a stand of snacks between her and him. He made his way past me, over to her, and the path to the door was clear. I headed out, and speed-walked all the way home.
I called the Blockbuster when I got home to thank the clerk who’d helped me. She said, “Oh thank god you called - he noticed you’d left about a second after you were out the door, and ran out of the store after you, cursing. We didn’t know if you’d made it home safe.”
Smiling at strangers happens at that split-second when you glance into their face as you walk by. I didn’t even think before I smiled at that guy - it was instinctive. So, this incident. Rare? Yes. Sticking with me? Oh hell yes. It’s a risk game - I could smile at someone and they’ll smile back, and we’ll have a nice little moment of human contact (30%). Or, I’ll get no response (50%). Or a random sexual come on, hey baby, you wanna come out with me? (15%) Or he’ll come after me into a damn Blockbuster and I will have to spend fifteen minutes doing safety calculations and trying to figure out if there’s a rock or something I can grab, and glancing behind me as I walk home in the dark (5%). But you know what? That 5% does a whole lot to negate the 30% tiny happy feelings, and the 15% of random crap isn’t much fun either.
And when I walk staring straight ahead, expressionless? No one bugs me. No one follows me, and no one thinks I might be their lay for the night. And I get to think about my grocery list, and what I have to do that day, and the books I’m reading, and who I’m going out to lunch with, and there’s very little in the way wondering if I’m going to get followed all the way back to my door, and what somebody might do if they’re a little nutty AND know where I live.
Burning’s story very well illustrates why many women use “guilty until proven innocent” as a rule. The sad thing is, it’s not that unusual - I’ve heard similar (or worse) stories from a couple of female friends.
And again, I recommend reading the whole thread, if you have time.
An “Alas” reader - I apologize, but I don’t remember which one - pointed out this excellent British article on how the third world debt crisis harms women. Here, for instance, is a discussion of what happens with the World Bank and IMF impose “austerity plans” on third-world governments:
The reining in of public expenditure hurts girls in other ways, too. In order to meet this requirement, almost all developing countries have adopted a policy of charging for healthcare and school fees. And when parents faced with school fees have to choose between spending their money on sending their daughters or sons to learn, guess who gets to go to school? When the state doesn’t provide healthcare, it is daughters not sons who are taken out of school to become care-givers; it is girls who become the unpaid nurses. [...]
In the most extreme cases women become a key source of foreign exchange themselves. The export of women from Thailand and elsewhere in south-east Asia to work as domestic servants overseas is a well-documented key foreign exchange generating industry for many developing world governments, an industry actively encouraged by the World Bank. A less well-known and highly disturbing fact is that the Philippines government, in the late 1970s, actively promoted the mail order bride industry in order to repay its debt.
Read the whole thing. Also, while we’re on the subject, Pinko Feminist Hellcat has a post on sweatshop labor in the third world I’ve been meaning to link to for a week.
Here’s some good news: The Massachusetts Speaker of the House, Thomas Finneran, who is strongly opposed to SSM, has stepped down. His replacement, Salvatore DiMasi, is pro-SSM. From the Boston Globe:
“It is pretty much over,” said Senate minority leader Brian P. Lees, a Springfield Republican who cosponsored the amendment with Finneran and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini. The House and Senate, sitting in a constitutional convention, must vote a second time in the next session before it could go to the voters on the 2006 ballot.
“In fact, there will be a question as to whether the issue will come up at all,” Lees said. He said the issue has faded to the “back burners of Massachusetts politics,” because few problems have surfaced with the implementation of the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage.
Of course, it isn’t over - but the odds are now strongly in favor of equality, at least in Massachusetts.
And, in the long run, if we win marriage equality anywhere we’ve won it everywhere. Not because courts will force Alabama to recognize Massachusetts marriages - the fact is, there’d be more than enough votes to put something like the Defense of Marriage Act into the Constitution, if a court ruling made it necessary. (The Federal Marriage Act, which didn’t get enough votes, is nothing like DOMA, because it doesn’t just protect Alabama from Massachusetts marriages - it would also force Massachusetts to adopt Alabama’s standards).
No, the problem for anti-marriage-equality folks is that if Massachusetts is permitted to have same-sex marriage, then sooner or later majorities in other states will realize that there’s nothing to fear. Massachusetts is not going to experience a huge rise in its divorce rate, or its unwed motherhood rate, or its child molestation rate. Marriage will not become a thing of the past. Teachers will not be censored from saying that mothers and fathers are important. Bibles will not be banned. Brothers will not be marrying their sisters. In short, civilization in Massachusetts will not collapse.
The anti-equality movement doesn’t have a logical, coherent argument against same sex marriage. So instead, they’ve relied on fearmongering. The Bible will be banned! Children will be hurt! But it’s easy to spread fear of something that’s strange and unknown (especially when that fear is in line with a popular bigotry). What happens ten or twenty years from now, when a married gay person is elected to the Senate, or when it becomes common for TV programs set in Massachusetts to show ordinary families headed by married, same-sex couples?
What happens when fear of the scarey unknown is replaced by familiarity with the humdrum known?
If same-sex marriage is permitted in just one state - Massachusetts, Oregon, whichever - then it may take ten years, it may take twenty, but the anti-SSM fearmongering will inevitably be unmasked as the ridiculous fiction it is.
