Marriage equality for everyone

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage.

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito dissented. Scalia is getting ready to explode: he called the decision a “judicial putsch”. Roberts thinks “the Court removes it from the realm of democratic decision”, because apparently we’re supposed to vote on who gets civil rights.

Now get ready for the fireworks. I’m not turning on Fox News, that’s for sure.

Which is worse: gay or southern?

SouthernEnglishMap

I had an uncle once who doted on his nephews and nieces. He was a hard-drinking, ex-Army MP, ex-Merchant Marine veteran with a lazy approach to life. He’d take us kids out on weekends to buy comic books, and then fall asleep on the couch while we stayed up late rotting our brains with said comic books and late night creature features. He was also a confirmed bachelor almost his entire life. I had a teacher in junior high who was the same age he was, was always asking about him, and as it turned out, had once asked him to marry her, and he turned her down.

Was he gay? I don’t know, and don’t really care. He was my uncle, and his sex life was none of my business (and he didn’t make it mine). I do know that late in life he settled down with a woman and seemed to be happy. Even that isn’t contraindicative, because human lives and relationships are complicated.

I mention this because the press coverage of Lindsey Graham drives me nuts. Once again, here’s another piece speculating on whether he’s gay, and also implying that liberals are mocking him for being gay.

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Katha Pollitt makes a good case

Hillary Rodham Clinton Signs Copies Of Her Book 'Hard Choices' In New York

I am not keen on Hilary Clinton, and Pollitt recognizes that in her peers.

My women college classmates (Radcliffe ‘71) aren’t so excited about Hillary Clinton. An e-mail to our New York City potluck group elicited distinctly modified rapture. They’re bothered by her high-priced speeches and the aura of favor-trading and favor-banking around the Clinton Foundation. They don’t like her Wall Street connections, and they don’t like Bill (a k a the “ick” factor). Plus, she’s not progressive enough. “It’s all so old and tired,” wrote one; “she’s been running forever.” “I’m definitely excited about the prospect of a woman,” another chimed in. “I am weary, not excited, about her in particular, and find it sad that she’s our best hope.” I should mention that these women are demographically much like Hillary (Wellesley ‘69) herself: prosperous, white, highly educated, sixtysomething feminists and professional women. You would think these women, of all people, would be jumping for joy at the prospect of someone so like themselves winning the White House.

Some of us guys, like me (University of Washington, 1979) feel the same way about Clinton. That’s a really good summary of why I’m unenthused.

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Did you have to remind me?

smugdork

I am reminded that Scalia wrote the dissent in Edwards v. Aguillard. I have been trying to forget.

The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger…. The evidence for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a scientific “fact,” since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory. Rather, evolution is merely a scientific theory or “guess.”… It is a very bad guess at that. The scientific problems with evolution are so serious that it could accurately be termed a “myth.”…

Shocking, isn’t it? Who would have thought a Supreme Court justice could be such a pompous ignoramus?

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I’m a liberal professor, and I’m not afraid of students who question me

badprofessor

Edward Schlosser says, “I’m a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me”. Strangely, he doesn’t give any evidence that he’s at all liberal, and the one personal incident he cites involves a conservative student.

The next week, I got called into my director’s office. I was shown an email, sender name redacted, alleging that I “possessed communistical [sic] sympathies and refused to tell more than one side of the story.” The story in question wasn’t described, but I suspect it had do to with whether or not the economic collapse was caused by poor black people.

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