Well ... it's a good question.
Posted by iain at 06:28 PM
My very British name is Damian Watson.
Take The Very British Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.
I just don't know. I didn't think my name needed to sound British-er, actually.
Posted by iain at 04:15 PM
Not that this was remotely a surprise.
Bush to support constitutional amendment prohibiting marriages between same-sex partners: President Bush backed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage Tuesday, saying he wants to stop activist judges from changing the definition of the "most enduring human institution." Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural and moral roots, Bush said, urging Congress to approve such an amendment. "After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization," the president said. "Their action has created confusion on an issue that requires clarity."
Millenia of human experience.
Hmm. Indeed.
I suppose it would be fruitless to point out to Our Glorious Shrub that those millenia of human experience have given the world very different forms of marriage. In many regions of the world, plural marriage is still the preferred form (although it does frequently have a nasty tendency to equate women with possessions -- the more the better). And Europe has managed to have gay marriages in several countries for a few years now, and somehow, you know, they're still there. Straight people still get married in Europe. Whatever it meant to them before gay people were included, it apparently still means that to most who choose to marry. I mean, really, whoda thunk?
At this point, in any event, the best hope is that the Federal Marriage Amendment continues to be bottled up in Congress. Really, from the politicians' point of view, for the next several months at least, this is the best possible option. People from moderate districts where this issue is still fairly divisive really won't want to take any more of a public position on this than they have, and they're the important ones here. The liberals and conservatives already have pretty well defined positions. Plus, as long as the amendment languages in Congress, the conservatives have a wonderful tool with which to batter their opponents; look what those nasty liberals have done! They're preventing you from voting on this!
I point out that there is a reason why most civil rights issues really don't come down to votes.
People don't want others to have the rights they enjoy.
Think this is overstating the issue? Look at what happened with the Equal Rights Amendment. Boiled down to its essence, all it said was, we think everyone ought to be treated equally whether they're men or women. That's it. Yet it ran into a buzzsaw of opposition, based on people's fears that they would, in fact, be required to do just that, and they didn't want to. Texas and Tennessee passed the amendment, and then turned around and said, "Um, you know that amendment we just ratified? Yeah, we changed our minds. We're recinding it. We really don't think women should be treated equally with men. No, really, we don't."
That's not a particularly special case. The Civil War amendments would never have been passed if the government hadn't essentially been holding the Southern states at gunpoint-- and at that, the Northern states weren't happy about a couple of them. There wasn't all that much involved for the Northern states in passing the Thirteenth amendment, or so they thought; after all, they didn't have slavery, and abolishing it was the public reason for fighting the entire Civil War in the first place, so what's the big deal in officially abolishing it? The Fourteenth Amendment was considerably more difficult -- the Northern states didn't want all those free blacks wandering around any more than the Southern states, and they sure as hell didn't want them as citizens -- and the Fifteenth Amendment was basically the government saying, "So, you know those two previous amendments? We mean them. No, really, we do. REALLY." The latter two would likely not have made it through had the Southern states any choice in the matter, but during Reconstruction, their state governments were essentially held hostage; they had little choice but to ratify.
This isn't even the first time that the nation's parochial views on marriage have been forced onto another state's public policy. Utah was forced to explicitly repudiate plural marriage in their state constitution before they would be accepted as part of the union. An issue that affected nobody outside Utah, and as gratuitous a bit of Mormon bashing as ever there was.
So no. When it comes to anything remotely resembling a civil right, the body politic does not want to expand those rights, and usually has to be forced into doing so. Eventually, it sees that the expansion of those rights has harmed nobody, but it will not -- without a very large gun being pointed at its head -- vote to grant them in the first place.
If nothing else, it will be terribly interesting to see how some people and organizations respond to this. (The Log Cabin Republicans have to be having conniption fits.)
Posted by iain at 11:24 AM
Flash required. Very very LOUD. Probably not worksafe, depending on your workplace. (If you work for the government, of course, they will probably arrest you on the spot.)
The horror, the horror ....
Posted by iain at 06:25 PM
UPDATE, 6:32pm: Well, that was impressively shortlived.
Attorney General Says Licenses Invalid (Albuquerque Journal, February 20, 2004): By Susan Montoya Bryan
The Associated Press
BERNALILLO, N.M. — Dozens of gay and lesbian couples descended on this rural New Mexico town to tie the knot Friday after the Republican county clerk's surprise decision to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But hours after the marriages began, New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid said the licenses "would be invalid under current law."
