Andy’s whereIstand Blog

Dismantling racism is not an easy job - integration in the 60s was no doubt completely difficult - it’s not acceptable to undo the social and cultural work done since then by dividing young students along imagined lines that we should be working on dismantling:

In a move decried by some as state-sponsored segregation, the Legislature voted Thursday to divide the Omaha school system into three districts — one mostly black, one predominantly white and one largely Hispanic.

Supporters said the plan would give minorities control over their own school board and ensure that their children are not shortchanged in favor of white youngsters.

Republican Gov. Dave Heineman signed the measure into law.

Omaha Sen. Pat Bourne decried the bill, saying, "We will go down in history as one of the first states in 20 years to set race relations back."

"History will not, and should not, judge us kindly," said Sen. Gwen Howard of Omaha.

Attorney General Jon Bruning sent a letter to one of the measure’s opponents saying that the bill could be in violation of the Constitution’s equal-protection clause and that lawsuits almost certainly will be filed.

But its backers said that at the very least, its passage will force policymakers to negotiate seriously about the future of schools in the Omaha area.

The breakup would not occur until July 2008, leaving time for lawmakers to come up with another idea.

"There is no intent to create segregation," said Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, the Legislature’s only black senator and a longtime critic of the school system.

He argued that the district is already segregated, because it no longer buses students for integration and instead requires them to attend their neighborhood school.

Chambers said the schools attended largely by minorities lack the resources and quality teachers provided others in the district. He said the black students he represents in north Omaha would receive a better education if they had more control over their district.

If people separate themselves into neighborhoods by perceived differences or cultural differences attributed to "race," that’s one thing, but to have these tendencies codified in a school system and to have that school system recognize separation along these lines is wrong and dangerous. People don’t get to control their govt. because of race, race is not to be legitimated in that way - the Fourteenth Amendment says so.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Are race and class linked?

Of course it is, but so is everything. And that doesn’t mean it is any less real or powerful. Of course, to end racism, we have to socially de-construct it. PoMo it up bitches!

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Is race a social construct?

Okay. When the freaking Catholic-ass Irish are more accepting and progressive than America, we know something has to give, so says Andrew Sullivan:

Quote for the day

"Sexual orientation cannot, and must not, be the basis of a second-class citizenship," - Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, yesterday.

Ireland will soon legislate civil partnership rights for gay couples, the legal equivalent of marriage in the UK. What’s fascinating to me is how two of the most historically Catholic countries in Western Europe, Spain and Ireland, are now in the forefront of recognizing gay civil equality. Italy and France are, however, less evolved. Perhaps the link between Spain and Ireland is that both countries endured many decades of Church-State collusion, allowing the Church to enjoy astonishing civil powers. The sex abuse scandal helped the collapse of the Church hierarchy’s moral authority in both countries. But it’s politicization that wounded both Spanish and Irish churches in the long run. There’s a lesson there for America’s Christianists. There is a price for conflating religion and politics. Eventually, it will come back to haunt you.

The GOP has some ghosts coming its way.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• What legal rights to a relationship of consenting adults should be available for same-sex couples?

In an update to the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that stated same-sex couples from outside of Massachusetts could not have their relationship legitimated by the State, it appears this decision could affect other cases in other States:

Citing polling that suggests opposition to same-sex marriages is receding, gay rights advocates expressed confidence on Friday that such weddings would spread, despite a ruling by Massachusetts’ highest court that bars homosexuals from other states from marrying there.

Activists on both sides of the issue were awaiting a court ruling on whether Washington will follow Massachusetts and become the second U.S. state to legalize gay marriage, at least among residents.

"Washington state’s Supreme Court right now, any day, is going to deliver their ruling on marriage, so it’s something that we’ve been waiting for a while now to happen," said Brad Luna of gay rights group Human Rights Campaign.

After hearing arguments in March 2005, Washington state’s top court will decide whether to overturn two lower court rulings in favor of same-sex marriage. The case was brought by eight same-sex couples denied marriage licenses.

