Monthly Archives: February 2004
Hypocrisy from Gay Marriage Supporter
1
Human Rights Campaign president Cheryl Jacques did a nice job of making my major point about gay marriage — that many of those supporting gay marriage are hypocrites unwilling to take their views to their logical outcome.
Here’s a partial transcript of Jacques appearance on Crossfire on Feb. 24 (emphasis added),
TUCKER CARLSON: I beg your pardon. I want to — I want to ask you a question. And I want you to answer it. No one ever answers this question. And perhaps you will.
The standards that the Massachusetts Supreme Court set was intimacy. People are intimate, share intimacy, they deserve to be married. Why draw the line at two people, say? Why shouldn’t a group of three men, for instance, by that standard, be able to be married? It’s an honest question. I’d like an honest answer, please.
CHERYL JACQUES: Here’s an honest answer. Tucker, I’m raising two sons. I want them to be in love with a committed partner. I want them to have a family. I want grandchildren. I want them to take care of each other. I want them to share each other’s health insurance. I want, when one of them dies, the other one to be able to receive Social Security survivor benefits, because they’ll pay into it, as I do.
CARLSON: OK, but you haven’t answered the question yet.
JACQUES: I just answered it.
CARLSON: No, no, why not three?
JACQUES: I want two committed parents, like every family.
CARLSON: But why deny the right of free people
(CROSSTALK)
JACQUES: Because I don’t approve of that.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Why don’t you approve of it?
PAUL BEGALA: Who is asking for it?
SEN. J.D. HAYWORTH: Well, I’ll tell you who is asking for it.
JACQUES: The American Pediatrics Association, all the leading groups say two committed parents.
CARLSON: But give me a reason. I don’t understand.
(CROSSTALK)
JACQUES: That’s what makes for a healthy family and a loving family and that’s what I want.
For Jacques, the standard for marriage then is whether or not she approves of a particular permutation of consenting adults who might choose to get married.
So now we see a clear difference between opponents and proponents of gay marriage. Many of those opposed to gay marriage argue should not be allowed because they don’t approve of it. Jacques and other supporters of gay marriage don’t think polygamous marriage should be allowed because they don’t approve of it.
They’re all one big happy family.
Could a Defense of Marriage Amendment Become Part of the Constitution?
Dave Winer absurdly claims that an amendement to the Constitution defining marriage as being between one woman and one man could never be adopted,
The hot story today is the President’s call to amend the US Constitution to prevent gay marriage. You heard it here first: It won’t pass. It can’t.
But the reasons Winer gives make little sense.
Homosexuality is becoming fairly accepted in the US.
Yes, but gay marriage is not “fairly accepted.” National polls show Americans oppose gay marriage by roughly a 2-1 margin. That number tends to increase rather than decrease when gay marriage is actually in the news.
Winer continues,
This amendment won’t pass anywhere outside the Deep South.
In order for an amendment to succeed after making it out of Congress, it would have to be adopted by 38 states. Care to guess how many states have passed laws that define marriage as only between one man and one woman?
That’s right, boys and girls, 38.
And the idea that opposition to gay marriage is a Southern issue only is ridiculous. Ohio adopted an anti-gay marriage law just a few weeks ago.
Which is not to say that the gay marriage amendment is likely to become adopted. Getting any amendment through is difficult, and while polls show that Americans oppose gay marriage, they are not very keen on this sort of amendment either. Currently polls show about 49 percent of Americans opposed to such an amendment.
But that’s doesn’t necessarily mean the amendment is doomed. Remember, the amendment needs 38 states, not 50 percent of the vote. It is very likely that a disproporationate number of pro-gay marriage voters are located in a very small number of states, such as California or Massachussetts. Just as George W. Bush was able to win the White House without winning a popular majority, so could an anti-gay marriage amendment be adopted even if a slight majority of Americans oppose it.
