Grim Amusements

supreme court declares strip search in school illegal

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:44:20 -0600

Every once in a while, this Court surprises.

Court says strip search of child illegal

By JESSE J. HOLLAND
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 25, 2009 10:47 AM

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal. The court ruled 8-1 on Thursday that school officials violated the law with their search of Savana Redding in the rural eastern Arizona town of Safford.

Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills - the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."

But the court ruled the officials cannot be held liable in a lawsuit for the search. Different judges around the nation have come to different conclusions about immunity for school officials in strip searches, which leads the Supreme Court to "counsel doubt that we were sufficiently clear in the prior statement of law," Souter said. "We think these differences of opinion from our own are substantial enough to require immunity for the school officials in this case," Souter said. The justices also said the lower courts would have to determine whether the Safford United School District No. 1 could be held liable.

A schoolmate had accused Redding, then an eighth-grade student, of giving her pills. The school's vice principal, Kerry Wilson, took Redding to his office to search her backpack. When nothing was found, Redding was taken to a nurse's office where she says she was ordered to take off her shirt and pants. Redding said they then told her to move her bra to the side and to stretch her underwear waistband, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found.

A federal magistrate dismissed a suit by Redding and her mother, April. An appeals panel agreed that the search didn't violate her rights. But last July, a full panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the search was "an invasion of constitutional rights" and that Wilson could be found personally liable.

Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the portion of the ruling saying that Wilson could not be held financially liable. "Wilson's treatment of Redding was abusive and it was not reasonable for him to believe that the law permitted it," Ginsburg said.

The case is Safford Unified School District v. April Redding, 08-479.

According to just about every court watcher out there -- and, to some extent, even Justice Ginsburg, in a recent interview -- the Court seemed ready to rule that the search itself was lawful and reasonable. That it not only came down on the other side, but did so quite emphatically is almost shocking.

That Thomas dissents from this decision is, somehow, no surprise. That he does so alone, without company from Scalia or Roberts, is startling. The two of them have ever given the state a great deal of leeway in such matters. One wonders what persuaded them otherwise in this case.

love and anger

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:23:43 -0600

Editorial - A Bad Call on Gay Rights - NYTimes.com

The Obama administration, which came to office promising to protect gay rights but so far has not done much, actually struck a blow for the other side last week. It submitted a disturbing brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which is the law that protects the right of states to not recognize same-sex marriages and denies same-sex married couples federal benefits. The administration needs a new direction on gay rights.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Obama's Marriage Defense Shouldn't Surprise or Anger Anyone

"I will tell you that I don't believe in gay marriage."

"I believe in civil unions but it should not be called marriage."

Then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said that during a campaign stop in Nelsonville, Ohio a day before the Super II Tuesday primary in March 2008. The great puzzle then is why so many are so hot at President Obama for backing the Defense of Marriage Act. He has not backed a step away from his Ohio campaign stump words.

His unshakeable personal, political and legal belief is that the only marriage that can be called marriage is between a man and a woman. This has absolutely nothing to do with his solid, and at times outspoken, tout of anti-discrimination, civility, and just plain human respect for gay rights. He has backed that in speeches and legislation 18 times before he grabbed the White House.

This still doesn't change his firm belief that marriage is marriage only when it's between a man and a woman. Gay groups, the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and some congresspersons, can scream at him to withdraw the Justice Department's brief filed seeking the dismissal of the legal challenge to the DOMA in a federal court in California. They can bash him as a flip flop and a betrayer of his campaign promises on gay rights. This still ignores the bitter truth that candidate Obama and now president Obama has been the paragon of consistency, even honesty, in opposing same sex marriage. This has nothing to do with politics, but his personal belief layered over with a tinge of religious interpretation, since he's cited conflicted passages from the Bible, to square his support of gay rights with his opposition to legalizing same sex marriage.....

Disappointed? Well, yes, of course. Surprised? Not so much at the defense -- though, really, when a candidate promises one thing, then does completely the opposite, why wouldn't you be entitled to be at least a little surprised? Anger? Well, of course. Not so much at the fact of the defense, which would have been bad enough, but at the method and the language. If you are not entitled to be angry when someone goes above and beyond what would be required, and deliberately and knowingly causes you difficulty and pain, when are you allowed to be angry?

And for the record, the administration's contention that it's required to defend all valid federal laws is a flat out lie. States and the federal government have declined to defend laws that they thought should be overturned in the past -- witness California declining to defend Proposition 8. It's infrequent, true, and it's quite likely that the administration wouldn't have gotten away with it if they'd tried to back away from defending the law; the federal courts frequently direct the government to make a defense in such situations. But let's take the administration at it's word; perhaps all of these lawyers, educated in the niceties of federal law and very well practiced in same, somehow forgot everything else they knew and somehow thought that they were in fact obliged to defend the law. If the administration truly felt that the law should fall, they could then have offered a very minimal defense. Instead, they dragged out many long discredited arguments and vile calumnies to make its case.

It is possible -- perhaps even probable -- that those arguments were dragged out, in the Ninth Circuit in particular, precisely because they were such dreadful arguments for the law. The Ninth being what it is, while the law is likely to be upheld in Orange County (it being what IT is), DOMA's likely to be struck down at the Court of Appeals level, and they will not be kind to those arguments. Unfortunately, the Ninth being what it is, and having a perfectly dismal record of having its decisions sustained at the Supreme Court level, The Court will almost certainly reverse the decision to strike and uphold the law -- it being what IT is. (Kennedy's Lawrence majority aside, it strikes me that it would be difficult to cobble together a 5-4 majority to strike DOMA from this or a near-future court; even if Sotomayor votes to strike the law, she only replaces Souter's vote in Lawrence. Given that he performed some logical conniptions to make Lawrence not apply to marriage laws, I don't think Kennedy himself would be in a majority to strike DOMA. [Though, given his alleged respect for stare decisis, it would theoretically be possible to get a fulminating and acid support from Scalia, which would be vastly entertaining. He might be just crotchety enough to force the others to live with the logical consequences of Lawrence. Kind of doubt it, though.] But I digress.) This administration is, if nothing else, extraordinarily tactical in its methods. (Sometimes I think it's nothing but tactics, without actual substance or plans for follow-through. But I digress.) If it can get the courts to do its dirty business for it, why not? If the courts strike DOMA down, then the administration will have to expend no political capital in getting Congress to repeal the law. (Getting Congress not to turn around and pass another version of the law almost immediately, however, will be another thing entirely. Between the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats, it would pass rather easily, and then Mr President would need to make the theoretically easy decision not to sign the new law. It would not, I suspect, pass with a veto-proof majority. The question is, if that all happens before the next election, would candidate Obama be willing to rouse up the conservatives on that issue by not signing? I suspect he would not, especially since, as Hutchinson notes, in somewhat different language, Obama does not really believe that gays and lesbians are humans entitled to the same rights and privileges that he himself entertains.)