Ten or twenty years from now, when none of the predicted disasters attributed to SSM have emerged in Massachusetts, then what new story will SSM opponents come up with?
“We’re not the paper police. We’re not going to go to county election boards and review voter registration forms,” said Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo. “We want them to process the forms.”
But LoParo disputed suggestions that Blackwell was reversing his Sept. 7 directive, which states that “any Ohio form not printed on this minimum paperweight is considered to be an application for a registration form. Your board should mail this appropriate form to the person listed on the application.” [...]
LoParo said Blackwell wants election officials to process the lightweight registration forms and send the applicants a form on heavier-stock paper to return for a permanent record.
That was news to election officials in two counties, who said they have not been processing forms on underweight papers, per Blackwell’s directive.
(Via Kos).
The idea that democracy is more important than winning any particular election contest just seems foreign to too many high elected officials.
From Jordon at Confined Space:
Now, which of these two rule-breakings are more likely to be repeated, do you suppose?
Medline News reports:
You already knew not to accept drinks; don’t accept cigarettes either.
The Richmond Times Dispatch reports Tom Delay predicts the House will not pass the Family Marriage Amendment tomorrow, Sept. 30. He is going ahead with the vote anyway. Some suggest this time wasting vote is motivated by DeLay’s desire to rally Fundamentalists Christian voters.
I suggest phoning your congressional representative to express your opposition to this amendment; HRC has set up a convenient toll free line. Call 1-800-460-7513. You will be asked to enter your ZIP code, and then be connected to your Congressional Representative.
I’m sure you’ve all wondered why I have not blogged about Alan Keyes, particularly after he promised to make an inflammatory statements every day and every week until the election. He let me down; he’s been discussing tariffs. ( The Chicago Tribune reports Keyes supports tariffs, and more specifically: “the conservative Republican advocating a position that runs counter to his party and more in line with stands advocated by some on the left” ). But that’s hardly an Alan Keyes story worth blogging about.
Today, things changed. Jason Kuznicki, of Positive Liberty, alerted me to a rumor (and possible hoax) about Keyes’s 19 year old daughter, Maya. The story is running at Modern Vertabrate, Josh Clayborn and The Daily Kos. For a variety of reasons, I was reluctant to blog about the young woman, who is not, after all, running for office. However, the story now appears in 365Gay.com, so the story is “out there”.
Here goes: Keyes daughter may be gay. Some stories about her life may be being posted by a user named “Xmisled0youthX ” at a blog hosted by xanga.com. (The final post seems to be dated April 24, 2004.)
Many will recall that Keyes commented on Cheney’s gay daughter, calling her a “selfish hedonism.” Not surprisingly, Keyes was questioned about the rumors about his own daughter. 365Gay.com reports the response Keyes gave at a Town Hall meeting somewhere in the South Side of Chicago:
Maya Keyes has also been asked whether she is the author of the web site or a lesbian. She is refusing to answer either question.
The Daily Kos has suggested this web page may be a hoax. If it is, it is a cruel one; no 19 year old woman deserves to be made the center of a political controversy not of her making. If it is not a hoax, and Maya is gay, I understand Alan Keyes even less than I previously thought.
From an article in the August 2004 issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior:
In other words, both sexes stated the same preference.
I really enjoyed this Spiked Online review of the anti-McDonalds documentary Super Size Me. Here’s a sample:
Via Arts & Letters Daily.
Link.
So was the Unborn Victmis of Violence Act really about protecting pregnant women, or was it about getting a pro-life precident written into law? Bush Campaign Lies has the answer - I hope they don’t mind if I quote extensively.
Actually, the exact reverse is true. It is Senate Republicans who placed abortion politics over unborn victims of violence. The fact is that Republicans exploited the Laci Peterson tragedy in order to gain support for the bill — and demonize its opponents — precisely so that they could pass legislation which accords the same rights to a fetus as to anyone else.
How do I know this? Because Dianne Feinstein introduced a substitute amendment (S. Amdt 2858) which would have effectively replaced the Unborn Victims of Violence Act with legislation which, according to Feinstein:
“. . . include(s) the same structure, the same crimes, and the exact same penalties as the DeWine bill. The only real difference between our amendment and the DeWine bill is that we do not attempt to place into law language defining life as beginning at conception–beginning with an embryo.”
Those who are truly concerned with ‘protecting pregnant women from violence’ would happily support the Feinstein amendment, which was defeated 50-49, with 47 Republicans voting against it (and yes, Kerry voted for it). Only those whose true intent is to ‘place abortion politics above unborn victims of violence’ would reject the Feinstein amendment in favor of a bill which sticks a thumb in the eye of Roe v. Wade.
Bush Campaign Lies, by the way, is a new blog with a very tight focus on rebutting statements made by the Bush campaign. An excellent resource if you’re involved in any Bush v Kerry arguments and you’re looking for ammo. :-)
Interesting Washington Post article about the working conditions of hotel cleaners in D.C.; management has been gradually getting them to do more and more work while the pay has only increased enough to keep up with cost of living. A friend of mine used to do hotel cleaning, and it always sounded to me like backbreaking work.
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