As we all know, a dump of less-than-favorable information always happens on a Friday, and something of this magnitude — 71-year-old cancer survivor and war torture survivor John McCain’s health records — happened on the Friday of a holiday weekend — and the terms of review of them were curiously restricted. (Newsweek):

During his first presidential run, eight years ago, McCain disclosed hundreds of pages of records to reporters as he sought then to counter what aides called a “whisper campaign” questioning his mental fitness. In those records, medical personnel concluded that his years in prison, including solitary confinement, left him with no psychological wounds. Aides said McCain has had no mental evaluations in the past eight years.

This time, a small group of reporters reviewed 1,173 pages of medical documents that span 2000 to 2008 over several hours in a conference room at a resort just outside Phoenix and a few miles from the posh Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, where McCain receives most of his medical care under a pseudonym — which reporters were asked not to disclose.

By the way, we never learned in February that McCain had yet another cancerous growth removed from his face:

McCain’s most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He frequently has precancerous skin lesions removed, and in February had an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, an easily cured skin cancer, removed. He had benign colon growths called polyps taken out during a routine colonoscopy in March.

The cancer issue, while a relevant health issue to consider when electing someone to the highest office in the land, is not nearly as critical as the fact Sen. John McCain hasn’t had a mental evaluation in eight years. More below the fold.
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Do I even need to bother identifying U.S. Representative Paul Broun as a Republican? With an economic wasteland left by this president, as well as military carnage, waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption, of course this guy has to pull out the Homo Straw man — he has nothing else to run on. (Washington Blade):

Backlash from the California Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage continued this week as U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) said he plans to introduce an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Broun, a freshman Congressman from Augusta, announced his intent May 20.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun says an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is needed to protect heterosexual marriage from ‘activist judges.’

“What the activist judges in California have shown is that the traditional definition of marriage is under assault by a cadre of lawyers and judges who hold the will of the voters in contempt,” Broun said in a press release. “As a result, a political and social question that should be resolved at the ballot box is being imposed by a handful of liberal elites.”

…Broun’s proposed amendment states: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any state, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”

See him bleat about the California Supreme Court ruling after the jump.
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Creepy bastard Rulon Jeffs poses with his newly acquired wives shortly before he died of old age.

William Saletan has two posts up about the slippery slope threats made by conservatives regarding gay marriage—basically, that if we allow that, then polygamy and incest are next. Saletan agrees with the slippery slope argument, but doesn’t think it’s a bad thing to switch from the taboo model of managing human sexual relations to the harm reduction/privacy model that he thinks is the groundwork for homosexuality. I’m not saying that he’s strictly wrong in his views on tolerance of cousins marrying or polygamy—consenting adults and all that—but I think his assumptions about the groundwork that made same-sex marriage possible is all off, and it taints his argument.

I don’t think that same-sex marriage is becoming more socially acceptable because people are more interested in privacy. I think it’s a matter of increasing egalitarianism and feminism especially. And so I strongly disagree with him that the tides are turning towards more social acceptance of cousin marriage and polygamy.

Cousin marriage doesn’t really seem to be a feminist issue, but the implication that Saletan is trotting out—that there’s some tide turning in favor of allowing it—goes against history in a big way. Saletan has got to know this, since he trots out cousin marriers like Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. In half the states of the U.S., marrying your first cousin is legal, and those are the sort of laws that hang on from the past, and are not recent innovations that stem from increasing tolerance. The incest taboo in American and Western European cultures has recently expanded to cover first cousin incest,* and my sense of it is that it’s a result of people’s greater mobility and urbanity. We just meet a lot more people than in the rural past. We have high school, college, and internet dating now. Cousin marriage has become a marker of severe social isolation and backwardness.

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According to Town Hall columnist, racism apologist and author Dinesh D’Souza, the advancement of gay rights via the courts is undermining our democracy. I almost refrained from posting this asshattery, but I just couldn’t after reading:

Now the high court of California has made gay marriage into a right that is immune from restriction by the majority of citizens in the state. We already know what California citizens think about gay marriage: they oppose it. A referendum outlawing gay marriage was passed with the support of the state’s voters. More than 60 percent of voters cast their ballots against gay marriage.

How, then, can a court invalidate the referendum and over-rule the will of the people? Basically through a kind of legal fraud. The court has to pretend that there is a right to gay marriage even though it is nowhere evident in the state constitution.