Madrid's "advisory" opinion came in the form of a letter to state Sen. Timothy Jennings, who had sought the advice after the marriages began Friday morning in Bernalillo. "Until the laws are changed through the legislative process or declared unconstitutional by the judicial process, the statutes limit marriage in New Mexico to a man and a woman," Madrid wrote. "Thus in my judgment, no county clerk should issue a marriage license to same sex couples because those licenses would be invalid under current law."
Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap had set the unusual day in motion with her decision Thursday to grant the licenses. Her decision came a week after San Francisco agreed to marry thousands of gay couples in a direct challenge to California law. "It's going to be across the country and so we wanted to be ahead of the curve," Dunlap said Friday. By Friday afternoon, a line snaked outside the clerk's office, housed in the county courthouse. About 100 people had requested applications and many of those had been turned back in, stamped and recorded, the clerk's office said. Outside, two preachers held impromptu ceremonies near the main drag of the usually sleepy village along the Rio Grande.
For all that it would have been nice to have things continue this way ... I rather agree with the attorney general. Until the 1961 statute is challenged and overturned in court as a violation of the superceding Equal Rights Act, the clerk really has no legal authority to issue licenses in the name of the state.
I would expect the law to be challenged any second now, of course, this having been set into motion.
Surprising that this, of all things, managed to be the first one of the administrative license issues to be ruled unlawful. Then again, it was surprising that it got underway in this locale in the first place.
Original post
It comes from the most unexpected places, doesn't it?
Albuquerque Tribune Online: Gays wed in Bernalillo By Leann Holt and Jennifer W. Sanchez, Tribune Reporters (February 20, 2004): BERNALILLO - Bernalillo is a long way from San Francisco, but today the two bore a striking resemblance. At 8 a.m. today, same-sex couples came pouring into the Sandoval County courthouse to apply for marriage licenses. Word that Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap would issue same-sex marriage licenses traveled quickly through the gay community last night and this morning. The couples came in droves, holding hands and looking dazed.
Jennifer Albright and Anne Schultz got a call early this morning from longtime friends Linda Rogers and Melissa Jameson. "We were asleep when they called," Schultz said. "They told us to get down to the courthouse right away. We never saw this coming."
Courthouse clerks had taken more than 100 calls about the licenses early this morning. Clerk Gary Williams was accommodating the line of applicants that snaked down the hall. "We haven't seen this much activity since Valentine's Day," Williams said. By 11:30 this morning, more than 20 licenses had been issued.
Until today, the county had never issued a same-sex marriage license, Dunlap said. She said she got a call last week from someone asking whether the county would issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple. David Mathews, the county's attorney said it was OK by law, Dunlap said. "We saw nothing that prohibited same-sex marriages in New Mexico," she said this morning. "I looked at the law. If I don't issue these, it's grounds for . . . my removal from office."
Dunlap was in Santa Fe this morning waiting for a response from State Attorney General Patricia Madrid. Madrid received two letters this morning from state senators requesting a legal opinion on the lawfulness of same-sex marriages in New Mexico, a spokeswoman said. "We're definitely looking into it - we're doing our research," said Sam Thompson, a spokeswoman for Madrid.
One can hardly wait to see what the NM state attorney general says in response. The state's Equal Rights Act -- New Mexico's version of the Equal Rights Amendment -- may wind up controlling whether or not the state can deny marriage licenses to same sex couples. Since it was an amendment to the state constitution (I think ... it would appear to be the final sentence of Article II, Section 18), the Equal Rights Act trumps any simple statute -- and the only statute mentions the gender of licensees in a fairly offhand way; there was no deliberate intent to exclude. In 1961, they just didn't think about this issue at all.
(Purely a side note: the New Mexico state constitution has some intriguingly nasty articles. For one thing, the Victim's Rights Amendment states, rather pointedly, "A person accused or convicted of a crime against a victim shall have no standing to object to any failure by any person to comply with the provisions of Subsection A of Section 24 of Article 2 of the constitution of New Mexico. " That would be the Bill of Rights of the state of New Mexico, including such luxurious unnecessaries such as the right of habeas corpus, freedom from illegal searches and seizures, trial by jury, and other fun stuff like that. For some reason, the state constitution holds that if you are merely accused of a crime against a person, you forfeit your individual rights. One wonders if that law has been challenged and ruled in violation of the US Constitution as yet. It would certainly appear to be unconstitutional on its face. But I digress.)
It is interesting how this seems to be taking on this weird surreal express-train quality, isn't it? Massachusetts, then Oregon says regretfully that it would have to recognize such marriages, then San Francisco challenges the state, and now this.