In any event, it appears that the decision to defend DOMA is having an interesting effect. A DNC fundraiser may be running into some problems, with a few of its headliners already pulling out. It will be interesting to see how much the administration's tactics, if such they be, cost it and others in the party.

"new hampshire says yea"

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:29:59 -0600

UnionLeader.com - New Hampshire news, business and sports - Same-sex marriage becomes law in NH - Wednesday, Jun. 3, 2009

By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief

Concord – Gay marriage legislation became law in New Hampshire this afternoon. Gov. John Lynch signed the bills just after 5:20 p.m. before dozens of enthusiastic supporters of same-sex marriage. New Hampshire's law takes effect Jan. 1.

HB 73, compromise legislation demanded by the governor, was passed by a vote of 14-10 in the Senate and 198-176 in the House today. HB 73 (text), was an add-on to the gay marriage bill itself, HB 436 (text), and to HB 310 (text), which made technical changes to the main bill. HB 73 clarifies the rights of religious organizations and their employees to refuse to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies or celebrations. It states that religious groups have exclusive control over doctrine, teaching and beliefs on who can marry within theirfaiths....

And now Rhode Island stands alone in New England, the only state in the region not allowing same-sex marriage.

That said, that's probably it for a while. New York seems profoundly conflicted about what to do -- or, to be more precise, one of its chambers is devoutly and most sincerely avoiding a vote on the issue -- and it's not really on the radar for any other states at the current time. Even if it were, it's hard to imagine a place where it could be expected to pass right now. Despite Nevada's legislature approving a domestic partnership law over its governor's veto, the rest of the West offers a most forbidding and more or less Republican landscape. (Granted, an unusually populist Republican landscape, on the whole.) The Midwest, Iowa aside, doesn't seem terribly inclined to consider the issue; Illinois has a domestic partnership law stalled in committee, and I don't think Minnesota or Wisconsin has anything coming up, and I can't quite imagine that it would pass in either state anyway. And the South ... well. Yes. Quite. Anyway, there doesn't seem to be anything on the immediate horizon.

Though, I have to say, even if nothing else happens in the next year or so ... it's been quite the six months, hasn't it?

california says nay ... again

Tue, 26 May 2009 13:18:28 -0600

To the surprise of practically nobody.

Court upholds Prop. 8 but lets marriages stand (sfgate.com)

California voters legally outlawed same-sex marriage when they approved Proposition 8 in November, but the constitutional amendment did not dissolve the unions of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before the measure took effect, the state Supreme Court ruled today. The 6-1 decision was issued by the same court that declared a year ago that a state law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman violated the right to choose one's spouse and discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation.

Prop. 8 undid that ruling. The author of last year's 4-3 decision, Chief Justice Ronald George, said today that the voters were within their rights to approve a constitutional amendment redefining marriage to include only male-female couples. Justice Carlos Moreno, in a lone dissent, said a majority should not be allowed to deprive a minority of fundamental rights by passing an initiative.

The justices ruled unanimously that Prop. 8 was not retroactive and that gay and lesbian couples who relied on the court's May 2008 ruling to get married before the Nov. 4 election will remain legally wed.

Prop. 8, which declared that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California, passed with a 52 percent majority after an intense and expensive campaign. Sponsors, mainly affiliated with Christian conservative groups, raised nearly $40 million for the measure and opponents more than $45 million - combined, a record for a ballot measure on a social issue anywhere in the nation.

The ruling, the court's third major decision on same-sex marriage in five years, may be the last word from the state's legal system on the issue. But the matter is far from settled in the political arena. Gay-rights advocates, anticipating the decision, have discussed putting another constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2010 or 2012 to try to repeal Prop. 8....

Mind, it was mildly surprising that the court was that strongly against declaring the proposition to be in fact a revision. One would have thought that it would be closer than that, somehow.

And people are planning already to try to take it back to the ballot box in 2010 or 2012. One does wonder what they expect to be different, or what they plan to do to produce a different outcome. And one wonders if the leaders of the various groups have any plans for preventing the spectacularly ugly racial divide that erupted after the proposition revoked the right to marry the first time. What will they do, if and/or when, a majority of the voters of California say, "No, really, we meant it. WE DON'T LIKE YOU. WE DO NOT THINK YOU ARE OUR EQUALS. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO EQUAL RIGHTS."

What will they do?

And I wonder what will hit the ballot box first: an amendment to repeal Proposition 8, an amendment/proposition to strip recognition from existing gay marriages (and there will be one) ... and wouldn't it be just glorious if those appeared on the same ballot? California would have the chance to be really emphatic about just how much it doesn't like its gay citizens.

the admimistration vs the public interest

Fri, 15 May 2009 10:29:56 -0600

Obama Reverses Pledge to Release Photos of Detainee Abuse (washingtonpost.com)

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 14, 2009

A month after making public once-classified Justice Department memos detailing the Bush administration's coercive methods of interrogation, President Obama yesterday chose secrecy over disclosure, saying he will seek to block the court-ordered release of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees held by U.S. authorities abroad. Obama agreed less than three weeks ago not to oppose the photos' release, but he changed his mind after viewing some of the images and hearing warnings from his generals in Iraq and in Afghanistan that such a move would endanger U.S. troops deployed there.

"The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals," Obama said yesterday. "In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger."

Civil liberties and human rights advocates said the reversal would serve to maintain the Bush administration's legacy of secrecy. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Obama's shift was "deeply disappointing." "Even given that the photos will undoubtedly generate outrage in the region, the best way to dampen that outrage is to hold those responsible accountable," Roth said.

The photos were assembled as part of about 200 criminal investigations conducted before and after the disclosure in 2004 of widespread prisoner abuse by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib, the former Iraqi prison that the U.S. military turned into a detention and intelligence-gathering center. Previously released pictures taken at Abu Ghraib -- depicting Iraqis stacked naked in piles and pyramids, tormented by dogs, chained to beds and placed in other painful or humiliating positions -- enraged many in the Middle East and became symbols of the deeply unpopular U.S. invasion and military occupation of Iraq. But no commanding officers or Defense Department officials were jailed or fired in connection with the abuse, which the Bush administration dismissed as the misbehavior of low-ranking soldiers.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request in October 2003 for all photographs pertaining to U.S. military detention operations. It filed a lawsuit the following year after that request was denied. Last September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ordered the photographs released. The Bush administration challenged the ruling, but the court denied that petition in March.