And since when did the will of the majority become the standard for extending civil rights to a minority group? Oh yes, when the fundies said so. And look at this nonsense:

In the past Democrats have always appreciated courts doing their dirty work when it comes to issues like abortion, pornography, prostitution and gay rights. This way Democrats can advance their permissive agenda without having to take political responsibility for voting against the values of a majority of voters. It’s time to make the Democrats pay for this in the November election.

I guess Loving v. Virginia was “dirty work” in his book as well as Brown v. Board of Ed. Go read the rest of that insanity. I just cannot deal with this level of bigotry today.

UPDATE 2: Happy Happy Joy Joy! Here is The Peter:

How Will California Homosexual Couples Consummate their Counterfeit ‘Marriages’?

JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AT ITS WORST: This will always be immoral. California’s highest court has created a “fundamental” marriage right out of behavior - homosexuality - that is fundamentally wrong and destructive. At left is a homosexual male kissing scene as it appeared on the CBS soap “As the World Turns.” Everywhere Americans turn - TV, media, schools, in corporations and the courts - this unhealthy and immoral behavior is being promoted

(UPDATE: Bam Bam Barber of Concerned Women weighs in below the fold.)

Ah, before we get to the Freepi, how about this delicious reaction from the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, who believes civil rights should be determined at the ballot box.

It’s outrageous that the court has overturned not only the historic definition of marriage, but the clear will of the people of California, as expressed in Proposition 22. said FRC President Tony Perkins. The California Supreme Court assumed the powers of a legislative body by imposing same-sex marriage. However, in 2000, the people of California spoke loudly and clearly on the value of marriage when 61 percent of voters approved Proposition 22.

The California Supreme Court has taken a jackhammer to the democratic process, and the right of the people to affect change in public policy. Four judges discarded the votes of 4,618,673 Californians who approved the states Defense of Marriage Act. Voters understand that children should not be deprived of a mother or a father, added Perkins.

I can’t wait for the flying spittle from Focus on the Anus, Bam Bam of Concerned Women for America and The Peter. Right now, take a look at the swamps of Freeperland as they wail, and in one case seems to be calling for violence (big surprise).

It’s below the fold.
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(UPDATE 1:15 PM: Equality wins!)

(NOTE: There will be real-time coverage at my place.)

At 1PM ET, California’s Supreme Court will on whether same-sex couples may marry in the state. The official document announcing the pending ruling is here. The question:

Does California’s statutory ban on marriage between two persons of the same sex violate the California Constitution by denying equal protection of the laws on the basis of sexual orientation or sex, by infringing on the fundamental right to marry, or by denying the right to privacy and freedom of expression?

The Governator opposes the current constitutional amendment ballot initiative that will go to voters in November, and has said that he will abide by the court’s decision. An impact of this ruling, if it is in favor of equality, is how the presidential candidates will respond, since both Clinton and Obama have clung to a life raft of “marriage is between a man and a woman” for religious reasons and/or letting the states decide the civil matter, which naturally brings up the precedent of Loving v. Virginia. One can only hope that we don’t see the kind of punt we witnessed in New York in 2006, though the legislature in California has already shown its ability to pass marriage equality legislation.

Here is interesting info emailed to me by The Williams Institute, a research center at UCLA School of Law. It’s a national think tank dedicated to research on issues of sexual orientation law and public policy.

• As of 2006, there are an estimated 109,000 same-sex couples in California (2006 American Community Survey, US Census Bureau).
• More than 41,000 California couples have registered as domestic partners, approximately 38% of all same-sex couples (Williams Institute).
• California same-sex couples are raising an estimated 70,000 children (Amicus Brief, Badgett and Gates)
• Marriage equality would add approximately $123 million to the California budget in the first three years that marriage is open to same-sex couples (Badgett and Sears, Stanford Law and Policy Review)
• Demographic characteristics of same-sex registered partners in California (Carpenter and Gates, forthcoming in Demography):
• Male same-sex registered partners in California have been partnered for an average of 12 years.
• Female same-sex registered partners in California have been partnered for an average of 9 years.
• The average age of same-sex registered partners is 44.
• A third of female registered same-sex couples are raising children.

Links:

* Amicus Brief (Gates and Badgett)
* Badgett CA State Senate Testimony
* Putting a Price on Equality: The Impact of Same-sex Marriage on California’s Budget (Badgett and Sears, Stanford Law and Policy Review)
* The Effect of Marriage Equality and Domestic Partnership on Business and the Economy (Gates and Badgett)

Meanwhile, the wingnuts in the state of North Carolina have introduced another marriage amendment bill. More below the fold.
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Out. Of. Control. Dateline Kamloops, British Columbia - Three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers apparently couldn’t subdue an elderly patient. The sadistic sickness continues. BTW, you can see pics of the man’s stun gun burns at the CBC site.