Posted by iain at 04:51 PM
Oh, my my my. Things are getting quite interesting up in the star chamber.
CBS News | U.S. Prosecutor Sues Ashcroft | February 17, 2004 15:33:37: A federal prosecutor in a major terrorism case in Detroit has taken the rare step of suing Attorney General John Ashcroft, alleging the Justice Department interfered with the case, compromised a confidential informant and exaggerated results in the war on terrorism. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino of Detroit accused the Justice Department of "gross mismanagement" of the war on terrorism in a lawsuit filed late Friday in federal court in Washington. Justice officials said Tuesday they had not seen the suit and had no comment .... Convertino is seeking damages under the Privacy Act, alleging he has been subjected to an internal investigation as retaliation for his cooperation with the Senate and that information from the internal probe was wrongly leaked to news media. The lawsuit states Convertino first complained to his superiors more than a year ago about Justice's interference in the Detroit terrorism trial, saying Washington supervisors "had continuously placed perception over reality to the serious detriment of the war on terror."
It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this. This would seem to involve the case previously mentioned in these parts, where the Justice Department engaged in what could kindly be called some egregious prosecutorial misconduct. Interestingly, as far as I can tell from this article, Covertino does not seem to be stating that he did not engage in the misconduct alleged, but that he was retaliated against for telling the Senate investigation about said misconduct. According to the Newsday article on this suit, Convertino admits withholding the information, thinking it was a judgement call:
Prosecutor Sues Bosses, Ashcroft By Tom Brune, Newsday WASHINGTON BUREAU, February 18, 2004 (registration required): A federal prosecutor in a significant but troubled terrorism case in Detroit has sued his superiors, including Attorney General John Ashcroft, accusing them of interference, mismanagement and compromising a confidential informant. Richard Convertino, a 14-year veteran assistant U.S. attorney who was removed from the case in September, filed the lawsuit Friday in the latest blow to the one-time showcase terrorism trial - now on the verge of falling apart - of an alleged "sleeper cell." ... In September, the Justice Department removed Convertino and his co-counsel, Keith Corbett, from the case without explanation. In December, U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen, who is overseeing the case, issued a lengthy ruling that included a rare public rebuke to Ashcroft for violating a gag order on the case, resulting in an equally rare apology by an attorney general. At the same time, Rosen called for an emergency hearing on defense attorney complaints about prosecutorial misconduct - notably the government's failure to turn over a letter by an imprisoned drug gang leader who said the prosecution's key witness, Yousseff Hmimssa, said he made up his testimony. The government since has said it should have turned over the letter to the defense attorneys, even though Convertino in court had defended his decision not to because he thought it was not credible.
Convertino's lawsuit appears to be an outgrowth of his removal from the case and his disputes with his superiors. In what is commonly known as a "whistle-blower lawsuit," Convertino accuses the Justice Department of violating his First Amendment rights and the Privacy Act.
Surely it wasn't Convertino's job to decide whether or not the letter was credible. I would have thought that it was his job to hand over the letter to the defense, who could then interview the witness and make their own determination. One also wonders what would make the government's "admitted con man", as the CBSNews article refers to their informant, so very much more trustworthy than the jailhouse informant who alleged that said con man was unreliable.
In any event, Justice seems to be turning into an intriguing little election year vulnerability. One wonders how long the administration can allow Justice to continue to make these sorts of headlines before doing something about it. Mind, I don't expect that they'll fire Ashcroft, however sensible that might be -- one suspects that relatively little of his own initiative created this disastrous situation, although he has almost certainly helped it along. But if Justice keeps making headlines that essentially say, "Department of Justice perverts the course of justice --- AGAIN," then they'll have to do something big and showy to put justice back into good odor, now won't they?
Posted by iain at 03:05 PM
To disbelief of puffing pub-goers, Ireland plans to ban their habit March 29: Francie O'Connor has been coming into smoke-filled Dublin pubs as long as he can remember, once at his father's side, now at his son's. For him, a pint and a cigarette go hand in hand. No longer. Inspired by similar restrictions in California and New York City, Ireland will become the first country in Europe to crack down on public smoking, the government announced Wednesday. As of March 29, smoking will be forbidden in all enclosed workplaces -- including the country's 10,000 pubs.
The concept of smoking being banned in a type of facility nationwide is just peculiar. Especially in Europe; I was under the impression that they consider the American style of antismoking laws to be rather fascistic, really. This is considerably more draconian than anything we would even try.