Amrit Singh, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case, said the court ordered the release of 21 photos taken in Afghanistan and in Iraq outside of Abu Ghraib. She said 23 other photos taken in undetermined locations are part of the lawsuit. Civil liberties advocates say that as many as 2,000 other photos could be subject to release. "There's a substantial number of photographs about which we know nothing," Singh said. "All we know is that some of them depict prisoner abuse."

In an April 23 letter to Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Obama administration stated that "the parties have reached an agreement that the Defense Department will produce all the responsive images by May 28, 2009." Press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that Obama had not viewed the photos at that time. Last week, Obama gathered White House lawyers and informed them that he did not "feel comfortable" releasing the photos because doing so could provoke a backlash against U.S. troops, administration officials said....

You know ... in general, I like our current president. And, if nothing else, I somewhat prefer him to the excesses of the previous administration.

But I am strongly beginning to wish he'd just think before he commits to something, and decide beforehand if he's truly willing to follow through. Any person with a quarter of a functioning brain cell could have told him that these photos would get people angry about the abuse all over again. I'm sure that several people actually did. No doubt there was something in the new set of images that shocked or startled him enough to make him change course. But of course, he can't say that, because that would be a public admission that there's more there there, so to speak.

But one congressional staff member, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the photos, said the pictures are more graphic than those that have been made public from Abu Ghraib. "When they are released, there will be a major outcry for an investigation by a commission or some other vehicle," the staff member said.

And that, I suspect, is the key behind this recent reversal. He has been desperately fighting to avoid any sort of investigation, for whatever reason. He doesn't want his agenda to be sidetracked by high-visibility investigations, and he's got a lot more immediate issues to contend with. He doesn't want to expend any of a steadily and rapidly declining pool of political capital to deal with the situation. Moreover, investigating abusive interrogations will expose in a more thorough way the CIA's rendition network and its affiliated semi-secret and secret prisons. It will throw the heretofore strangely ignored prison at Bagram and its alleged abuses into sharp relief. The potential for all of this to mushroom into a massive investigation of not only the CIA but also of the armed services responsible for guarding these prisoners is not inconsiderable.

That said, the desire of our highest elected official to avoid investigating known and suspected wrongdoing is unseemly. It is, in and of itself, wrong.

Tribunals to Return, Detainees to Have More Rights (washingtonpost.com)

By Carrie Johnson and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 15, 2009 10:28 AM

President Obama is expected to announce today that he intends to keep military commissions to try some detainees at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but with greater legal protections for defendants, an administration official said last night. The administration will also seek a second suspension of legal proceedings at Guantanamo so it can refine the system, the official said. Obama had received a 120-day suspension from military judges in January.

Obama's announcement will come a day after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. assured Republican lawmakers that the Justice Department would not release any detainees whom he considered dangerous onto U.S. soil. Holder, appearing at his first oversight hearing since taking office three months ago, told members of the House Judiciary Committee that no final determinations had been made about how to handle 241 men being held at Guantanamo Bay. "We're not going to do anything, anything that would put the American people at risk -- nothing," Holder said.

The fate of the detainees has become a topic of intensifying interest as the Obama administration's self-imposed deadline for closing the prison draws nearer. Officials have until January to shutter the facility, but federal judges hearing legal petitions from the men are growing weary of waiting for their release....

This, however, is a more unforgiveable reversal of position. After having argued and campaigned on the issue that our criminal justice system is adequate to this issue, having managed it several times previously, Obama now decides that military tribunals are sufficient to the cause, thereby guaranteeing yet another round or ten of court battles as the prisoners argue, again, that they are not. And, in all likelihood, not only will courts agree with them, but they will be rather short with an administration that is defying decisions on this very issue handed down to its predecessor. As far as I can tell, this is a consequence of his having promised to close Guantanamo, only to realize that the only available choice with the current prisoners is to release them into the US -- and Congress is having snit fits about that, despite there being, as far as we know, fairly little reliable evidence that most of these people did anything aside from being in the wrong place at the right time. (Of course we don't know anything; neither the Bush administration nor this one has any intention of letting us know anything about these people.)

I can appreciate that this administration has had a more fraught transition than most. Two wars and a worldwide economic collapse would tax anyone. But at some point, they need to decide whether or not they really want to be known as the Democrat version of the Bush administration on these and other issues. Because if they do, we might as well have picked McCain.

maine says yea

Wed, 06 May 2009 16:14:35 -0600

Yes, yes, I know, Maine wasn't around as such during the roll call, but work with me here.

The Times Record News: BREAKING NEWS: Baldacci signs same-sex marriage bill

Gov. John Baldacci struck a new posture today when he signed into law a bill that will allow same-sex marriage in Maine.

Shortly after the Senate took the Legislature's final vote on the issue, Baldacci gathered reporters in his office to sign LD 1020, "An Act to End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom," which was sponsored by Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, and co-sponsored by more than 60 other lawmakers.

"In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions," said Baldacci in a prepared statement. "I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage. I believe that signing this legislation is the right thing to do."

Baldacci said he viewed enactment of the bill as adhering to the intent of the Maine Constitution. "This new law does not force any religion to recognize a marriage that falls outside of its beliefs," said Baldacci. "It does not require the church to perform any ceremony with which it disagrees. Instead, it reaffirms the separation of church and state." [...]

Strange how the wedge to make this work in these states has been explicitly dividing civil marriage from religious marriage ... which, you know, has been the case in this country all along. It's just that when the civil marriage certificate can be signed during the religious ceremony, things get a mite ... confused.

...The House echoed the Senate's desire to keep the decision in the State House by voting 85-62 against sending the question to a statewide referendum. Opponents of same-sex marriage have vowed to overturn the bill with a citizen's veto, which requires the gathering of 55,087 signatures of Maine voters. The question would then be put to voters in a statewide referendum.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens with this. Understand that the only issue is whether or not it makes it to the ballot at all. I remain firmly convinced that, New England exceptionalism aside, any time this gets put to a vote of the whole, voters will decide that marriage as such should be of the straights, for the straights, by the straights. For all the lip service this country has given to the separation of church and state, that's not quite what it seems to want, now is it?

paranoia

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:30:48 -0600

It would seem that people do need to be told that you can't get swine flu from butchered pork. You'd think they'd know better, but no.