Frank Lasser, 82, appeared fragile Thursday when he showed the stun gun marks on his body and talked about the ordeal he went through Saturday.

“They [police] should have known I had bypass surgery,” Lasser told CBC News.

Lasser has had heart surgery and needs to carry an apparatus to supply oxygen at all times. He was in the Royal Inland Hospital Saturday due to pneumonia but has since been released.

RCMP said nurses called police after Lasser became delirious and pulled a knife out of his pocket.

Lasser told CBC News that he sometimes become delusional when he can’t breathe properly. He said he couldn’t explain why he refused to let go of the knife even after the Mounties arrived.

“I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, I forget which it was, and said to the guys, ‘OK, get him because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,’” Lasser said.

The article also refers to the Taser as “the conducted energy weapon.”

Hat tip, Shane.

The Blend Taser files.

Image from Gretchen Schermerhorn.

So, this Ecuadorian politician named Maria Soledad Vela has tried to write women’s right to sexual pleasure into the nation’s constitution. From what I understand, the law is just about laying the groundwork for public policies that acknowledge that women are sexual agents, not just wombs on feet. And everything that would follow—good education, reproductive rights, etc. Perhaps that’s why so many male politicians are throwing first class hissy fits. One claimed that this meant mandatory orgasm provision. (Oh noes!) Another suggested that the legislation is like life in prison. I had an imagine of a man with a woman strapped spread eagle to his face like a feedbag, but that’s the only way I could really see this as a prison.

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Pam posted yesterday about the passing of Mildred Loving, linking the struggle to legalize interracial marriage with the struggle to legalize same-sex marriage. P.Z. put up a post demonstrating the religious wingnuttery that came into play in justifying the criminalization of the Lovings’ marriage, by quoting some of Mildred Loving’s account of the whole thing.

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night in our own bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the “crime” of marrying the wrong kind of person. Our marriage certificate was hanging on the wall above the bed. The state prosecuted Richard and me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” He sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

Taking the two together, it’s doubly clear not only are same-sex marriage rights linked with interracial marriage rights because they have arguments in common for them, but also because the opponents are the same assholes they’ve always been, using the same arguments that they always have. (In sum: “God shares my bigotry!”) The fight for interracial marriage was part of the culture wars, just like reproductive rights, gay rights, and the separation of church and state.

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Those of us eagerly waiting for the day when same-sex marriage is finally legalized across the land owe a debt of gratitude to Mildred Loving, whose 1967 case (Loving v. Virginia) resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision that broke down a major social and legal barrier - interracial marriage.

Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.

Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.

…Richard Loving died in 1975 in a car accident that also injured his wife.

In a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, Loving said she wasn’t trying to change history — she was just a girl who once fell in love with a boy.

“It wasn’t my doing,” Loving said. “It was God’s work.”

Last year was the 40th anniversary of the landmark ruling. Mrs. Loving said this:

“When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn’t to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married.

…Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry.

…I am proud that Richard’s and my name are on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

Here is her full statement, via Freedom To Marry..

I will give Ronald Rychlak props for one thing — bringing the objection of religious institutions to gay and lesbian couples marrying to the bottom $$$ line.

Regardless of what it is called, legal sanctioning of homosexual relationships creates a host of unintended consequences and constitutes a serious threat to religious liberty.

Consider what happened in Massachusetts in 2004: Justices of the peace who refused to preside over same-sex unions due to moral or religious objections were summarily fired. Since same-sex unions were entitled to be treated the same as traditional marriages, this refusal was discrimination and a firing offense.

What about a priest or minister who similarly refuses to preside at such ceremonies? Obviously the state can’t fire such people, but it is easy to foresee other sanctions — such as loss of tax benefits — being imposed on churches.

The piece cites the NJ complaint by a lesbian couple who wanted to use a Methodist ministry-owned pavilion for their civil union ceremony. While it was allowed to ban same-sex couples, the Garden State revoked the ministry’s tax-free status.

These people fail to realize that the government doesn’t have to subsidize, through tax-breaks, a church’s ability to discriminate. More whining:

If homosexual marriages or civil unions are the equivalent of traditional marriages, you can’t discriminate. If you do, at the very least you put your government benefits at risk.

This is the same rationale that was used by the Supreme Court in 1983 to uphold stripping Bob Jones University of its tax-exempt status due to its racial policies.