That said, although I can understand the pub owners' concerns that it would drive their customers away, it's hard to figure out where this would drive their customers to, if you see what I mean. You don't go to a pub just to smoke while you drink.
Posted by iain at 01:49 PM
Oh, goodie! A new form of mad cow disease found! Whee!
Research in Italy Turns Up a New Form of Mad Cow Disease: A new form of mad cow disease has been found in Italy, according to a study released yesterday, and scientists believe that it may be the cause of some cases of human brain-wasting disease. While the strain has been found in only two Italian cows, both apparently healthy, scientists in Europe and the United States said it should provide new impetus in Washington for the Department of Agriculture to adopt the more sensitive rapid tests used in Europe because it may not show up in those used in the United States. Along with the Italian study, there have been recent reports of unusual types of mad cow disease in France and Japan, and scientists say the discovery of new forms suggests that many cases of "sporadic" human disease -- by far the most common kind, responsible for about 300 deaths a year in the United States -- are not spontaneous at all, but come from eating animals.
And the test for mad cow used in the US probably doesn't detect it! And the Ag department doesn't want to use the rapid test even though it would take much less time and be more sensitive to variant forms! Isn't that just ever so special of them? Thinking of our health and well-being like that!
The last line of the article is really quite, quite precious, and probably describes the Department of Agriculture attitude, to some extent. After all, they're probably using the less sensitive test because it's less sensitive, and deliberately testing an inadequate number of cattle because universal testing would give answers they don't want to know.
(Why, yes, I am a tad cynical about the Department of Agriculture, the FDA, and their peculiar relationship with the beef industry, these days. Why do you ask?)
Posted by iain at 01:43 PM
The state of gay rights, such as it is, is terribly confusing these days, isn't it?
Gay rights proponents score wins in the House of Delegates (HamptonRoads.com/Pilot Online): Gay rights proponents scored political victories today in the conservative-leaning House of Delegates, which last week passed a bill reaffirming the state's ban on gay marriage. The House narrowly passed legislation that would give health insurance benefits to gay partners if they live together, but rejected a measure seeking to make state mortgage loans available only to married heterosexuals or blood relatives. The health insurance bill, sponsored by Republican Del. James Dillard of Fairfax County, passed 50-49 with the support of numerous Republicans. The same legislation failed last year in committee. Del. Richard Black's bill to exclude same-sex and unmarried couples from Virginia Housing Development Authority loans failed to advance on a vote of 54-44. The state used to require borrowers to be married or related by blood before the VHDA repealed the measure last year.
So basically, Virginia's House of Representatives has said (and yes, I'm paraphrasing), "We don't like you. We REALLY don't like you. We just want you to be clear on that fact. At the same time, we maybe don't think that you should get sick or not have some place to live if you're poor." Really, nicely schizophrenic response ... albeit rather typical, these days.
I guess these bills must be headed to the Virginia Senate, and then the governor. It'll be interesting to see if they survive the trip.
Posted by iain at 04:40 PM
Gay unions are facing a rainbow of reactions... Of any state, though, Oregon is perhaps the most likely to recognize gay and lesbian marriages, and extend the myriad health, tax and other benefits that go with them, several observers and scholars agree. Although Oregon law defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, the state is one of 12 that did not adopt a law prohibiting recognition of gay marriages from other states. And perhaps more significantly, Oregon is just one of three states where the courts have recognized the rights of gays and lesbians to be treated equally. The other two are Vermont, which, through its civil union law, extends all marital benefits to gay and lesbian couples, and Massachusetts.
Interesting.
For the one or two people wondering about the acute radio silence on this issue in these here parts last week, mostly it was because there really wasn't a great deal to say, and what I did have to say would likely leave a great many people severely pissed off at me. And I wanted to think about it for a time.
Regarding Massachusetts and its nonaction on gay marriage last week ... it was surprising that nothing came out of the legislature regarding that issue, yes. And while it makes sense for gay marriage advocates to actively be working to prevent any change whatsoever to the Massachusetts constitution, the other thing they seem to be working for is that if an amendment eventually does come out, it should be a flat out ban on gay marriage, with no allowance for civil unions or anything else. The thinking is that the people of Massachusetts will be reluctant to revoke a right in a manner that is so obviously bigoted and discriminatory. And while the position they are taking makes sense, one cannot help but feel that they have their heads buried so deep in the sand, regarding probable results, that they may never get clear.
As one representative remarked during last week's debate, the reason that the courts so frequently wind up stepping into the civil rights arena is that when a minority asks a majority to be treated equally, the answer is almost invariably "No." Humans are ferociously hierarchical, after all, and shoving people down is one of the things we do very well indeed. It's only rarely that we allow our intelligence to overcome that instinct.
