The nastiness around Proposition 8 has generated quite a few public displays from the more mean and venal people in the US. This guy Perkins (from the Family Research Council) seems to be a typical conservative Christian right-wing political and cultural activist. He opposes the standard things – homosexuality, abortions, sexual education for youth, etc, etc. According to the wiki site he also seems comfortable utilizing the Klu Klux Klan’s support base. No surprises there.

It’s also no surprise that he can’t actually argue and that the attorney David Boies (since he can argue) makes Mr Perkins look the fool. So when I went to Dispatches From the Culture Wars on Science Blogs and started to watch the clip, I wasn’t surprised to find myself shaking my head at the foolishness of it all. What I do find continually surprising (surprisingly so) is the deep painfulness of it. I can never watch video like this straight through.

For example, at 1:15 when Perkins cites abortion as a legislative parallel (Roe vs. Wade) and he says “abortion was no where near the political issue that it is today when the court interjected itself in 1973 to this issue.” “Interjected itself?”  Excuse me! (I paused the clip there, and went to clean the bathroom.) Ms McCorvey (she who was named Jane Roe) wanted to make a decision about her pregnancy and Texas’ anti-abortion laws denied her that right. She took it to court. The court reviewed the case (and reviewed it, and reviewed it). It went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Justices made a decision.

That decision is the whole point of the presence of the court system in the US. Its purpose is to be there to adjudicate arguments in a reasonable manner in line with the laws of the nation. The use of the word “interjected” in Perkins speech implies that the court insinuated itself into a place it had no authority or standing and that is exactly what it does have. Anyway, this is an example of why I find stuff like this so very painful.  It is also when Mr Perkins lost any chance of swaying me to see his side of things. I respond to patently emotional manipulation with irreversible scepticism.

So when (at 2:55) Mr Boies is asked to respond, you see that head-titled wide smile, and I understood that smile to say (what an idiot, this is like shooting fish in a barrel). I felt included and a part of the coming judgement upon Mr Perkins in part because Mr Boies never said anything like that. He relied upon his smile, his mild gesture, upon understatement. He acted as if he trusted me to make a sensible decision. Mr Boies’ strategy is much more effective than Mr Perkins’. Both are emotional, but at this point Mr Boises has not made himself look like a fool so I am at least willing to listen.

Then Mr Boies goes on to list the problems with the speech of Mr Perkins. One particularly interesting bit: in response to the claim that the judge ignored social science data Mr Boies says (3:02) “cite studies that either don’t exist or don’t say what you say they do.” Nice. And a normal response to unsubstantiated claims – produce the evidence. “There weren’t any of those studies. There weren’t any empirical studies. That’s just made up. That’s junk science.” There are a few really good lines in there. One of them was “The witness stand is a lonely place to lie.” and “We put fear and prejudice on trial and fear and prejudice lost.”

The transcripts (or as much of them as I have read – and checking the site today it doesn’t seem to be loading) bear out the contention that there is no evidence of harm to society offered by same sex marriage. There’s also a wikipedia article on Perry v. Schwarzenegger that lists “findings of fact” and the supporting evidence (with references so you can go check it out). Those findings (and facts) are pretty interesting. You can read the complete list of facts here (starts on page 54, ends at page 109 – there are 80 0f them).

After defining what marriage is and isn’t, the section “Whether any evidence shows California has an interest in differentiating between same-sex and opposite-sex unions” (starts with fact 42), decimates the idea that same sex marriage will harm society. In fact the facts show the opposite.  Despite this, I have no illusions that Mr Perkins (or the people he represents) will change their minds. I mean there are still people that think allowing interracial marriage was a mistake.

At 4:22 the host asks Perkins to give “us some evidence as to the harm that would be created by allowing same sex marriages.” Mr Perkins goes immediately to the harm done to children raised in a same-sex household. He then conflates no-fault divorce with dangers to children and implies that same-sex households offer the same dangers to children. (Pause button – my kitchen counters and cupboard doors got a good soapy wipe-down.) That seems to me to be an argument for promoting marriage amongst same sex people. If marriage (and the commitments it fosters) support healthy children, then any state should want to make marriage a viable option for those couples who want to (or are) raising children together.