Personally, I suspect the biggest obstacle to such an amendment will be getting it past Congress. Democrats will likely adopt John Kerry’s bizarre position that he is against gay marriage but that an amendment banning gay marriage would be “divisive.”
LRA Kills Almost 200 in Weekend Attack
Lord’s Resistance Army soldiers attacked a camp for displaced persons near Lira, Uganda, this weekend. According to the BBC, 190 of the estimated 4,000 people living in the camp were killed in the attack and many more were injured.
The BBC quoted MP Charles Angiro describing the attack,
The rebels came with sophisticated guns… and grenades. When they arrived at the camp at 5.30pm, they approached it from three fronts – from the north, east and south and left the western side for their exit. . . They bombed the camp… and overpowered the local defence forces and then started burning the huts.
Angiro complained that the army has not done enough to protect civilians in the area from the LRA, and that it had tried to downplay the extent of the casualities.
Angiro told the BBC that he counted at least 500 huts burned to the ground by the LRA.
Source:
Uganda rebels ‘burnt my family alive’. The BBC, February 23, 2004.
School Official Admits Planting Drugs in Student’s Locker
What is the deal with overzealous school officials when it comes to drugs? First there was that video of the cops with guns drawn in a southern high school, and now there’s this story on the front page of my local paper today,
An assistant high school principal is being investigated after police say he admitted to planting marijuana in a student’s locker.
Police say Pat Conroy told them earlier this month that he placed the marijuana in the male student’s locker at South Haven High School last year because he suspected the student was a drug dealer. Conroy told police he was trying to get the boy expelled.
But the plan failed because a police drug dog didn’t find the contraband during a school search, The Herald-Palladium of St. Joseph reported in a Friday story.
Sounds like the students had more to fear from the criminals in the administration office than from the alleged criminals in their midst.
Source:
Assistant principal admits planting marijuana in student’s locker Associated Press, February 20, 2004.
February 1, 2004 Anti-War Protest
Below are images from a protest by the |Kalamazoo Non-Violent Opponents to War|
held in downtown Kalamazoo on February 1, 2004:
I count about 25 people there when I showed up about 12:30 p.m. Not a bad turnout
for a cold Michigan winter day.
“522 dead for Haliburton.” Hmm, where have I seen that sign before?
I’m still wondering how that guy back in December was counting — maybe he was
using some fractional-based numbering system.
I don’t think you’ll ever be able to end violence, but the war in Iraq was
one giant step toward diminishing it overall in the Middle East.
War is not terrorism.
It’s hard to read in this picture, but the sign on the lower right says “No
to Israel’s Apartheid Wall.”
Some of the anti-Israeli left think that the wall Israel is building to separate
itself from Palestinian areas could be used to turn the tide of public opinion
here against Israel. I doubt this issue could ever really resonate with most
Americans, especially given Israel’s understandable need to thwart terrorist
acts against its citizens.
It’s interesting that for all the “End Violence” and “Live Dr.
King’s Dream” signs you see at these rallies, you never see anything specifically
condemning Palestinian acts of terrorism. Israel’s wall is “apartheid,”
but apparently they can’t be bothered to express an opinon about suicide bombers
targeting busses.
Here we have two winners. First, “Pre-emptive war on Iraq will
has fueled terrorism!” Huh? Where?
Next to that one we have “War is wrong whatever the outcome.” Ah
yes, Gandhi’s philosophical heirs. At least they’re honest enough to put the
central tenet of pacifism for everyone to see it’s absurdity.
Archos Gmini 220
I am a total sucker for gadgets like the Archos Gmini 220 (what a horrible product title).
Okay, it’s your basic 20 gb MP3 player. But wait, there’s more. Add an attachment and it becomes an FM radio as well, and you can record directly to the HD. But there’s still more — add an external microphone and capture lectures and presentations.
Not enough? Transfer and store files from all major flash memory cards onto the HD — great for temporarily storing digital photographs on the road to free up that expensive flash memory.