Additionally, this particular issue crosses an intersection that's always dangerous, involving sex, sexuality and religion, as well as civil rights. One of the things you can count on regarding sex and sexuality is that (1) people are more conservative than you might otherwise expect, and (2) they will lie to your face about it. People out there may well think that their neighbors will not vote to strip them of the right to marry, once it has been in place for a year or two -- perhaps they're right. But it seems terribly unwise to expect anything else to happen.
Do I think that they should change their tactics? Well .... on the whole, no. Probably not. As the court remarked, separate is inherently unequal, when it comes to civil rights. I just think they're deceiving themselves if they truly think that people in Massachusetts would not vote to reserve marriage for straight people forever and ever, amen. That said, I'm not sure how you could otherwise approach the issue. You really can't go forward into a campaign saying, "Well, we think we'll lose because our friends and neighbors are so bigoted that they'll never allow this to happen." That would seem to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And I really don't have anything to say (in public, anyway) about the weddings in San Francisco, except that it would be nice if Newsom's political grandstanding turns out well. I rather suspect, however, that California's court system will say the judicial equivalent of "You have GOT to be kidding; do you people even know the law of the state in which you live?" and void them all. (Although I would think that the "Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund" would lack standing to sue over California marriages.)
Posted by iain at 02:40 PM
The government, it seems, really doesn't believe any longer in the right of peaceful protest. Not that this should come as a terribly large surprise to anyone.
An Antiwar Forum in Iowa Brings Federal Subpoenas (NY Times, February 10, 2004, registration required): To hear the antiwar protesters describe it, their forum at a local university last fall was like so many others they had held over the years. They talked about the nonviolent philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., they said, and how best to convey their feelings about Iraq into acts of civil disobedience. But last week, subpoenas began arriving seeking details about the forum's sponsor -- its leadership list, its annual reports, its office location -- and the event itself. On Monday, lawyers for the sponsor, the Drake University chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, went to court in an effort to block the federal prosecutors' demands. Those who attended the forum, at least four of whom said they had received subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury on Tuesday, said that they did not know what to make of the inquiry and that they feared it was intended to quash protest. Late on Monday, prosecutors in the United States attorney's office for the southern district of Iowa took the unusual step of issuing a confirmation of the investigation, stressing that its scope was limited to learning more about one person who had tried to scale a security fence at an Iowa National Guard base in a protest a day after the forum. "The United States attorney's office does not prosecute persons peacefully and lawfully engaged in rallies which are conducted under the protection of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States," a written statement issued by the prosecutor here, Stephen Patrick O'Meara, said.
The problem with that statement is that there are any number of ways in which the government might have pursued its goal of investigating one person -- who might well be entirely unaffiliated, given that he scaled the fence in protest the next day, independent of the organized protest -- other than subpoenaing everything affiliated with the forum.
"I've heard of such a thing, but not since the 1950's, the McCarthy era," said David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor. "It sends a very troubling message about government officials' attitudes toward basic liberties." Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he feared news of the subpoenas — which was spreading rapidly via e-mail on Monday among activist organizations — might discourage people from showing up to protests, attending meetings at universities or even checking out library books. "People will have to be asking themselves: will this be subject to government scrutiny?" Mr. Romero said.
And the answer to al of the above is: (1) One suspects this administration quite admires the McCarthyesque approach to security, if that's quite the right word; (2) they would most emphatically like to discourage people from attending any protest anywhere any time (the PATRIOT act can be used to discourage people regarding library books, thanks), and (3) yes, an antiwar protest is subject to government scrutiny these days -- that should pretty much be a given, really.
Officials at Drake University, a private institution of 5,100 students, declined to comment on Monday. Lisa Lacher, a spokeswoman for the school, said the court had made Drake, which received a broad subpoena in the case, subject "to a nondisclosure order" about the matter. "I'm afraid then that there's not much we can say," Ms. Lacher said. The school's subpoena called for detailed information on the lawyers guild and its members, including the names of those who are officers, and guild meeting agendas and annual reports since 2002. The subpoena also focused on the Nov. 15 antiwar forum, asking for "all requests for use of a room, all documents indicating the purpose and intended participants in the meeting, and all documents or recordings which would identify persons that actually attended the meeting."
Really, does this sound like something that was ever intended to focus on just one person? The request for November 15 records would seem to go far beyond focusing on the forum itself; surely Drake had other rooms being used that day in that building (and nothing in the request seems to limit itself to one building) for other purposes.
