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From the AP:

FORT WORTH, Texas - The Texas Supreme Court on Friday threw out a jury award over injuries a 17-year-old girl suffered in an exorcism conducted by members of her old church, ruling that the case unconstitutionally entangled the court in religious matters. […]

Laura Schubert testified in 2002 that she was cut and bruised and later experienced hallucinations after the church members’ actions in 1996, when she was 17. Schubert said she was pinned to the floor for hours and received carpet burns during the exorcism, the Austin American-Statesman reported. […]

The 2002 trial of the case never touched on the religious aspects, and a Tarrant County jury found the Colleyville church and its members liable for abusing and falsely imprisoning the girl. The jury awarded her $300,000, though the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth later reduced the verdict to $188,000.

Justice David Medina wrote that finding the church liable “would have an unconstitutional ‘chilling effect’ by compelling the church to abandon core principles of its religious beliefs.”

A Dallas attorney, defending the Texas Court’s decision, said that “no one should think Friday’s ruling would give protection to a church leader accused of abusing a child.” But as PZ Meyers points out, that’s precisely what this decision did.

There is one thing I’d disagree with PZ about. PZ frames this case as being about religion:

No religious beliefs are to be examined critically, no matter how disturbing they may be. That’s the way things work down in Texas, I guess.

But only Christian churches would ever be accommodated this way; if a similar situation ever comes up involving a non-Christian religion in Texas, the Court will distinguish that case from this one, so the abusers may be punished. As David of The Debate Link argued in a paper last year (pdf file — see pages 58-64), US Courts tend to find that the first amendment requires bending the law to accommodate Christian customs and practice — even as it forbids bending the law to accommodate the customs and practices of minority religions.

If I’m right about that, then a peculiar and ironic result of the favoritism Courts give to Christianity is that Christian kids (especially girls) may (in this one, narrow area of the law) effectively have less legal protection than kids from minority religions.

Amanda writes:

This sort of logic chills me. I quickly can see the implications for women’s rights outside of just the basic right not to be assaulted during a bout of make-believe over demons that people have convinced themselves is real. Most of these churches are anti-choice—what if they argue that their religious freedom gives them the right to kidnap and contain women that they suspect of being sexual active or of seeking abortion or contraception? Is there a time limit on how long a church can restrain a woman because they believe their god gives them ownership over her body?

Or — seeking to be slightly less blatant about it — couldn’t a Texas church simply say that they’ve perceived a demon in any girl or woman whose plans they disapprove of, and hold and torture her on that basis?

Remember, you can own a paper copy of “Hereville” of your very own!

This is my personal favorite of the title page sketches I’ve done so far… there are two more sketches below the fold.

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Matthew Yglesias writes:

One objection you often hear to pro-transit, pro-walking, anti-driving measures is a social justice argument that these measures will hit the poor hardest. In fact, as this Kevin Drum post makes clear poor people do relatively little driving. They differ from middle class and wealthy people in that utility bills take up a very large proportion of their income.

It’s true that poor people, on average, drive less than rich people. But what matters isn’t the absolute level of fuel usage, but how big a chunk of one’s income is taken up by fuel usage. According to the data in Kevin Drum’s post, folks in the bottom fifth of income in the US spend 10% of their income on gasolene, and about 12% on utility bills. In contrast, the richest fifth of people spend about 4% of their income on gasolene, and about 3% on utility bills.

So contrary to Yglesias’ claim, any policy that increases the cost of driving will definitely hit the poor harder than the rich. This should be no surprise, since virtually any economic hardship one can imagine hits the poor harder than the rich. This is why it’s helpful to be rich.

This doesn’t mean that we should oppose “pro-transit, pro-walking, anti-driving measures” as a matter of social justice. Avoiding those policies won’t prevent high gas prices, which are much more painful to the poor than the rich; and in the long run, doing nothing to transition away from a gas-based economy and infrastructure will be worse for the poorest 20% than the alternatives. What we should be doing is trying to change to more sustainable energy use, while simultaniously pursuing policies to reduce and mitigate poverty.

From Kevin Drum’s post:

…low-income houses spend 22% of their income on energy, while high-income households spend only 4% of their income on energy. If you raise the cost of energy, you hurt the poor far, far more than the better off.

Two things are worth noting. First, utility costs are a bigger problem than gasoline. On a percentage basis, the poor pay 7x as much for utilities as the well off, while they pay only 4x as much for gasoline.