FACTBOX: Countries slap bans on pork after flu outbreak (uk.reuters.com)
(Reuters) - Some countries concerned about the global spread of a new strain of swine flu have banned U.S., Canadian and Mexican pork, even though health officials said consumers could not contract the virus by eating pork. Government officials have said the reasons for the bans are unsubstantiated, noting the virus is spread from person to person and has never been found in livestock. The bans have cut U.S. pork exports by 8 to 12 percent and slowed buying from Mexico, an official from the U.S. Meat Export Federation said on Wednesday. Canadian pork exports also face restrictions. Several countries have banned Mexican pork and swine exports, but Mexico is a net pork importer, and its pork exports go mainly to Japan and South Korea, which have not restricted meat imports....

Pork farmers struggle due to swine flu (BBC News)
As the World Health Organisation says the swine flu outbreak has moved closer to becoming a global pandemic, a number of states have put a ban on the import of pork from affected countries. China, Russia and South Korea have banned imports of some North American pork, despite assurances that the flu is not spread through meat. This includes imports from the United States, which is one of the world's biggest pork exporters. The pork industry is a very big part of economies in the midwestern states like Nebraska...

Pork Producers Ache From Swine Flu
By CURT THACKER
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- Declining hog prices amid the swine-flu outbreak could spawn losses of more than a quarter of a billion dollars and be the last straw for some U.S. pork producers. Cash hog prices have fallen $3 to $5 per hundredweight this week. Nearby May lean-hog futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have fallen about 8.55 cents since Friday, a 12% drop, on fears that consumers will shun pork, even though the disease hasn't been found in pigs. On Wednesday, May lean hogs settled at 60.45 cents a pound, down 2.85 cents, or 4.5%. [...] U.S. hog producers have lost money in 16 of the past 18 months, and they needed prices to be profitable during the spring and summer. Cases of swine flu, however, have led to import bans by some countries on pork produced in a number of U.S. states and Mexico.

Swine flu has been confirmed in seven deaths in Mexico, and is suspected of killing more than 150 people there. The U.S. reported its first death from swine flu on Wednesday, and 91 cases have been confirmed in 10 states. The A/H1N1 virus contains genetic information from three different influenza forms -- swine, bird and human. The disease is transmitted from human to human.

U.S. government officials are considering a change to the disease's current moniker. Swine flu makes some people think they can get the disease from pigs or pork, said acting CDC Director Richard Besser. "That's not helpful to pork producers. That's not helpful to people who eat pork," he said....

Of course, at this point, a name change would do nothing. After all, the government would need to tell people that they were changing the name for it to be meaningful, and then people would say, "So, Mexican flu type a1, that was the swine flu, right? And we're having a new outbreak? So I just won't eat pork, then and I'll be safe!" (And you so know that if they change the name, they'll change it from the species to the location of most recent origin. You know they will. Though that doesn't seem to bother people. When we have outbreaks of the Hong Kong flu, people don't seem to think that avoiding Hong Kong will help. And nobody seems to think that if people had just avoided Spain during the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, all would have been well. So maybe a name change will do something ... eventually. Not this year, though.

dc recognizes out-of-district gay marriages

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:36:08 -0600

My, what an interestingly busy day it's been.

D.C. Council Votes to Recognize Other States' Gay Marriages - washingtonpost.com

By Nikita Stewart and Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 7, 2009; 12:45 PM

The D.C. Council voted today to recognize gay marriages performed in other states, on the same day that Vermont became the fourth state to legalize same-sex unions.

Domestic partnerships are already legal in the nation's capital, and gay couples married in other states are recognized as domestic partners when they move to the city. But today's legislation, billed as an important milestone in gay rights, explicitly recognizes them as married couples.

The initial vote was 12-0. The unanimous vote sets the stage for future debate on legalizing gay marriage in the District and a clash with Congress, which approves the city's laws under Home Rule. The council is expected to take a final vote on the legislation next month.

Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who is gay, called the amendment a matter of "basic fairness." The city's laws on same-sex unions have been murky, he explained. Couples ask, he said, "Is my marriage valid in D.C.? For years now, it has not been clear. It's high time we send a clear, unequivocal message to those persons of the same sex and married in another jurisdiction that their marriage is valid in D.C.," said Graham, who added, "I hope this city recognizes this is a human rights struggle." [...]

Of course, the issue isn't whether or not the city recognizes this as a human rights struggle. The issue is, What Will Congress Do? And that's entirely up in the air. On the one hand, they allowed the District to legalize domestic partnership. On the other, marriage is legally quite a different thing; recognizing out-of-district marriages as marriage should logically bring DC into direct conflict with DOMA, even without passing a civil marriage act of their own. If Congress allows DC to recognize out-of-district marriages as such, it will be colluding in letting DOMA become a sort of dead letter law. And honestly, there are still enough Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats that I would be entirely unsurprised if Congress slapped DC down hard over this.

We shall see, won't we?

"vermont says yea"

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:22:55 -0600

Article reprinted in its entirety due to brevity.

Gay marriage legalized in Vermont | burlingtonfreepress.com | The Burlington Free Press

Free Press Staff Report • April 7, 2009

MONTPELIER — Vermont has become the fourth state to legalize gay marriage — and the first to do so with a legislature's vote.

The Legislature voted Tuesday to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto of a bill allowing gays and lesbians to marry. The vote was 23-5 to override in the state Senate and 100-49 to override in the House. Under Vermont law, two-thirds of each chamber had to vote for override.

The vote came nine years after Vermont adopted its first-in-the-nation civil unions law. It's now the fourth state to permit same-sex marriage. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa are the others. Their approval of gay marriage came from the courts.

The Vermont Senate voted earlier this morning to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto of the same-sex marriage legislation. The vote passed, 23-5.

The true jubilation didn't start until everyone gathered downstairs where they congratulated legislative leaders who championed the cause. Sonny Audette (D-South Burlington) who was on the fence last night did not show up for the vote. Three Democrats who voted against the bill voted for the override.

Gov. Jim Douglas, who vetoed legislation, said, "I prepared myself for this outcome and predicted it. The outcome was not unexpected."

He just sounds so mournful, doesn't he? His loins were firmly girded.

No doubt there will be a movement to amend the Vermont constitution to overturn this result. However, amending the Vermont constitution sounds even more unlikely than amending Iowa's constitution. Vermont has no voter initiative process, so attempts to overturn this ruling will need to either go through the courts -- and since their rulings required the creation of the civil unions process, it seems unlikely that they'd overturn it -- or has to be initiated by the legislature itself. And the process for that is quite involved.