Boies responds at 5:29. Same smile but here he is gesturing more emphatically, at least at the beginning. It’s as if he is responding to the tension created by Perkins’ reference to the stereotypical fears of those it does not understand or want to include in the concept “our nation.”)  He points out the fallacy of the no-fault divorce aspect of Prop 8′s proponents’ arguments. He then cites the existence of studies in other countries (Canada being one) and other states that demonstrate that there is no harm to society by allowing same sex marriage. He ends with the contrary, that empirical studies of the last 20 years show that allowing same sex marriage promotes stability and reduces harm.  By the end of his speech his arm gestures have calmed, and of course so has his audience. It was really nicely done, whether conscious or not. Take the irritation and upset caused by Perkins and undermine it (and him) by both fact and gestural calming.

How does Perkins respond? At 8:25 he uses the “interjecting” technique again and ties his idea of traditional marriage to “the history of the human race.” (Walked the dog.) Jeez. Fail, dude. Fail.

My final comment on this is about Brayton, the blogger responsible for “Dispatches From the Culture Wars.” He says “Boise absolutely destroys Perkins. It’s not a close call who wins.” While no where near as silly as Perkins’ attempt at emotional appeal, it does situate the dialog between Boies, Perkins and the commentator as a skirmish with a clear victor. That isn’t actually true because Perkins’ appeal at the end hoping for a “sane” decision from the Supreme Court and his concept of what it means to be human (and the non-empirical history of the species that was woven to support it) will not change. The “win” will not stop the cultural civil war ongoing in the US. Brayton’s comment is a fist pump celebration for a nice move on that part of one of his team’s members. It has no more relevance to the actual state of the war than a football fan’s yahoooooooo when one of the opposing team reveals his momentary clumsiness.  I get the rush, but the thing is when Prop 8 first passed in California, it was exactly the same feeling that the proponents (e.g. Tam) felt in their “victory.” I got that too. The sense of victory Brayton felt is also, just about as meaningful.

Reason can never win in a contest against emotion. At best reason can be used to foster one set of feelings (self-preservation and economic desire are good ones) that are in opposition to another set of feelings (fear and stereotyping, for example – a constant for mean and venal people). Boies’ masterful use of non-verbal emotional signals along with the constant verbal reference to reason and fact is a good model. There was no fist pumping in evidence.

By the way, it took me almost two hours to be able to watch the whole 8 or so minutes. That’s how painful I find this. Still, my bathroom is now much cleaner. So are my kitchen counters. And the dog is walked and the garden watered.

via Dispatches From the Culture Wars

I had a bad evening and night – nasty, nasty dreams about killing and animals and then woke about 04:30 feeling disgruntled and fragile. A cool shower and a walk later, I still can’t shake the miseries so I went online seeking comfort and found that U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker has said

Plaintiffs challenge Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Each challenge is independently meritorious, as Proposition 8 both unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an irrational classification on the basis of sexual orientation. (page 109, lines 12-17)

I am not giddy, but I definitely feel quite a bit more cheerful about the day. That was especially true when I read page 10, lines 5-22. This is a summary of the (Prop 8 ) proponents’ argument:

Proponents’ procreation argument, distilled to its essence, is as follows: the state has an interest in encouraging sexual activity between people of the opposite sex to occur in stable marriages because such sexual activity may lead to pregnancy and children, and the state has an interest in encouraging parents to raise children in stable households. Tr 3050:17-3051:10. The state therefore, the argument goes, has an interest in encouraging all opposite-sex sexual activity, whether responsible or irresponsible, procreative or otherwise, to occur within a stable marriage, as this encourages the development of a social norm that opposite-sex sexual activity should occur within marriage. Tr 3053:10-24. Entrenchment of this norm increases the probability that procreation will occur within a marital union. Because same sex couples’ sexual activity does not lead to procreation, according to proponents the state has no interest in encouraging their sexual activity to occur within a stable marriage. Thus, according to proponents, the state’s only interest is in opposite sex sexual activity.