Legal challenges seeking permission for gays and lesbians to marry are pending in 10 states. New Jersey’s Supreme Court is expected to rule this year on a bid for gay marriage. Two cases are also winding through New York’s court system and could end up in the state’s highest court this year.

Massachusetts’s highest court ruled in 2003 that it was unconstitutional to ban gay marriage, paving the way for America’s first same-sex marriages in May the following year

.

I predict these cases will keep coming and perhaps while States like The Dakotas and Mississippi go against Roe V. Wade and Abortion, the right for same-sex unions to be approved of by the State and Federal governments of this country will continue as popular opinion changes and the citizenry comes around to the prospect of changing ideas of family.

This has been Andy D

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• What legal rights to a relationship of consenting adults should be available for same-sex couples?

X-Men since its first publication can be read as the plight of homosexuals in a society that fears them, wants them exterminated, wants them illegalized, and wants them cured. The third installment of the movie trilogy based on the popular comic series comes out in a couple months and it couldn’t be more timely.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled this week that while they are the first State to legalize Same-Sex Unions, people outside of the state cannot come there to have their union legitimated. This gets rid of the portability (between States) issue of marriage - only Massachusetts citizens can enjoy this privilege.

At the same time, Brokeback Mountain has been banned in the Bahamas:

A Bahamian government board’s decision to ban the movie "Brokeback Mountain" has prompted charges of discrimination and censorship in the island chain.

Gay rights groups and others have called on the Plays and Films Control Board to reverse its decision prohibiting theaters from showing the award-winning movie about a troubled love affair between two cowboys.

"You have a group of people who are telling grown men and women what they can and cannot watch," said Philip Burrows, a theater director in the island chain. "I cannot understand denying people the right to make their own choices."

Theaters in Nassau, the capital, had already begun to advertise the movie Friday when the board announced its ban at the request of the Bahamas Christian Council.

"The board chose to ban it because it shows extreme homosexuality, nudity and profanity, and we feel that it has no value for the Bahamian public," Chavasse Turnquest-Liriano, liaison officer for the control board, said Wednesday.

The Rainbow Alliance, a gay rights group, called the ban a "farce," and said most Bahamians reject the idea that a "small group of appointed individuals … can provide the moral compass for the entire country."

Hopefully X-Men-3 will keeps it’s metaphor obtuse enough for the Bahamas Christian Council. And Wolverine, Colossus, and Ice Man are hardly the Village People.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• What legal rights to a relationship of consenting adults should be available for same-sex couples?

JHWhicker has written this discussion off and as I understand it for good reason - first MisterE brought up Hitler, which I understand is annoying - that specific straw man, but then I followed suit a little bit by bringing up the KKK in a comment. Perhaps that should be retracted but it won’t and this is why:

As an anthropologist I cannot abide JHWhicker’s assumptions about marriage and culture and the other misconceptions he uses in his arguments for the existence of persuasive non-religious reasons to prohibit same-sex marriage. Culture is a process, not a thing - it is always changing - with every member who dies from within it and every person culturated into it. There is nothing to preserve or "join to". Even traditions and stories are changed with every person who hears and interprets them. This isn’t just PoMo reasoning, it is real meaning-building in action.

Being born into something isn’t the only way to become a part of it. Society’s interest regarding marriage isn’t only in reproduction. If it were, JHWhicker’s comments exchanged with Anakela would actually hold water. We do not, however, invalidate hetero marriages when one or both of the couple are on birth control, are sterile, or otherwise choose not to have children. Those marriages are still valid, independent of their potential to produce offspring.

The KKK goes to extreme lengths - and I never said JHWhicker would do the same. In fact I know nothing of JHWhicker except for what I read on this site, on this issue, so there is nothing to attack. But their extreme view of cultural conservatism - and that’s what it is, they feel they have something to conserve and do so violently - makes this point most salient. I know there is a difference between what the Klan does and continuing traditions, but holding and fostering these kinds of notions of a definitive culture are dangerous.