And so, this means what? Should BJU be allowed to ban interracial dating? It appears the world didn’t come to an end when that onerous policy was abandoned. These folks want Uncle Sam to subsidize their ability to discriminate.

State Rep. Sally Kern — how about this fine upstanding citizen of your state? Is he more or less of a threat to society than your average aggressive radical homosexual or everyday homosexual?

Michael Burgess, sheriff in Custer County, OK is a pious family man, he even offers a Sheriff’s prayer on his website. Unfortunately he needs a few prayers right now, as he is charged with abusing his authority by offering leniency to inmates in exchange for getting blown and laid.

Michael Burgess, sheriff in Custer County, Okla., since 1994, surrendered to state law enforcement agents Wednesday and appeared in district court to face 35 felony charges, including multiple counts of rape, forcible oral sodomy, bribery by a public official and perjury.

More details below the fold, including a snippet of Jesus’ General’s letter to Sally about the goings-on in her little slice of pious heaven.
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Wow. In light of the recent gay panic verdict in Michigan, the idea that a defense attorney can float the idea that 15-year-old Oxnard, CA student Lawrence King deserved to die because he didn’t conform to gender norms is sickening. We’re looking at a trans-panic defense.

On Feb. 12, King was shot during an English class minutes after school started, and classmate Brandon McInerney, 14, was arrested a few blocks away. King later died in an Oxnard hospital, and McInerney was charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime.

It’s a tragedy, McInerney’s defense attorney said in an interview, but one he believes might have been avoided if someone had stepped in to help beforehand. Senior Deputy Public Defender William Quest said E.O. Green’s administration knew about tension on the middle school campus and allowed the situation to fester — allegations the school district says are untrue.

…Students have said they witnessed confrontations between King and McInerney in the weeks or days before the shooting, including King’s teasing McInerney and telling him that he liked him.

McInerney perceived King’s treatment as harassment, Quest said. Quest, however, declined to discuss any specific confrontations or issues between the boys. He also declined to say if McInerney ever sought help from an adult to deal with the issue.

Quest said he believes school administrators supported one student expressing himself and his sexuality — King — and ignored how it affected other kids, despite complaints. Cross-dressing isn’t a normal thing in adult environments, he said, yet 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds were expected to just accept it and go on.

So wait, the idea here is that it’s an understandable reaction to kill someone if you don’t agree with or understand someone whose gender expression is not what you think it should be? King had been harassed for some time at the school, so the defense is also saying that some sort of herd mentality caused McInerney to snap, get a gun and shoot his classmate.

Hat tip, Lena.

This story made me nauseous with worry that the U.S., in a fit of authoritarianism, is giving away something we can’t take back. I reposted it at Alternet, but I’m not entirely sure it will immediately register with people how serious a problem this is. It’s the classic frog in boiling water effect—the indignities slapped on prisoners in the U.S. have become so routine that we are failing to notice violations of the most basic rights.

Pen pals of Lee County Jail inmates should start stocking up on postcards.

Starting April 20, that’s the only kind of personal mail they’ll be able to receive.

Pictures will have to be printed on postcards, and envelopes won’t be allowed, unless they contain legal correspondence.

Capt. Tom Eberhardt, assistant commander of corrections services, said the new policy is in response to the biohazard threat that locked down Charlotte County Jail last month when a mail clerk fell ill after opening a letter containing a white powdered substance.

“That’s happening more and more in the country because of the times we’re living in,” Eberhardt said. “We’re doing this for the safety and security of the staff and the inmates.”

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(UPDATE: The defense worked. The verdict: voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. He was charged with felony murder and faced mandatory life in prison without parole.)

Here we go again, this time in Michigan. From the Grand Rapids Press:

Scarborough admits in taped police interview that he hit Victor Manious with a bat, stuffed him in a car trunk after sexual advances.

More taped police interviews with accused murderer Steve Scarborough were played today for the jury charged with deciding whether the 21-year-old is responsible for the murder of Victor Manious in July.

In the interview between Grand Rapids Detective Kristen Rogers and Scarborough done from a Texas county lock-up, the accused claims that he was sitting in the Kalamazoo Avenue SE apartment of his friend Justin Robinson when Manious entered the apartment.

He said Manious set his keys on a kitchen counter, crossed over to the living room where Scarborough sat on a couch and asked if Robinson was home while at the same time the 62-year-old removed his clothes. Scarborough was interviewed for several hours, which were taped after he fled to the Houston area on Aug. 3 with a plane ticket he allegedly bought using Manious’ credit card.