Amending the Vermont Constitution - An Introduction:

...Proposals of amendment can be initiated every four years by the senate. A proposal must be approved by two/thirds of the senate (20 votes) before being sent to the house, where a majority vote is required for passage. Successful proposals are taken up by the succeeding legislature, the intervening election allowing voters an opportunity to instruct their legislators on whether to support any amendments. The proposal must then survive majority votes of the senate and house, before being placed before the voters for ratification....

So, assuming the amendment made it out of the legislature -- which seems highly unlikely at the moment -- the voters would get a chance to "instruct their legislators" ... but the legislators do not seem to be bound to follow said instruction. So it looks like nondiscriminatory marriage in Vermont may actually stick around a while.

"there's nothing halfway about the iowa way to treat you..."

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:12:08 -0600

I will admit that I am both surprised and astonished.

Unanimous ruling: Iowa marriage no longer limited to one man, one woman | DesMoinesRegister.com | The Des Moines Register

• Read the summary: Iowa Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage. (PDF)
• Read the full opinion: Iowa Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage. (PDF)

The Iowa Supreme Court this morning unanimously upheld gays' right to marry. "The Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution," the justices said in a summary of their decision. The court rules that gay marriage would be legal in three weeks, starting April 24. The court affirmed a Polk County District Court decision that would allow six gay couples to marry. The ruling is viewed as a victory for the gay rights movement in Iowa and elsewhere, and a setback for social conservatives who wanted to protect traditional families. The decision makes Iowa the first Midwestern state, and the fourth nationwide, to allow same-sex marriages. Lawyers for Lambda Legal, a gay rights group that financed the court battle and represented the couples, had hoped to use a court victory to demonstrate acceptance of same-sex marriage in heartland America.

The Iowa Supreme Court's Web site was deluged with more than 350,000 visitors this morning, in anticipation of the ruling, a Judicial Branch spokesman said this morning. Steve Davis, a court spokesman, said administrators added extra computer servers to handle the expected increase in Web traffic. But "this is unprecedented," Davis said.

Richard Socarides, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay civil rights, said today's decision could set the stage for other states. Socarides was was a senior political assistant for Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin in the early 1990s. "I think it's significant because Iowa is considered a Midwest sate in the mainstream of American thought," Socarides said. "Unlike states on the coasts, there's nothing more American than Iowa. As they say during the presidential caucuses, 'As Iowa goes, so goes the nation.'"

Democratic Sen. Bill Dotzler of Waterloo said he hopes people treat each other with respect today. "Everyone just needs to remain calm," he said. "We need to analyze the decision. By giving a unanimous decision it seems to me the court really thinks it's an issue of rights. It will be up to the legislature to look at their ruling and see how we're going to proceed." [...]

Opponents have long argued that allowing gay marriage would erode the institution. Some Iowa lawmakers, mostly Republicans, attempted last year to launch a constitutional amendment to specifically prohibit same-sex marriage. Such a change would require approval in consecutive legislative sessions and a public vote, which means a ban would could not be put in place until at least 2012 unless lawmakers take up the issue in the next few weeks...

I'm surprised because I genuinely expected the decision to fall the other way -- though from what I'm seeing online, people who actually, you know, live in Iowa, seem to have expected more or less exactly this result.

I'm astonished because, of the states that have had their supreme courts strike down marriage laws as discriminatory, Iowa is the first to produce a unanimous verdict. In fact, I believe that Iowa is the first not to have marriage discrimination fall by a one vote margin. Even allegedly liberal California -- which is rather clearly no such thing -- didn't have such an emphatic result.

I have to admit, one of the things that I find so amazing is how thoroughly the Iowa Supreme Court demolished all the typical canards used to support such discrimination.
- The government argued that it needed to maintain traditional marriage because it was traditional. The court said: These reasons, the court found, must be something other than the preservation of tradition by itself. “When a certain tradition is used as both the governmental objective and the classification to further that objective, the equal protection analysis is transformed into the circular question of whether the classification accomplishes the governmental objective, which objective is to maintain the classification.” Here, the County offered no governmental reason underlying the tradition of limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, so the court proceeded to consider the other reasons advanced by the County for the legislative classification."
- The government argued that childrearing in a heterosexual marriage provided optimal childrearing circumstances. The court said: The statute, the court found, is under-inclusive because it does not exclude from marriage other groups of parents—such as child abusers, sexual predators, parents neglecting to provide child support, and violent felons—that are undeniably less than optimal parents. If the marriage statute was truly focused on optimal parenting, many classifications of people would be excluded, not merely gay and lesbian people. The statute is also under-inclusive because it does not prohibit same-sex couples from raising children in Iowa. The statute is over-inclusive because not all same-sex couples choose to raise children. The court further noted that the County failed to show how the best interests of children of gay and lesbian parents, who are denied an environment supported by the benefits of marriage under the statute, are served by the ban, or how the ban benefits the interests of children of heterosexual parents. Thus, the court concluded a classification that limits civil marriage to opposite-sex couples is simply not substantially related to the objective of promoting the optimal environment to raise children.
- The government argued that endorsing heterosexual marriage will result in more procreation. (Quite seriously, I would love to have seen the justices faces when this argument was advanced. Because, you know, heterosexuals never ever ever ever reproduce outside marriage, no not once, never. And, of course, every single heterosexual marriage results in founts of children flowing through the state.) The court replied: ...the County’s argument is flawed because it fails to address the required analysis of the objective: whether exclusion of gay and lesbian individuals from the institution of civil marriage will result in more procreation. The court found no argument to support the conclusion that a goal of additional procreation would be substantially furthered by the exclusion of gays and lesbians from civil marriage.
- The government argued that the statute barring gay marriage promoted stability in opposite-sex marriage. The court found: ...there was no evidence to support that excluding gay and lesbian people from civil marriage makes opposite-sex marriage more stable.
- The government stated that the statute conserved state resources by denying the benefits of marriage to same sex couples. The court noted: While the ban on same-sex marriage may conserve some state resources, so would excluding any number of identifiable groups. However, under intermediate scrutiny the sexual-orientation-based classification must substantially further the conservation-of-resources objective. Here again, the court found it was over- and under-inclusive and did not substantially further the suggested governmental interest.
- The court then addressed an issue which the county/state could not permissably address: that there was deep and sincere religious opposition that felt that allowing same-sex marriage would destroy the "sanctity of marriage". The court said: ...such views are not the only religious views of marriage. Other, equally sincere groups have espoused strong religious views yielding the opposite conclusion. These contrasting opinions, the court finds, explain the absence of any religious-based rationale to test the constitutionality of Iowa’s same-sex marriage statute. “Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring government avoids them . . . . The statute at issue in this case does not prescribe a definition of marriage for religious institutions. Instead, the statute, declares, ‘Marriage is a civil contract’ and then regulates that civil contract . . . . Thus, in pursuing our task in this case, we proceed as civil judges, far removed from the theological debate of religious clerics, and focus only on the concept of civil marriage and the state licensing system that identifies a limited class of persons entitled to secular rights and benefits associated with marriage.”