Jeez. If the “state” is really interested in stable households for the purposes of (presumably) mentally and socially stable future citizens and taxpayers, then marriage between the opposite sex probably isn’t the way to go since marriages between persons of the opposite sex are somewhat unstable. In fact the CDC has a faststat that says that in 2009 the marriage rate was 7.1 per 1000 total population and the divorce rate was 3.5 based on the same population number. Proponents of Prop 8 might want to turn their energies to finding a better alternative than marriage if their interest is actually in life stability for future citizens. While they’re at it they might want to look into alternatives to religiously based bigotry.

The ruling is here.

So I was visiting Pharyungula this morning and saw this:

Nearly choked on my tea. As it was, what was left in the cup went splooshing all over my desk. Had to rescue my (second) keyboard.

It was so funny that I had to do some tracking.

So Pharyngula got it from relevant to your interests who (probably) got it from the KKK website. It’s a news release on their site. “News!”

I can hardly imagine that there is anyone who isn’t familiar with the hateful silliness of the Westboro Baptist Church, its pastor Fred Phelps and his family/congregation. Their website address is http://www.godhatesfags.com/ That should tell you what you need to know about their minds.

The site appears to be down. I’d suspect some divine intervention if I could bring myself to believe in such things. However, I so suspect some “divine” messing around might be involved.  They do tend to garner some negative attention for themselves that results in enemies. If you’re interested there’s a documentary about the WBC family on youtube. There’s a particularly funny little vid where some enterprising young man took it upon himself to flirt with a WBC dude. Look around. There’s no shortage of funny stuff with the WBC at its center.

And then there’s the KKK. Their website seems to indicate that they are seeking to be seen as holding a more moderate position with respect to society than the one held by the Phelps clan. The Klan went so far as to post the news release above saying they don’t like the WBC. Man. You know you’re low down when…

I’d never had the occasion to visit the KKK site before. It’s actually kind of interesting.  The first paragraph reads:

For nearly 150 years there has been a Ku Klux Klan in America. It was born on the heels of desperate war in a time when most disagreements were still settled at gun point. Great and horrific battles were fought, brother against brother. Jesse James was robbing banks and trains. 1865 was a violent time and the now defeated south would feel the wrath of the industrial north in ways yet unimagined by the people of the south. Born in a desperate hour this humble fraternity, became the central driving force during Americas “Reconstruction”. It was not like the reconstruction that would later take place for the German and Japanese, after World War Two. It was not like the reconstruction taking place today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Southern reconstruction was punitive.

Their interpretation of history is fascinating. That they see themselves as a “central driving force” in the reconstruction of the South following the end of the civil war and simultaneously as a “humble fraternity” is interesting. Also of interest is the fact that they compare what the Southern US went through to the post-WWII reconstruction of Germany and Japan. I presume they are attempting to allude to Nagasaki and Hiroshima and thereby asserting that what was done in the Southern US by the Republicans during reconstruction was akin to a nuclear bomb blast. Well, I suppose taking away slavery as an economic strategy did have a powerful impact on a plantation-based civilization. As far as the punishment of Germany, I think they might have used the post-WWI example rather than the post-WWII because the cold war meant that the post-war punishment phase was considerably shorter following WWII than it was during WWI, but the KKK membership may not be sophisticated readers of history, so I suppose some latitude with respect to exemplars must be granted.

Agreed that southern reconstruction was not painless. If you’re interested in an account here’s the wikipedia entry. The argument between the Republican groups (Lincoln’s party) was over how hard to stomp on southern intent to secede and to keep their (slavery required) plantation economic system in place. The radicals won which meant harder stomping.

From wikipedia:

The Republican Congress established military districts in the South and used Army personnel to administer the region until new governments loyal to the Union could be established. While Congress temporarily suspended the ability to vote of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 white men who had been Confederate officials or senior officers, constitutional amendments gave full citizenship and suffrage to former slaves.