I agree with most of Kevin’s post, but he’s mistaken to use “how much more do the poor pay compared to the rich” as his measurement of which is “a bigger problem.” If our concern is hardship, what matters is how big a percentage of one’s income is being spent — not how that percentage compares to what the rich spend. The bottom fifth of earners in the US are spending 10% of income on gas and 12% on utilities; for those folks the two problems are just about equal in size.

I've been wanting to blog about this since I heard about it last week, but Vivir Latino and illvox and Racewire and a bunch of other folks have gotten to it already… … Obstruction of justice and resisting arrest should really be renamed the Activist Charges, since they seem to be what all of us are threatened with whenever we're arrested for either protesting or observing the cops and holding them accountable for their actions. The latter seems to particularly piss the cops off. I know this from personal experience, having been pepper sprayed along with other community members and seeing two friends being violently arrested for doing just that - questioning police actions, asking for badge numbers, taking pictures of their activity. All the charges against the two people arrested were dropped. Three members of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement's Cop Watch were arrested while videotaping an arrest in Brooklyn in 2005. All charges against them were later dropped. When the cops went on a bike-confiscating frenzy in the East Village last summer, two people who dared to observe and question them were arrested. It happens over and over again.

Via Matt Bors. Larger image here.

Matt also linked to this one-page history of the Iraq War by Joel Pett, which does some really cool work blending visuals from panel to panel.

Remember, you can own a paper copy of “Hereville” of your very own!

There’s another one below the fold….

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It’s still Ms. Swirsky, though.

The Democrats in the House have worked out a new “compromise” on Telecom Amnesty, if by “compromise” they mean “let’s give Bush everything he wants.” The law they will vote on tomorrow — and almost certainly pass — will say that it’s okay for telecom companies to break the law, as long as the President asked them to and said it was legal.

That’s not democracy. The President shouldn’t have the power to unilaterally give huge mega-corporations permission to break the law because the President says so. The President shouldn’t have the power to spy on American citizens, without court oversight, because he says so. This is a betrayal of the Constitution, of the principle of equal treatment, of separation of powers.

Back in October, the New York Times wrote:

This provision is not primarily about protecting patriotic businessmen, as Mr. Bush claims. It’s about ensuring that Mr. Bush and his aides never have to go to court to explain how many laws they’ve broken. It is a collusion between lawmakers and the White House that means that no one is ever held accountable. Democratic lawmakers said they reviewed the telecommunications companies’ cooperation (by reading documents selected by the White House) and concluded that lawsuits were unwarranted. Unlike them, we still have faith in the judicial system, which is where that sort of conclusion is supposed to be reached, not in a Senate back room polluted by the politics of fear.

If corporations break the law, they should have to face up to it in a courtroom. Donating millions of dollars so that a compliant Congress — and a President eager to cover up his own lawbreaking — can keep them out of a courtroom isn’t the rule of law. It’s monarchy of the money.

So, naturally, huge number of Democrats (and virtually all Republicans) in Congress will vote for it. For further reading, check out Glenn Greenwald, the ACLU, Matthew Yglesias, Tapped, Hilzoy, and I’m sure many others.

Barack Obama — who claimed to oppose telecom amnesty during the primaries, back when liberal votes mattered to him — hasn’t said a word against amnesty recently, when a speech or a press release from Obama could have made a real difference. Obama is the de facto leader of the Democratic Party — but when actual leadership is required, he’s too much of a coward to stand up to Bush and corporate millionairres. All that matters is what’s good for Barack Obama; what’s good for the country is a secondary consideration (if a consideration at all) for the Obama campaign.

So what did Obama do this week? He campaigned for John Barrow — a right-wing, pro-war, pro-telecom amnesty Democrat in a primary fight against a genuine liberal. (Links: 1 2 3).

If you’d like to tell Obama’s campaign what you think of that, call his campaign at (866) 675-2008 (choose 6 on the menu). If he gets tens of thousands of phone calls, maybe next time he’ll hesitate to screw over the causes he once claimed to stand for.

When I called, the very nice Obama campaign worker I spoke to reminded me that Obama had once co-sponsored Dodd’s excellent bill opposing telecom amnesty. That’s swell, but having done right months ago doesn’t exempt Obama from responsibility to do the right thing today.