Scarborough said Manious, stripped down to his underwear, put his arm around him, tried to kiss Scarborough and grabbed at him. Scarborough said he was freaked out by the advances of the man, hit him with a bat and dragged his body down a flight of stairs. He said he put the man in the trunk of his own Toyota and left the victim to die in the car parked on Ottawa Avenue NW.

What is also clear is that if Scarborough was in such a panic, he got over it pretty quickly after stuffing Manious’s body in the trunk, since he went on a four-day binge, using the dead man’s cell phone and credit cards for shopping sprees, gas and air fare to Texas. He was arrested in the Lone Star State.

More below the fold.
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Oh happy day. For now.

A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.

If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral.

…The $5 million penalty is the result of a lawsuit filed against three of the church’s principals by Albert Snyder, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, whose funeral was picketed by church members. The senior Snyder contended the picketing caused emotional distress and invasion of privacy.

…In addition, the judge on Thursday required Shirley Phelps-Roper to post a $125,000 bond and Rebekah Phelps-Davis to post a $100,000 bond by May 5 or he will rescind a stay ordered by the court to prevent confiscation of their property.

But Phelps-Roper, an attorney, called that meaningless. She said the only property she and Phelps-Davis own are their homes and courts are forbidden from confiscating a person’s home. “I have nothing at risk,” she said.

There’s no way that this case will be upheld, nor should it be. The ability to picket a funeral, if the Phelps hate machine was on public property, is a simple freedom-of-speech matter. It may be offensive and hurtful, but it’s their right to bleat their bigotry. Besides, the Westboro Baptist Church homophobes need to continue spewing their filth — and be ridiculed for it. They also need to be tied to the Sally Kerns of the world, their kinfolk in “Christian” hate. Dobson and Tony Perkins may measure their words and put on fine suits to mingle inside the Beltway, but the messages are the same.

I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the 2003 Yoo torture memo, released today, simply confirms what we thought all along: That the DOJ’s logic on torture amounted to the following:

1. General statutory laws do not apply to soldiers.

2. Eighth amendment protections do not apply to POWs: ‘Unlike imprisonment pursuant to a criminal sanction, the detention of enemy combatants involves no sentence judicially imposed or legislatively required and those detained will be released at the end ofthe conflict. Indeed, it has long been established that ‘'’[c]aptivity [in wartime] is neither a punishment nor an act of vengeance,’· but ‘merely a temporary detention which is devoid of all penal character. ‘”‘

3. The only laws applicable to soldiers in times of war are war crimes statutes.

4. However, war crimes protections do not apply to al Qaeda prisoners because they are not POWs.

5. But that doesn’t matter, because there’s no such thing as torture anyway.

Q.E.D.

The section on what is and isn’t torture is just godawful:

The key statutory phrase in the definition of torture is the statement that acts amount’ to torture if they cause “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” In examining the meaning of a statute, its text must be the starting point. Section 2340 makes plain that the infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether it is physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture. Instead, the pain or suffering must be “severe.” The statute does not, however, define the tenn “severe.” “In the absence of such a definition, we construe a statutory term in accordance with its ordinary’or natural meaning.” The dictionary defines “severe” as “[u]nsparing in exaction, punishment, or censure” or “[I]nflicting discomfort or pain hard to endure; sharp; afflictive; distressing; violent; extreme; as severe pain, anguish, torture.” Thus, the adjective “severe” conveys that the pain or suffering must be of such a high level of intensity that the pain is difficult for the subject to endure.

This is where the famous “similar to death or organ failure” test comes into play. It’s an interesting rhetorical trick to convert what seems to be a very wide definition of torture, into one which essentially means there is no such thing, but Yoo tries it. It’s all pointless, though, because, thank God, it’s okay to torture people as long as the torturers are in the United States:

Section 2340A of Title 18 makes it a criminal offense for any person “outside the United States [to] commit[] or attempt[] to commit torture…Moreover, we note· that because the statute criminalizes conduct only when it is committed outside the United States…this proviso excluding members of the Armed Forces, those employed by the Armed Forces or the Department of Defense, and those persons accompanying members of the Armed Forces or their employees applies only when their conduct is a felony if committed within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States…Here, the conduct under section 2340A is a felony only when committed outside the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction. Thus, so long as members of the Armed Forces and those accompanying or employed by the Armed Forces are in an area that 18 U.S.C. § 7 defines as part of the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction, they too are within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction for the purposes .of the conduct section 2340A criminalizes. Accordingly, they are considered to be within the United States for purposes of that statute. The criminal prohibition against torture therefore would not apply to their conduct of interrogations at U.S. military bases located in a foreign state.