It's difficult to see how this investigation can be meant as anything other than a message: protest and we will make your lives a legal hell.
Posted by iain at 01:37 PM
Boston.com / News / Special reports / Gay Marriage: On February 3, 2004, the Justices submitted the following answer to a question propounded to them by the Senate.
To the Honorable the Senate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:
The undersigned Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court respectfully submit their answers to the question set forth in an order adopted by the Senate on December 11, 2003, and transmitted to the Justices on December 12, 2003. The order indicates that there is pending before the General Court a bill, Senate No. 2175, entitled "An Act relative to civil unions." A copy of the bill was transmitted with the order. As we describe more fully below, the bill adds G. L. c. 207A to the General Laws, which provides for the establishment of "civil unions" for same-sex "spouses," provided the individuals meet certain qualifications described in the bill.
The order indicates that grave doubt exists as to the constitutionality of the bill if enacted into law and requests the opinions of the Justices on the following "important question of law":
"Does Senate, No. 2175, which prohibits same-sex couples from entering into marriage but allows them to form civil unions with all 'benefits, protections, rights and responsibilities' of marriage, comply with the equal protection and due process requirements of the Constitution of the Commonwealth and articles 1, 6, 7, 10, 12 and 16 of the Declaration of Rights?"
.....As the court concluded in Goodridge, the traditional, historic nature and meaning of civil marriage in Massachusetts is as a wholly secular and dynamic legal institution, the governmental aim of which is to encourage stable adult relationships for the good of the individual and of the community, especially its children. The very nature and purpose of civil marriage, the court concluded, renders unconstitutional any attempt to ban all same-sex couples, as same-sex couples, from entering into civil marriage.
The same defects of rationality evident in the marriage ban considered in Goodridge are evident in, if not exaggerated by, Senate No. 2175. Segregating same-sex unions from opposite-sex unions cannot possibly be held rationally to advance or "preserve" what we stated in Goodridge were the Commonwealth's legitimate interests in procreation, child rearing, and the conservation of resources. See Goodridge, supra at 341. Because the proposed law by its express terms forbids same-sex couples entry into civil marriage, it continues to relegate same-sex couples to a different status. The holding in Goodridge, by which we are bound, is that group classifications based on unsupportable distinctions, such as that embodied in the proposed bill, are invalid under the Massachusetts Constitution. The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.
.... The argument in the separate opinion that, apart from the legal process, society will still accord a lesser status to those marriages is irrelevant. Courts define what is constitutionally permissible, and the Massachusetts Constitution does not permit this type of labeling. That there may remain personal residual prejudice against same-sex couples is a proposition all too familiar to other disadvantaged groups. That such prejudice exists is not a reason to insist on less than the Constitution requires. We do not abrogate the fullest measure of protection to which residents of the Commonwealth are entitled under the Massachusetts Constitution. Indeed, we would do a grave disservice to every Massachusetts resident, and to our constitutional duty to interpret the law, to conclude that the strong protection of individual rights guaranteed by the Massachusetts Constitution should not be available to their fullest extent in the Commonwealth because those rights may not be acknowledged elsewhere. We do not resolve, nor would we attempt to, the consequences of our holding in other jurisdictions. See id. at 340-341.5 But, as the court held in Goodridge, under our Federal system of dual sovereignty, and subject to the minimum requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, "each State is free to address difficult issues of individual liberty in the manner its own Constitution demands." Id. at 341.
...The answer to the question is "No."
Interesting.
Only the fact that amending the Massachusetts state constitution is a rather cumbersome process keeps the Massachusetts government from immediately placing on the ballot an amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman. Mind, I still believe the question will be on the ballot three years hence. The conservatives will be unyielding and relentless in their drive to have what they consider an abomination to be removed from the books, and enough people still regard marriage in an almost purely religious light (regardless of the fact that the court is quite clear about discussing only civil marriage) that there are probably some relatively moderate people, who think of themselves as the "live and let live" persuasion, who would still vote to restrict this right. (It will be fascinating to see what the legislature does in the next 120 days or so, which is about the time remaining to them from the SJC's original order. I would be willing to wager lavish amounts of money -- if I had lavish amounts of money -- that the legislature's response will be to prepare an amendment, but otherwise to do nothing whatsoever to change the state's civil marriage code. After all, the SJC has more or less done the work for them. Someone from a more conservative district would be working for the amendment; someone from a more liberal district would want to revise the laws. The moderate middle, whatever there may be of it, will on the other hand be desperate to avoid going on the record with any decision in any direction. The question, to which I don't know the answer, is if there's enough of a moderate middle in Massachusetts to prevent action being taken -- and if it minds being aligned with the conservative right, which would be the net result, after all.)