"I guess it isn’t a problem if you don’t care if US culture and society becomes dominantly Catholic and more resembles the culture of Mexico than the culture of the US.  Just open the boarders.  That isn’t preserving our society and Culture, that is letting another society and culture take over since we have declined to the point where we can’t support our own culture so those who immigrate have no reason to embrace US society and simply bring their own culture, society, nation with them"

Now this statement doesn’t say a single derrogatory [sic] thing either toward catholics or Mexicans.  It is the mere observation that if the US birthrate drops any lower it will no longer be able to sustain our population.  This will lead to a greater influx of people who will have no reasons to learn our history our custums [sic] etc.

Our culture, more than most others is a result of cultures co-existing and intermingling. There need not be a moral panic about reproducing whether human beings nor culture, both will survive just fine, and both survive exactly just by adapting, changing.

In response to monogamy in marriage JHWhicker says:

Is that what this is about "channeling their monogamy". Is that the point of Marriage? I think that I would be just as faithful to my wife if the state didn’t give us tax breaks and a piece of paper "authorizing" our union. People are going to be monogamous or they aren’t state liscenses [sic] won’t change that anymore than it has prevented adultery among married people. Are couples who are truly devoted to each other really going to break up just because there isn’t a legal document binding them together?

I don’t think so. This is about a demand for government approval. No one has a right to that. Giving it will not lead to any greater level of monogamy among homosexuals. Denying it will not in any way limit their rights.

Actually I’d say that’s exactly what this is about - monogamy. Yes it’s also about government approval. Denying legitimation from the government while giving ti to others actually will limit their rights - their 14th amendment rights of equal protection.

Marriage isn’t about conserving families even - the institution of marriage is recognized by law but  is not defined by law. Adultery is not criminal. Divorce happens all the time. Plenty of hetero couples abuse their children and their spouses, and yet marriage is still recognized.

And this both is and is not about tax breaks and insurance. People should be equally protected - if one class of people are eligible for tax breaks, then all classes of people should be eligible. If one group can operate under a definition of a recognized institution, then others should have a say - and of course it should be through legislation. Whether it need be at the State level, well of that I’m not convinced.

Now when JHWhicker speaks of the culture he wishes to preserve - that "of the founders" -

I don’t have anything whatsoever against Mexicans or Catholics, but I do believe that the culture that arose from the founder fathers of this nation, the culture tkat[sic] developed from the melting pot of all the cultures that have joined together here, the culture of freedom, equality, and justice, that is unique in all the world is worth preserving. Part of that culture is influenced by Mexican culture, but that is no reason why it should be replaced by it…The only issue I addressed was that our low birth rate is endangering American cultural heritege. Something I think is worth preserving…The Mexican culture and society might be great but it has no relationship to the culture that brought us the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The culture of freedom was founded on slavery, several waves of immigration, depression, and severe injustice in fact. This doesn’t mean that American culture is not great - it is - it’s my culture, but it is also not done developing and never will be. To forget the injustices of the past, including those committed by the founders is as bad as stopping citizens today from innovating be it through immigration or redefining marriage. Traditions are dead things because true culture never stops changing. I don’t know if this is "Universal Truth" but it’s the closest I get to it.

Marriage until very recently was an arranged contract between families to pool their resources complete with dowries etc. - this is the origin of the incest taboo - an incestuous union being a waste of a contract opportunity, except in royal families where the reasoning was the opposite - to keep resources in the family.

To treat culture as anything other than an on-going process is fallacy, and to treat marriage as always existing in it’s current consensual state is revisionist.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• nick
• Anakela
• esperanto
• JHWhicker
• Are there persuasive non-religious reasons to prohibit same-sex marriage?
• [open thread]

I’ve been away in Texas for a couple weeks drinking free beer and listening to music, so I missed a whole bunch of tiffs between Adam, Nick, and JHWhicker about God, religion, and where both play in our public debates, including this one (which I authored).