We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective. The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification. There is no material fact, genuinely in
dispute, that can affect this determination. We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law. Faithfulness to that duty requires us to hold Iowa’s marriage statute, Iowa Code section 595.2, violates the Iowa Constitution. To decide otherwise would be an abdication of our constitutional duty. If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification, they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded. Iowa Code section 595.2 denies gay and lesbian people the equal protection of the law promised by the Iowa Constitution.

holidaze

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:47:49 -0600

Offered without comment (except perhaps an eyeroll.)

Southerners looking to share their Confederate holiday -- chicagotribune.com

By Dahleen Glanton | Tribune Correspondent
1:37 AM CDT, March 22, 2009

ATLANTA — In a cultural war that has pitted Old South against new, defenders of the Confederate legacy have opened a fresh front in their campaign to polish an image tarnished, they said, by people who do not respect Southern values. With the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States in 2011, efforts are under way in statehouses, small towns and counties across the South to push for proclamations or legislation promoting Confederate history.

Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Florida traditionally observe Confederate History Month in April. Georgia, which has recognized it by proclamation since 1995, recently passed a bill in the state Senate making it official. Most Southern states recognize Confederate Memorial Day as a legal holiday. Some celebrate it on the June birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, but Texas and Arkansas observe it on Jan. 19, the federal holiday for slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Well, of course. When else would be appropriate to observe it?

...The negative image has long angered some white Southerners, particularly those whose ancestors died in the Civil War. In their view, the war is a source of Southern pride. In recent years, they have sought to redefine the Confederacy in multicultural terms, pointing out that Jews, Hispanics and blacks fought for the South. They argue that the war had little if anything to do with slavery, and they have become vocal in their opposition to white supremacist groups that use the Confederate flag as a symbol of hate.

"Slavery is a part of American history, not just Confederate history," said McMichael. "The Confederacy has gotten a bad rap because we ended up on the losing side and therefore the wrong side of history." [...]

Right. Somehow, I thought that included in the Confederacy's states rights issues was the desire to decide their "peculiar institution" for themselves, and the desire to have it spread into other territories so that it wouldn't die out. Apparently not. Who knew?

new legal fight against DOMA begins

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:37:38 -0600

Same-sex spouses challenge US curbs - The Boston Globe

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | March 3, 2009

Fifteen gay and lesbian residents from Massachusetts who wed after this state legalized same-sex marriages plan to file a discrimination suit today, challenging a federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Six same-sex couples and three men whose husbands have died - one of the deceased was retired congressman Gerry E. Studds - said in the suit that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act treats them like second-class citizens and is unconstitutional. The complaint is being filed in US District Court in Boston. The suit, which legal specialists described as the first serious challenge to the federal law signed by President Bill Clinton, contends that the statute has deprived the plaintiffs of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples. Those benefits include health insurance for spouses of federal employees, tax deductions for couples who jointly file federal income tax returns, and the ability to use a spouse's last name on a passport.

"It hurts," said Dean T. Hara, who was married to Studds from May 2004 until the retired congressman's death in October 2006, as he discussed the federal government's denial of a $255 lump-sum death payment and thousands of dollars in benefits as the surviving spouse of a retired federal employee. "But at the same time I realize that I, as a man, need to stand up for what I believe in. This is a nation of laws, and we're all supposed to have equal treatment under the law."

Mary L. Bonauto, the civil rights lawyer for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders who was lead counsel in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health - the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case in 2003 that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States for the first time - said the suit asks the court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act because it targets gays and lesbians for discrimination. "This is a case that should go to the Supreme Court and in all likelihood will go to the Supreme Court," she said. If the plaintiffs win, she said, it would not extend same-sex marriage beyond Massachusetts and Connecticut, the two states where it is legal. But it would dismantle a federal statute that affects more than 1,000 marriage-related benefits, and it would be a huge victory on symbolic and practical levels for supporters of same-sex marriage, according to legal specialists.

"We've got this major federal statute that inflicts really substantial harm on very large numbers of gay people just for being gay people," said Andrew Koppelman, a Northwestern University law professor. "The federal government declares to these people that it regards their marriages as worthless and would not give those marriages the protection and recognition that it gives to all other marriages. It's quite significant if that is invalidated."

A handful of federal agencies and officials are named as defendants in the suit. A spokesman for President Obama, who has spoken of repealing the Defense of Marriage Act but does not support same-sex marriage, said the White House had no comment....

I do hope these individuals don't have any expectations for this lawsuit. It will not end well.

Understand: I'm not saying that it's not a cause worth fighting -- though I'm not sure that I think that kicking the fight to a higher level today is a particularly bright idea. I'm not saying that the argument does not have merit; I think that it does. Understand that I'm also not saying this is a publicity stunt, or anything of that sort; these people have good reasons to fight this fight. I'm saying that I expect this case to be lost, and that the loss may well be not only very expensive but Pyrrhic, if one can have a pyrrhic loss. There will be some nasty side- and after-effects, let's say.

It's also an interestingly sophisticated legal argument. It's not forcing states to recognize marriages that they don't already. It doesn't seem to touch Fair Faith and Credit. Instead, it's aimed only at forcing the federal government to recognize those relationships that have already been recognized by the states. As such, it would produce an oddly limited and discriminatory result -- whether or not the federal government gave you certain benefits would depend entirely on whether you lived in (for the moment) Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire and possibly New Jersey. (It's not entirely clear whether domestic partnership registration would fulfill the same requirements; if so, then add California, Oregon, Maine, Washington state and -- heh -- DC itself)

My guess -- and it's only a guess -- is that if the case proceeds, there's maybe a break-even chance that the plaintiffs will win in district court. Massachusetts is a pretty liberal place, so we are told repeatedly. (I might argue that the state has an interesting tendency to select legislators that are somewhat more liberal than the population at large, but that's just a guess based on very little, and neither here nor there besides.) The district judges are of the area, generally speaking, so it's not entirely unrealistic that the plaintiffs could win at that level. The government will almost certainly appeal. Given that the administration has defended Bush-era positions on national security issues that are expressly at odds with Obama's stated positions, expecting that they would not appeal this one up the line would be foolish. (To be sure, the administration has come out expressly against DOMA, along with "Don't ask, don't tell". I suppose the interesting question here would be whether or not the government is willing to defend the position at all, or will simply rollover and try to decline to defend. That could be terribly interesting. Nonetheless, betting on a rollover would be extraordinarily unwise.)