That said, and allowing for the fact that it's early days yet and any online survey is by its nature somewhat self selecting ... at the moment, support for the ruling is running at approximately 70% in favor vs 30% against. So it's entirely possible that an amendment to strike down the effects of this decision might well run into some tough going.
Possible.
(Good GRIEF. Massachusetts is actually having a constitutional convention next Wednesday for this issue, and just this issue.)
And our Glorious Leader's official mouthpieces have disgorged his opinion on the ruling, which surprises nobody:
White House finds Massachusetts ruling "deeply troubling": The White House says today's Massachusetts court ruling on gay marriage is "deeply troubling." And it's again raising the possibility of a constituional amendment barring same-sex marriages. [...] Press Secretary Scott McClellan says the White House is reviewing the decision. But he says it's just the kind of meddling by "activist" judges President Bush warned about in his State of the Union speech. Bush said if such rulings continue, a constitutional amendment may be needed. McClellan says the president is "firmly committed to protecting and defending" marriage -- defined as between a man and a woman.
Yes, of course he is.
Posted by iain at 02:50 PM
Criticism of Britain's proposed new system aside, our own court system doesn't seem to be handling this mess any better.
Questions cloud terror case (Detroit Free Press, January 31, 2004): The Detroit terrorism case has gone from a major victory in the Bush administration's war on terror to what a federal judge has described as "a fine kettle of fish." In the seven months since three men were convicted in Detroit in the nation's first trial to result from the federal 9/11 investigation, federal prosecutors and FBI agents are being scrutinized for possible misconduct and a federal judge is deciding whether to throw out the convictions.
"I've never seen anything like this," David Moran, a Wayne State University law professor and former state appellate defender, said Friday. "When prosecutors are accused of withholding evidence, the normal response is to circle the wagons and to defend their guys. But that's not happening here." He said the U.S. Attorney's Office is questioning the conduct of its own prosecutors. Moran and other defense lawyers said they wouldn't be surprised if the Justice Department eventually joins defense lawyers' request for a new trial.
The department declined Friday to discuss the situation in Detroit or new disclosures: a claim by a federal informant that FBI agents asked him to break the law to collect evidence against terror suspects and the recall of Detroit FBI chief Willie Hulon to Washington pending a review of his conduct. The disclosures are the latest developments to result from the conviction in June of the three men who had been accused of planning terrorist acts. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed the verdict as a victory against terrorism. Throughout the trial, defense lawyers accused Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino and his boss, Keith Corbett, of withholding documents and witnesses, and of preventing the men from receiving a fair trial. They asked U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen to order a new trial. The prosecutors denied the charges.
At the same time, the spying cases coming out of Guantanamo have been falling apart.
Guantanamo Spy Cases Evaporate (John Mintz, Washington Post, January 25, 2004): Last September, top officials of the Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, told a military judge in Florida that the prison's Muslim chaplain, Army Capt. James Yee, would soon be charged with mutiny, sedition, espionage, spying and aiding the enemy -- crimes that could lead to his execution. Based on those allegations, Yee was held in solitary confinement in a Navy brig in South Carolina for 76 days. But authorities never charged him with any of those offenses. Instead, Yee will face much less serious charges, such as mishandling classified materials and adultery, when the case against him resumes at a hearing at Fort Benning, Ga., scheduled for Feb. 4.
At the same time Yee was being detained, Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad I. Halabi, who worked as an Arabic translator at Guantanamo Bay, was also in solitary confinement 3,000 miles away, held in California on charges of espionage and aiding the enemy. In time, the most serious of those allegations have been withdrawn as well. Some experts on military law and the men's lawyers say the prosecutions of Yee and Halabi have been riddled with inconsistencies and oddities that cast doubt on the government's original fears that a spy ring was operating in the high-security prison for alleged al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "I find it difficult to believe professional prosecutors are proceeding with these two cases in this manner," said Gary D. Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor who teaches the law of war at Georgetown University. "The ineptitude at each step of the proceeding is amazing. . . . It seems there's been investigative overreaction in both cases." Even now, prosecutors have not made final determinations that some of the documents Halabi was charged with possessing were, in fact, classified -- and, if they were, what level of security applied to them. As a result, his lead civilian attorney, Donald G. Rehkopf Jr., said he has only a hazy picture of why his client was arrested last July.