Progressive change can’t come from leaders like Obama or Clinton; they’re too beholden to money and power to make any changes. It’s up to us to lead them in a more progressive direction; if we wait for them to lead us, we’ll wait forever. Putting pressure on Obama is just as important as arguing against McCain.¹ Call Obama. Call your Representatives and Senators. (You can use this website to find out where your Representative stands on telecom amnesty.) Let them know you’re pissed off.

And if you’re a pro-Obama blogger, and you haven’t blogged about Obama’s silence and complicity — not to mention his active support of right-wing democrats over actual progressives — what the frak are you waiting for?

1. As is politics that have nothing to do with elections! (back)

We welcomed our twins into the world last Friday via C-section. Eli arrived weighing 7lbs. 3oz., at 8:16 AM. He was 19 inches long. His Nigerian name is Emeka. Mark arrived weighing 6lbs. 5oz., at 8:18 AM. He was 18 inches long. His Nigerian name is Akholisa.

We made a video of their arrival. They may have broken the recorded for the loudest birth. The doctors and nurses were all laughing as were Dad and I. They screamed like this for the entire time it took to repair my my incision–I’m guessing about 30 minutes.

From an article in The Boston Globe, by S. I. Rosenbaum:

SOMERVILLE - Here is Bonnie Denis: pierced and tattooed and dreadlocked, balancing on a pair of custom-painted, raspberry-pink crutches.

Here is Bonnie Denis’s right foot: small and calloused and square, the arch bent outward, toes overlapping each other like windblown trees.

When she walks, it feels “like there are a bunch of knives stabbing me,” she said.

So about three years ago, after a host of surgeries and years using a wheelchair, Denis, 30, made a decision.

The foot was coming off. She would find a doctor to amputate it.

But it was not that simple.

Doctor after doctor turned her away. The foot was “healthy,” they said. The tissue was alive; blood circulated through it. Amputation was not absolutely necessary.

Stories like this make me feel very libertarian. It’s her body, dammit! This — doctors who don’t seem to believe that people with disabilities may have some idea of what’s best for their own bodies — seems to me a pretty common theme in writing by and about disabled folks.

There’s more at the Globe. Bonnie Denis did eventually find a doctor who is willing to help her, you’ll be glad to hear. I also liked the bit about zombie bones.

Lots of folks have been linking to this Frank Rich column, and rightly so:

But as we know from our Groundhog Days of 2008, a fictional campaign narrative, once set in the concrete of Beltway bloviation, must be recited incessantly, especially on cable television, no matter what facts stand in the way. Only an earthquake — the Iowa results, for instance — could shatter such previously immutable story lines as the Clinton campaign’s invincibility and the innate hostility of white voters to a black candidate.

Our new bogus narrative rose from the ashes of Mrs. Clinton’s concession to Mr. Obama, amid the raucous debate over what role misogyny played in her defeat. A few female Clinton supporters — or so they identified themselves — appeared on YouTube and Fox News to say they were so infuriated by sexism that they would vote for Mr. McCain.

Now, there’s no question that men played a big role in Mrs. Clinton’s narrow loss, starting with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Mark Penn. And the evidence of misogyny in the press and elsewhere is irrefutable, even if it was not the determinative factor in the race. But the notion that all female Clinton supporters became “angry white women” once their candidate lost — to the hysterical extreme where even lifelong Democrats would desert their own party en masse — is itself a sexist stereotype. That’s why some of the same talking heads and Republican operatives who gleefully insulted Mrs. Clinton are now peddling this fable on such flimsy anecdotal evidence.

That said, lots of feminists — and not only those who supported Clinton in the race — remain pissed off about the level of misogyny Clinton faced during the race. And rightly so.

And many anti-racist feminists and womanists remain pissed off at how many (not all) Clinton-supporting feminists — and Clinton herself — minimized or denied racism during the primary race. And rightly so.

We shouldn’t say that we have to heal these divisions before the election. Because, you know, that’s not going to happen. These divisions are deeper and more enduring than a single election cycle, and will take more than six months to heal.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t elect Obama rather than McCain in the meanwhile, of course. But that’s the sideshow, not the main focus. Fighting racism and sexism is important for its own sake, not because there’s an election coming up.

(Disclosure: In case folks are wondering, I will quite likely be voting for Cynthia McKinney — although I’d vote for Obama if I lived in a swing state.)

P.S. Check out Michelle Obama Watch, if you haven’t already.