So JHWhicker has checked Yes on this topic, but I haven’t yet distilled what a persuasive non-religious reason for prohibiting same-sex marriages. he has a few points I agree with:

First, Marriage is not a right, and I don’t see how it could be conceived as a right.  Being able to live together and engage in a relationship with whomever or whatever you wish could be called a right, but marriage is not a right.

This is true - maybe it could be construed under the "Pursuit of Happiness" umbrella, but marriage is certainly not a right - it is not defined in the Constitution nor anywhere else with legal legitimacy:

I could argue that the government really has no business being involved with marriage anyway,

Exactly! I second that. Marriage is wholly religious and has seeped into secular credibility as a way of living - I place it somewhere under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.. But though it is secularly condoned, this doesn’t mean that it is the only way of living in a "free"-ish country.

but I need those tax breaks,  divorce would be a whole lot messier and damaging to society if the courts didn’t govern them, and marriage unlike other unions benifits [sic] society.

Yes and foreign peoples need our citizenship - I always thought that if I would ever get married it would be to give someone citizenship - just to mess with that particular system. There are other dubiously righteous tax breaks you could take.

Homosexual unions are just as good as marriage as far as promoting good societal values…  Maybe.  Forego all the arguments and statistics about whether a good homosexual union is better than a dysfunctional marriage etc.  what it comes down to is that homosexual unions are barren.  The future of our society depends on the production and raising of the next generation.  Recognizing that the government offers incentives for people to contribute to the survival of the country in the future.

Okay. Population is the last of our problems. Actually, globally, it is foremost of our problems. There are six billion people on this planet. If you want to ensure that enough people remain in this particular corner of it, how about puling a Hillary Clinton and doing something to open the borders to some more, different people. We don’t disallow sterile people from getting married - fertility is not a condition for marriage. In fact I’d say these "barren" couples do more for unburdening the foster care and adoption systems of the world - this is more helpful to the world than making new babies. Anakela covered this. It is for the very reason that the nuclear/traditional ideal of the heterosexual monogamous family is so tentative that we should embrace alternatives that might be better for their difference - they aren’t nearly as stable as JHWhicker makes them out to be. Sure these unions exist for good reasons, and one of those reasons happens to be that traditionally women were traded for dowries as a contract between families. Another reason is also that it makes some people happy. Marriage no longer functions to unite families and pool their resources, but rather to facilitate that "pursuit of happiness business.’"

As to allowing legal same-sex unions not defined as marriage.  What is being sought is not equality, or a right, but social and governmental approval.  No one has a right to approval.  They have a right to do as they please as long as it doesn’t violate someone else’s life, but they don’t have a right to demand that society approve of their lifestyle.

Marriage has received approval because of its essential function in the continuation of our society.  Same-sex unions do not serve this function.

This value again puts me in alignment with cultural conservative ideology.  It is about conserving marriage and family not about denying rights, or discriminating against anyone.  I will stand up for a homosexual who has been discriminated against.  I will argue for their rights.  I will argue against ridiculous sodomy laws.  I will oppose any attempt to change the institution of marriage or to force me or the government that represents me to approve of something I think is morally wrong.

Marriage persists because it’s function and definitions have changed - from being the aforementioned arranged contracts between families and a trade in women to being consensual unions. Why hinder this change in definition - it’s worked thus far. "Conserving marriage" makes no sense - marriage isn’t going anywhere, there isn’t a hole in the bucket. Letting people redefine their familial arrangements - which they will do anyway - just as they redefine everything else, even the meaning of words.

Moral Panic!

I think we’ll all survive, marriage included.

The problem is that dictionaries, like the Bible are just books (literally, Bible translates as book) - and they can be changed, rewritten. In fact both have been several times over the centuries (See the Council of Nicea).

That said, JHWhicker uses a convenient amalgam (not contradiction necessarily) of science and religion to define marriage right in the same post: he defines men and women as the "presence of the Y chromosome," and then defines marriage against notions of sin. Ideas of gender existed long before knowledge of chromosomes and their related difference. This is actually very American of JHWhicker - I do it too, but with social ethics instead of religion.