With the power to vote, freedmen started participating in politics. While many slaves were illiterate, educated blacks (including escaped slaves) moved down from the North to aid them, and natural leaders also stepped forward. They elected white and black men to represent them in constitutional conventions. A Republican coalition of freedmen, southerners supportive of the Union (derisively called scalawags by white Democrats), and northerners who had migrated to the South (derisively called carpetbaggers—some of whom were returning natives, but were mostly Union veterans), organized to create constitutional conventions. They created new state constitutions to set new directions for southern states.

It’s this that the KKK “humble fraternity” was created to oppose.

They still oppose it, although they also claim relevancy in today’s world. Today’s attempt at relevancy is based on their creation of an ideal of “white culture” which they then vigorously defend. (An interesting way to use the strawman argument.) It’s this attempt to maintain a toehold in today’s world that has them repudiating the Phelps family and the WBC attempts to purify America of all non-Phelpians.

Anyway, I suspect the KKK disclaimer is not really so much about disagreeing with WBC ideals as with their somewhat obvious methods. The KKK today is going for subtle.

What I’d like to know is what had the KKK posting the disclaimer.  That might be interesting to know. I suspect a secret conspiracy, agreed to with a secret WBC-KKK handshake.

You’ve heard about the terrible trouble being had by Haitians because of the recent earthquake. You’ve probably heard about Pat Robertson’s analysis of the causes of said trouble.  If not, check out NPR’s reporting. If you need a shot to your irony-meter you could also watch the youtube clip below. If you don’t have an irony-meter, you might want to avoid the clip since it will just make you mad. If you watched it anyway, then there is a anti-toxin you can take. I suggest an immediate dose to prevent cerebral melt-down. Read this. It should set you back to rights.

I was reading The Daily Beast earlier today. In it there is an article called “Summer of Hate: 25 signs trouble is brewing.”  It’s just what the title implies: it lists 25 events in the American world since June of this year that seem to point toward a (probably) immanent explosion of violence like, perhaps, the one we saw in 1968 (which the article briefly mentions). It’s a nice title, since it gets its power from mocking the 1967 Summer of Love.

I remember 1968.  I was 12 and had moved from the northeast of the US to Houston, Texas. When Martin Luther King was shot, I had been in town less than a year. I didn’t know how to comport myself in the place. I didn’t know it wasn’t OK to let my dark-skinned neighbor child (a Mexican foster kid staying with a white foster mommy) into my house, and that based on that transgression, my neighbors’ parents wouldn’t let them play with me.  I didn’t know that my voice (with its faint British accent) would arouse such suspicion.  I didn’t know that it was OK for the white teachers in my school to reduce the Mexican-American Spanish teacher to tears by refusing to allow her to sit in the teachers’ lounge.  I was pretty stupid really and because of that I was kicked out of the sixth grade. (It was my first, but not last, expulsion.) I probably deserved it; I was terminally insolent.  I have to admit, to them, I was probably a really nasty little brat.
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I watch Rachel Maddow, and recently I saw a clip called “Making Painful Decisions.” The clip below starts at 3 minutes 56 seconds and goes to the end.  Essentially it is a clip of the lawyer for Terry Schiavo’s husband speaking to the fear being drummed up against living wills by some Republicans as a way of trying to impede health care reform. Right near the end George Felos says “the only thing this bill does is say we will pay the doctor for the conversation. That’s it.”

He is, of course, refering to the conversation a dying person should have with their family and health care provider about what they want done for them and to them at the end of their lives. This conversation is what some Republicans are saying is a plot to kill the elderly. Bah. If its a plot at all, it as a plot to get people involved with their families, to talk to them, to open lines of communication, to speak to each other about the hard stuff.

The earlier segment of the clip shows that the principle opponents of the living will provision have a history of supporting exactly what they now oppose. I sure hope Mr. Felos is right when he suggests that the political downfall of some of those who used Mrs. Schiavo’s end to bring themselves political attention is something that will repeat itself with respect to some of these current conspiracy “theorists.”

It takes a mean spirited person to add to the pain and confusion that dying brings with it and that is what they are doing by trying to kill such a simple provision: help people speak to their doctors and families about what they want their death to be like.