Assuming the government appeals, the plaintiffs are almost certain to lose at the Court of Appeals level. With the exception of the Ninth Circuit -- which gets smacked down with impressive regularity by the Supreme Court -- the circuits are all relatively conservative. It's really pretty much their job to be so. If the circuit court upholds DOMA, which is a very safe prediction, then the plaintiffs appeal to the Supreme Court ... which will almost certainly refuse to hear the case. They have no reason to do so, unless someone brings a suit -- now-ish, really -- out of a circuit likely to overrule DOMA. (Yes, I'm lookin' at you, Ninth.) Only if there's a conflict in the circuits, or if the Court wishes to clarify a principle or point of law are they likely to hear the suit. And honestly ... I don't think anyone who wants the law to fall wants this Court to hear this case.

In the meantime, regardless of the district and Appeals courts decisions, conservatives are likely to grab onto the suit to try to whip their followers back into an antigay voting frenzy. It really wouldn't take much. One of the things that this country's history shows is that when things get bad, people strike out against the most convenient minority groups at hand. The antigay Right will start putting constitutional amendments on state ballots again, to try to rally the troops around one concrete thing they can all understand. And this is an easy way to strike out; you don't have to go and beat someone up, you don't have to call them names, all you have to do is to cast a nice anonymous vote.

The wildcard in all this is: what will Congress do, whether the lawsuit succeeds or fails? After all, the Republicans plus the Blue Dog Democrats constitute a bare majority, and would vote in a near-monolithic block for the law. If the courts decide that DOMA should fall, they might even have enough support to pass a new version with more teeth -- dragging along DADT in its wake -- and attach it to the Judiciary act, preventing the federal courts from hearing further challenges. (It really is surprising that Congress doesn't do that more often; I wonder if perhaps amending the Judiciary Act takes a supermajority.) There aren't enough votes in that majority to sustain the renewed law over a presidential veto ... but then, if the states run around passing their own constitutional amendments, you don't actually need DOMA, do you?

Again, I'm not saying not to fight the good fight. (Though I will say that I think the timing is slightly braindamaged.) I'm saying to expect to lose, and to expect some truly impressive collateral damage. I wonder what the political strategy is to fight this fight, and to contain the damage? There has to be one ... I hope.

Hey, it's possible that I'll be wrong, of course. Wouldn't it be nice if I were?

the more things change...

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:04:27 -0600

Man wins lynching case (citizen-times.com)

Jon Ostendorff • published February 11, 2009 3:52 pm

Asheville – A federal jury awarded $50,000 to an African-American construction worker who says his co-workers hurled racial epitaphs at him, shot nails at him and even tried to lynch him on a job site. Michael A. Kitchen, 29, of Brevard, won his case Feb. 2.

The abuse started February 2004 when he was hired as a worker for Pisgah Forest-based Farrell Log Homes and lasted until he ran from a job site that summer after employees put a rope around his neck and threatened to hang him, his attorney said on Wednesday.

The case is the most shocking violation Attorney Philip J. Roth of Asheville says he has seen in 18 years of practicing civil rights law.

Roth, in his closing argument, urged the eight-person jury to make an example of the company and send a message to other employers. He alluded to line about ending “old hatreds” in President Obama’s inaugural speech the month before.

“That is the whole point of this case,” Roth said. “People don’t believe this stuff stills goes on.”

Kitchen had audio recordings of the workers using racial slurs against him.

Roth said crew members working on a roof shot nails at Kitchen while he walked below, forcing him to run as they repeatedly fired after him.

An eyewitness at trial testified that Kitchen’s coworkers frequently pelted him with pieces of wood, shingles and even chicken bones during the dinner break, Roth said.

In the recordings, Kitchen can be heard pleading with them to stop.

Roth said the recording made the day workers put a rope around Kitchen’s neck captured the sound of his body being dragged across the gravel on the job site.

“As they had the rope around him, they were hitting him with boards and stones,” Roth said. “It was this big game. The owner was quite literally right there. We don’t know if he threw anything. But he should have never allowed this to happen, of course.”

Kitchen escaped and never returned to work at the company.

The jury ruled company owner Willie Farrell did not personally create a work environment that allowed the abuse, Roth said...

I am ... trying to understand how in the name of sanity one could rule that the owner "did not personally create a work environment that allowed the abuse" when he was allegedly right there when it was happening. One would think that, at a minimum, not going over to your staff and saying, "People, don't lynch the nice black guy," would indicate that the owner, at the least, did not discourage a hostile work environment as enthusiastically as he perhaps should have done. But then, I have never pretended to understand how the law and/or juries operate on such questions.

Given that, a recent publication in the Asheville Citizen-Times is somehow a bit less surprising than it somehow might otherwise be.

so long, gov. greathair

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:30:10 -0600

We won't meet you in the middle, you won't meet us in the air, we don't love you just a little, not enough to show we care.

BLAGOJEVICH REMOVED: Impeached Blagojevich has been removed -- chicagotribune.com

The Illinois Senate voted to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office Thursday, marking the first time in the state's long history of political corruption that a chief executive has been impeached and convicted.

The 59-0 vote followed several hours of public deliberation in which senator after senator stood up to blast Blagojevich, whose tenure lasted six years. And it came after a four-day impeachment trial on allegations that Blagojevich abused his power and sold his office for personal and political benefit.

The conviction on a sweeping article of impeachment means the governor was immediately removed from office. The Senate also unanimously voted to impose the "political death penalty" on Blagojevich, banning him from ever again holding office in Illinois.

Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn, Blagojevich's two-time running mate, has become the state's 41st governor....

[...] Alternately praising and upbraiding those who will decide his political fate, Blagojevich urged the senators not to remove him from office, saying he has "done absolutely nothing wrong" and "never, ever intended to violate the law."

"There hasn't been a single piece of information that proves any wrongdoing," Blagojevich said to senators who were mostly stoic. "How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?" [...]

Well, yes, that would be the $5 billion question, now wouldn't it? The answer, of course, would be that impeachment only requires the procedure and the verdict; it does not in fact require actual evidence of guilt.