Definitions are political. It’s true, even the Dictionary is political. They are not hard-and-fast truths.

In fact, truth is not quantifiable nor conservable as JHWhicker asserts:

Religions aren’t social clubs that need to appeal to "modern relevancy"; they are Religions that maintain Doctinely [sic] sound claims to an understanding of the truth of the universe.  Any religion that changes its doctrine to match public opinion or secular ideologies entirely loses all credibility.

They have been claiming that the Torah is the word of God for thousands of years.  The Torah very explicitly condemns homosexuality.  If they now change their doctrine to be permissive of homosexuality and even allow homosexuals to occupy positions of authority they have made a joke of their faith.  The Torah becomes invalid and their faith is meaningless.

Truth never changes.  If any religion has found truth then that Religion will never change its Doctrines no matter what public opinion happens to believe at any given moment.  No religion that claims that the bible, or the torah, or the koran are true can make allowances for homosexuality and remain credible as a religion.

In the March 2006 Issue of Arthur Magazine, Douglas Rushkoff has an awesome reading of religions and their place in our world in his Column "Godless:"

Okay, so let’s get into this god game. I think it’s time to get serious about the role God plays in human affairs, and evaluate whether it is appropriate to let in on the bad news: God doesn’t exist, never did, and the closest thing we’ll ever see to God will emerge from our own collective efforts at making meaning.

Yes! Existentialism is true, in that we make our own truth. Religions only gain their truth by how many people they convince of their truth.

As I’ve always understood them, the stories of the Bible are less significant because they happened at some moment in history than because their underlying dynamics seem to be happening in all moments. We are all Cain, struggling with our feelings about a sibling who seems to be more blessed than we are. We are always escaping the enslaved mentality of Egypt and the idolatry we practiced there. We are all Mordechai, bristling against the pressure to bow in subservience to our bosses.

I buy this, not just because I’m an atheist, but because it makes sense. There is truth in fictions, probably more so than in histories. Even if nothing described in Catcher in the Rye or The Bell Jar or The Sun Also Rises is real, never even really happened, the characters never even existed, doesn’t mean they don’t "have truth" - truth about the human condition. The Bible’s stories are the same thing - they get their truth from the same place, not from their historical legitimacy. Most of the stories Jesus told are called Parables - a method of story telling to illustrate a point, not teach history. Jesus could be called a liar for his lack of evidence about the Prodigal Son’s actual existence, but the point was that story has truth because we are all the Prodigal Son and his brother struggling with envy, injustice, and responsibility.

This is how the religious ruin the Bible - by reading it literally instead of literarily and making a religion out of it. Staking claims on the Bible and its truth is as absurd as trying to own marriage and it’s definition. There are myriad Christian religions each with their own stake in this truth.

This is why I stand on the No position in this issue - I can’t even discuss it without religion.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• JHWhicker
• Anakela
• Are there persuasive non-religious reasons to prohibit same-sex marriage?

It turns out there are persuasive religious reasons to not prohibit same-sex marriage. A Conservative Jewish group is deciding whether or not to change their views and practices and traditions to allow gay rabbis to be ordained and to sanctify same-sex unions:

In 1992, this same group, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, declared that Jewish law clearly prohibited commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples and the admission of openly gay people to rabbinical or cantorial schools. The vote was 19 to 3, with one abstention.

Since then, Conservative Jewish leaders say, they have watched as relatives, congregation members and even fellow rabbis publicly revealed their homosexuality. Students at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the movement’s flagship, began wearing buttons saying "Ordination Regardless of Orientation." Rabbis performed same-sex commitment ceremonies despite the ban.

The direction taken by Conservative Jews, who occupy the centrist position in Judaism between the more liberal Reform and the more strict Orthodox, will be closely watched at a time when many Christian denominations are torn over the same issue. Conservative Judaism claims to distinguish itself by adhering to Jewish law and tradition, or halacha, while bending to accommodate modern conditions.  