The unit can display the photos, but only in monochrome. I’m only interested in storing them not viewing them, so that’s not a big issue for me, but might be for others.
And the price is a rather respectable $350. I think I’m in love.
GreyTuesday.Org
Via Boing! Boing! it appears that activists have set up GreyTuesday.Org to encourage people to mirror The Grey Album on February 24.
The Grey Album is a mix album making the rounds that takes the vocals from Jay-Z’s The Black Album and mixes it with samples from the Beatles’ White Album.
Rolling Stone called The Grey Album “an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time” and the Boston Globe said it was the “most creatively captivating” album of the year.”
Okay, I will grant that it does make Jay-Z (barely) listenable for more than a few minutes at a time, though a couple run throughs on the CD player was all I needed.
Anyway, the Grey Tuesday folks apparently are upset that there’s no compulsory licensing system for samples of music. So if you want to re-record a Beatles tune you can, you just have to pay a set fee to do so. If you want to sample a Beatles tune, you have to pretty much beg the Beatles’ record company to do so, and they’re going to say no regardless of how much money you offer them.
Asimov’s Responds to Wood TV 8 Piece
Asimov’s Science Fiction today posted a response to that Wood TV 8 hit piece on them that I mentioned the other day (see In Which I Discover My Wife’s Adult Magazine Collection) that claims Wood TV 8 distorted and outright lied about several key parts of its story on Asimov’s.
Reporter Kristi Andersen and the News 8 anchors portrayed the QSP magazine drive as children buying and selling magazines. As a matter of fact, in this fundraising drive, students sell magazines to their family, their neighbors, and their parentsÂ’ coworkers. We reviewed the QSP catalog with the reporter and showed her that many of the magazines are for adults, including Esquire, Vogue, GQ, and Elle. As we showed the reporter, the QSP catalog has a section specifically geared to children, and indicates age-appropriate titles. AsimovÂ’s was correctly listed in the catalog, not under “Children,” but under “Science/Technology/Environmental.” The reporter chose not to include this information in her report, and, in fact, said that we “did not know it was on the school magazine list.”
In Ms. AndersenÂ’s report, she stated that QSP dropped AsimovÂ’s as a result of the parentÂ’s complaint and News 8Â’s subsequent investigation, saying the “magazine has now been pulled from the list,” and that “since 24 News 8 started this investigation, QSP has permanently severed its relationship” with Asimov’s. In fact, we provided Ms. Andersen with documentation showing that our relationship with QSP ended several months earlier over remit rates (the amount of money the publisher receives from the agent for each subscription the agent sells), not as a result of this incident.
. . .
News 8 should have allowed AsimovÂ’s Science Fiction the opportunity to respond to their characterization of our magazine, and our disappointment in their distortion of the facts is profound. In our opinion, Ms. Andersen and the News 8 channel are not practicing journalism, but sensationalism. They know, better than most, that “sex sells.”
As I said in my first post on this issue, the area Wood TV-8 covers is very conservative. The last big story on Grandville I can remember was during the last election cycle about whether or not Grandville should keep its ban on Sunday alcohol sales, so this kind of reporting plays well around here. This is a part of the state where you can get suspended from school for wearing a Korn t-shirt.
This sort of sensationalistic reporting tends to go over well and shows up a lot on this Wood TV 8.
Uganda Supreme Rules in Favor of Journalists Prosecuted Over LRA Story
The Ugandan Supreme Court this month agreed with the arguments of two journalists who claimed they had been unconstitutionally prosecuted under an Ugandan law making it illegal to report “false information.”
The Supreme Court decisions led to the dropping of some charges against three journalists who had reported in 2002 that the Lord’s Resistance Army downed a government helicopter. The journalists are, however, still being prosecuted for “publishing articles that are contrary to national security.”
Source:
Threats to Press Freedom Remain Despite Striking Down of Repressive Legislation, Says CPJ. Press Release, Committee to Protect Journalists, February 13, 2004.