I have to admit, I've always been baffled at the concept that, a year and more after the attacks, a spy ring was operating out of Guantanamo. After all, these people had been in prison for quite some time. What could they possibly have known that was relevant to current operations? And if the translators were smuggling information into the prison, what could the prisoners possibly do with it?
In an unusual episode last month, military investigators raided offices used by Halabi's military lawyers at an Air Force base in California, temporarily seizing one computer and copying its hard drive in a search for evidence against the airman. Rehkopf protested the search in a letter to Air Force officials, calling it "bizarre" and "a conscious disregard of the attorney-client relationship."
Yes, it would be a conscious disregard. It would also be an indication that the case was so desperately weak that they were having to search illegally for confidential information to support it.
(Frankly, this would appear to be nothing more than the rankest and most vile official anti-Muslim conduct. The military has selectively prosecuted Yee for adultery, clearly not because they expect him to serve as a "moral compass" but because they simply don't have anything to charge him with.
Frankly, if the military were truly concerned about having its soldiers serve as "moral compasses", they might do something about the issue of sexual assaults on female GIs by male GIs, a problem which ought to be within their ability to control -- or at least to discipline -- about which they seem to be rather shockingly unconcerned.
But I digress.)
As far as Yee and Halabi are concerned, the government probably ought to simply drop all charges, apologize to the men, and send them back to their units, hoping desperately that the men don't leave. The military has put themselves in a most peculiar situation; on the one hand, they've been desperate for people who can speak and translate Arabic languages, but on the other, the people they do have are subject to high level, visible abuse. Most of the people with the language skills they seek are, perforce, of some Arab ethnicity. Only a true fool would go near the government under these circumstances.
Posted by iain at 01:32 PM
And I thought the PATRIOT Act military tribunals were draconian.
The Scotsman - Top Stories - Blunkett plans secret terror trials: DAVID Blunkett, the Home Secretary, aims to bring in controversial new laws introducing pre-emptive trials for Britons suspected of international terrorism, it will be announced today. The threat from suicide bombers was now so great that the burden of proof in British courts may have to be lowered in terrorism cases, so that extremists can be tried before they succeed in mounting an attack, Mr Blunkett argues. Proposals allowing British terror suspects to be tried at least partly in secret by a security vetted judge will be put forward in a discussion paper soon. Mr Blunkett hopes to "address the issues before the general election". The proposal would effectively create a hybrid between the existing trial system and emergency powers which have so far allowed internment of 16 foreign terror suspects on evidence which is tested in secret. Evidence in the new trials would even have to be kept secret from the defendants themselves to protect MI5, MI6 and GCHQ sources, he said. The contentious move could allow prosecutors to take action against extremist figures where evidence was not strong enough to win a conviction under existing court rules. "I think we need to debate how we can amalgamate the Terrorism Act 2000 and the 2001 terrorism legislation and deal with these delicate issues of proportionality and human rights on the one hand and evidential base and the threshold of evidence on the other," said Mr Blunkett.
So basically, the British position would be, "Well, we don't really have the evidence to convict you, but we think you're guilty, so we're going to create a special kangaroo court that will convict you just because we say so. We're not going to tell everyone what our evidence is, and we may not tell anyone that the trial is even taking place."
If they're doing this to defend their way of life, their democratic process ... then why bother?
This is the point that continually baffles me, both here and there. No, our written Constitution nor Britain's unwritten constitution need not constitute a mass suicide pact. That said, the principles embodied therein have to mean something. They can't just be words on paper (or in ether, in their case) that mean what we want them to mean until we get a little widgetty, for whatever reason. There must be some sort of balance that allows the government to do what it can to keep people safe without resorting to arbitrary dictatorship, which seems to be happening more and more in both countries.
The plain fact is, one of the costs of having an open society is that extremists will commit violent acts against people. For some reason, this doesn't seem to be a cost that we're willing to bear. At the same time, we're perfectly sanguine (in the most literal sense) to bear the costs of a society in which person-to-person violence kills more in a given year than we've ever lost to terrorism; there were 16,204 murders reported in 2002 in the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. It's understandable that the prospect of mass murders is terrifying. Somehow, we have to come to grips with the fact that it's possible, that despite our best efforts it will happen, and that we need somehow not to lose our minds when it does.
Posted by iain at 12:46 PM
Media Relations: halftime/ February 1, 2004: ... The Super Bowl halftime show was, clearly, turning into quite the experience.
And then it got just a wee bit more full of experience for everyone. ...
Posted by iain at 11:40 PM