"There are those who are saying, don’t change the halacha because the paradigm model of the heterosexual family has to be maintained," said Rabbi Meyers, a stance he said he shared. "On the other hand is a group within the movement who say, look, we will lose thoughtful younger people if we don’t make this change, and the movement will look stodgy and behind the times."

 
Yes! That is exactly what many religions are - behind the times, atavistic and fearful of change and pollution of un-orthodoxy - and loss of control. Un-like many other religions - mostly Islam and Christian ones facing the same issues - I applaud the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards for even fielding the issue for discourse, multiple times. If only there could be more striving for modern relevancy.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Are there persuasive non-religious reasons to prohibit same-sex marriage?

Okay so this story is from the UK, but our notions of sexuality coincide sometimes across the pond. Now I understand the symbolism of virginity is powerful, but some things are just out there:

Mrs Yarborough paid $5,000 (£2,860) to a cosmetic surgeon to stitch her hymen back together so she could “lose her virginity” all over again and her husband would have that thrilling conquest at the grand age of 40.

He did, and after that very expensive moment the ecstatic couple spent a passionate Valentine’s weekend last year having the kind of sex that they had almost forgotten about. Now they are busy telling family, friends and strangers that it is the best money they ever spent and everyone should do it.

“Now my sister is thinking of becoming a virgin again for her 45th birthday to surprise her husband,” says Mrs Yarborough gleefully, as she sits in her modest family home in San Antonio, Texas, talking unabashedly about such intimate matters.

Women have resorted to backstreet hymen repair for centuries in religions and cultures in which marrying as a virgin is sacred and losing your “maidenhead” before matrimony can mean shame, or even being put to death.

Great so right after the backstreet abortion, a lady would get one a backstreet hymen repair surgery, to save her life. So if this sort of symbolic re-taking/re-giving of virginity is consensual and all, then there really is no problem, I just think it both telling and odd that such a notion would pop into people’s minds. Like let’s relive this pain and guilt from causing pain and undoing this unnecessary surgery we just had done for an anniversary gift? I mean I guess couples will go to crazy lengths to spice up a dying love life, but this far? I mean if he wanted to make her bleed, fly his sadistic freak flag, there are other ways not requiring a doctor before hand.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• [open thread]

Sexuality is all over the Drudge Report today. I saw this episode of Oprah - I mean, my girlfriend made me watch it, yeah… damn - and found it quite, um, enlightening:

Hold on to your condoms!

Oprah interviewed a woman on Thursday who had engaged in sex with more than 90 men during her life and who was keeping an ongoing list and a video diary about these encounters!

Not to be confused with Howard Stern, Oprah asked: "So you’ve had men ejaculate in your face?"

MORE

The February Sweeps sex special from the nation’s top talkshow host, titled "Guests discuss their sex addictions," raised eyebrows with industry watchers.

"You’ve had, you know, men ejaculating in your face who you don’t even know who they are," asked daytime Winfrey.

WINFREY: OK. So tell me, what’s going on when you’re actually having the sex?…Coming up, Jennifer just admitted that she’s had sex with almost 90 men.

Then you got the military gay sex website story:

The Army has recommended that seven 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers be discharged following allegations they engaged in sex acts shown on a gay pornographic Web site.

Three soldiers face courts-martial on charges of sodomy, pandering and engaging in sex acts for money. Four others received nonjudicial punishments, according to a statement released by the military Friday.

The charges do not mention the name of the site, but the division had previously been investigating allegations that soldiers appeared on a gay pornography Web site. A spokesman for the division said the charges were a result of that investigation.

The charges indicate the soldiers’ behavior is "a much more serious matter than just their sexual orientation," said Steve Ralls, a spokesman for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a legal group that helps gays and lesbians in the military.

"I’m not going to make excuses for service members who are taking part in sexual conduct for money," said Ralls. "It would be absolutely criminal regardless of whether they were heterosexual or gay."

That’s a lot of sex happening on front pages and daytime talk shows in one week. Begin moral panic…. now!

This has been Andy D.

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• [open thread]