I confess, I am rather baffled as to how his plan to import low cost drugs from Canada could possibly have been used against him in this trial. It was a plan, and it got shot down by the federal government. I'm also rather confused as to what the bird flu vaccine had to do with anything. Money gets misspent in government all the time; if we impeached everyone responsible, there'd be nobody left. (Say, there's an idea...) The federal allegations were used against him, despite the fact that the federal government refused to allow the Assembly access to most of the evidence and witnesses in that case, so that there was no proof, only more allegations. I do think it was overall a rather shameful misuse of the process ... but also probably a necessary misuse.

The plain fact is that the state could no longer function with him in office. The federal allegations were such that nobody could trust that he was doing things for the right reasons, or that he wasn't somehow benefiting in unseemly ways. And I daresay that it's true that Mr. Quinn will mind his conduct very closely -- I don't imagine that the feds will be removing all their wiretap equipment any time soon, for one thing. (Yes, they're supposed to -- in fact, they were supposed to have done it after the arrest, if they follow normal procedure. To which I say: HA. And even if they did follow procedure, which I rather doubt, they might decide that it was in everyone's best interest to let them think that they hadn't.) (Hey, the original subtitle of this joint was "your daily dose of corrosive cynicism" for a reason, you know!)

It's going to be interesting to see how this all turns out for him. I still think that ultimately, he's going to be forced to make a deal to keep them from going after his wife. It does sound like they've at least got enough to make the attempt, if not get a conviction, and the possibility that his children will be left with both of their parents facing prosecution and possible jail may be enough to make him finally submit.

sex and prostate cancer

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:46:58 -0600

All I have to say is: would the medical profession please pick a side and stick to it? Because this is all very confusing.

BBC NEWS | Health | Sex drive link to prostate cancer

Men who are more sexually active in their 20s and 30s may run a higher risk of prostate cancer, research suggests.

The Nottingham University study quizzed 800 men on how often they had sex or masturbated. Those who were most active while younger had more chance of developing cancer later in life. The researchers said higher levels of sex hormones could lead to a bigger sex drive and the cancer, the journal BJU International reported.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, with well over 30,000 new cases diagnosed each year. It affects the prostate gland, which is found close to the bladder and makes a component of semen.

The Nottingham team, led by Dr Polyxeni Dimitropoulou, recruited more than 400 men diagnosed with prostate cancer, then compared their answers to 409 men thought to be free of the disease. As well as questions about how often they had been sexually active from puberty onwards, they were asked how many sexual partners they had had and whether they had been diagnosed with any sexual infections. Roughly the same proportion of both groups, 59%, said they had engaged in sexual activity 12 times a month or more in their 20s, falling to 48% in their 30s, 28% in their 40s and 13% in their 50s. Almost two-fifths of the prostate cancer group had had six female partners or more, compared with less than a third of the non-cancer group. There was also a difference among the men who masturbated or had sex the most often, with 40% of men in the cancer group being sexually active 20 times a month or more in their 20s, compared with 32% in the non-cancer group. The gap between the two groups narrowed as the men aged, suggesting that the difference was strongest at a younger age.

Dr Dimitropoulou said: "What makes our study stand out from previous research is that we focused on a younger age group than normal and included both intercourse and masturbation at various stages in the participants' lives." He said that it was possible that higher levels of sex hormones in some men were both responsible for a high sex drive in their 20s and 30s, and for the development of prostate cancer later on....

So. More frequent sex and/or ejaculation in your salad days may be related to a more frequent incidence of prostate cancer. OK. Got it.

Frequent ejaculation may protect against cancer (newscientist.com)

21:00 06 April 2004 by Shaoni Bhattacharya

Frequent sexual intercourse and masturbation protects men against a common form of cancer, suggests the largest study of the issue to date yet.

The US study, which followed nearly 30,000 men over eight years, showed that those that ejaculated most frequently were significantly less likely to get prostate cancer. The results back the findings of a smaller Australian study revealed by New Scientist in July 2003 that asserted that masturbation was good for men. In the US study, the group with the highest lifetime average of ejaculation - 21 times per month - were a third less likely to develop the cancer than the reference group, who ejaculated four to seven times a month.

Michael Leitzmann, at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues set out to test a long-held theory that suggested the opposite - that a higher ejaculation rate raises the risk of prostate cancer. "The good news is it is not related to an increased risk," he told New Scientist. In fact, it "may be associated with a lower risk."

"It goes a long way to confirm the findings from our recent case-control study," says Graham Giles, who led the Australian study. He praises the study's large size - including about 1500 cases of prostate cancer.

Furthermore, it was the first to begin by following thousands of healthy men. This rules out some of the biases which might be introduced by asking men diagnosed with prostate cancer to recall their sexual behaviour retrospectively....

...Or, frequent ejaculation is probably good for you and protects against prostate cancer.

...All-righty, then!

I would, I must confess, be more inclined to believe the earlier study, if only because it follows a much larger group of men. Both the US and Nottingham studies followed some men who were healthy to start with; the difference seems to be that the US study started with 30,000 healthy men and followed them for a very long time, while the Nottingham study started with roughly 400 healthy men and 400 prostate cancer survivors, and tried to figure out the differences between the two groups.

I must confess, I'm a bit puzzled as to why the Nottingham study did what they did. I mean, there's a very large study sitting out there that actually followed the men, rather than asking them questions about long-ago sexual activity. Apart from faulty recall, men lie about such things, even to researchers. Nobody wants to look like they were That Nerdy Guy, sitting at home not gettin' any. That said, I would assume that the actual lying would balance out between the studies, that it would have been accounted for. It's far more difficult to account for faulty recall, however; you're more likely to misremember things from 20 years ago. I would assume the first study also used some sort of questionnaire -- they're hardly likely to have pinned monitors to the people and followed them the whole time, noting, "Hey, excited heartbeat and temperature! Must be having sex!" Presumably, fresher memories would produce more accurate recall.

I wish I had access to the actual Nottingham study; it would be interesting to see how they accounted for the rather sharp differences between their study and the prior US and Australian studies, indicating almost -- but not quite -- precisely opposite conclusions regarding the protective effect of sex (or lack thereof, as the case may be). It's interesting as well to note that in the parts of the Nottingham study presented in the articles, it seems clear that they only studied heterosexual men -- which, in a study of 800 men on a sexuality-neutral topic like prostate cancer, seems like an odd bit of deliberate selection. Either that, or something like 20-80 of the men were, shall we say, fibbing.

The actual science aside, there are a couple of interesting aspects to this story. Both concern the media coverage. First, why did this story suddenly bubbled up everywhere this week, despite the fact that the study was published back in the November 2008 issue of the British Journal of Urology? And there's also the truly fascinating issue of the presentation, and what it may reveal about agendas here and there ... about which, more elsewhere.