Seriously.

In the comments the other day, I suggested that legalization of prostitution would be an argument I’d entertain if I was convinced that a legalization scheme was concocted with the improvement of the lives of prostitutes in mind. Thanks to Nicholas Kristof for stepping in and shining some light on the subject. Romanticizers of prostitution will not be pleased with the facts, so maybe you should just skip over this if your illusions are important to you:

One response would be: Prostitution is inevitable, so we might as well legalize and regulate it. That’s a pragmatic argument that I used to find persuasive. If brothels were legalized and inspected, I believed, then we could uproot child prostitution and reduce AIDS and sexually transmitted infections.

I changed my mind after looking at the experiences of other countries. The Netherlands formally adopted the legalization model in 2000, and there were modest public health benefits for the licensed prostitutes. But legalization nurtured a large sex industry and criminal gangs that trafficked underage girls, and so trafficking, violence and child prostitution flourished rather than dying out.

As a result, the Netherlands is now backtracking on its legalization model by closing some brothels, and other countries, like Bulgaria, are backing away from that approach.

In contrast, Sweden experimented in 1999 with a radically different approach that many now regard as much more successful: it decriminalized the sale of sex but made it a crime to buy sex. In effect, the policy was to arrest customers, but not the prostitutes.

Some Swedish prostitutes have complained that the policy reduced demand and thus lowered prices, while forcing sex work underground. But the evidence is strong that the new approach reduced trafficking in Sweden, and opinion polls show that Swedes regard the experiment as a considerable success. And the bottom line is that if you want to rape a 13-year-old girl imported from Eastern Europe, you’ll have a much easier time in Amsterdam than in Stockholm.

I propose that the problem with prostitution is unique not because sex as a service is unique exactly. I think that the problem with legalization schemes is that prostitution is more, for the majority of the customers, about buying the opportunity to treat a woman like utter trash. In order for prostitution to be legal and yet still viable, the scheme either has to preserve the customer’s right to treat the prostitute like trash (which is why it works in Nevada, though it does the actual prostitutes little good), or an illegal side market of prostitution will flourish next to the legal one. In other words, if you have to be nice to the legal whores, a lot of johns will go to the illegal ones. Which is probably why Amsterdam got more, not less, child prostitution and trafficking when they legalized prostitution.

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Scott Swenson draws the link that needs to be drawn in all this sturm und drang about Spitzer and the prostitutes: Funny how this is going on while reproductive justice and health activists are fighting a pointless item in PEPFAR—put in by Democrats, mind you—that requires health organizations who do outreach to sex workers sign pledges condemning sex work. Why don’t some of the people defending Spitzer turn some of that energy to defending prostitutes? I can’t help but conclude, with sadness, that we’re looking at further evidence that both pro- and anti-legalization people tend to treat the actual prostitutes as an afterthought. I’m with Scott. Instead of asking health organizations to sign pledges that might alienate the very clients they’re trying to reach, how about we start by making politicians sign pledges swearing not to visit prostitutes?

I’ll show my hand up front—while I’m happy to play partisan Democrat a lot of the time, my sympathy for Spitzer is short to non-existent. I’m with Jeff. Sure, Spitzer is the victim of a double standard here, one that doesn’t apply to Republicans, but that mainly shows that the problem is that Republicans are being held to a too-low standard. First of all, prostitution is illegal, and public officials who help enforce the law against the rest of us need to be held accountable to that law. Second of all, doubly so when it comes to prostitution, because prostitutes are citizens, too, and deserve our protection. But it seems that Spitzer needed so much damn money for his hobby because he enjoyed doing things that were quite likely dangerous to prostitutes, probably asking to go condomless. Do you think, if one of the prostitutes he visited were arrested, he would have come clamoring to her defense? Yeah, neither do I. After all, he helped make his career by busting prostitution rings.

Invariably during these discussions, you get a push and pull between the “sex slaves” people and the “happy hooker” people, with some admitting that both kinds of women exist and most prostitutes are somewhere in between. The only thing I’ve concluded about that is that no one should be arrested for selling sex. Either they’re happy hookers hurting no one or victims of the system who don’t need the state to add to their misery, or some combination of the two, but either way, they shouldn’t go to jail.

For me, the jury’s still out on whether or not it should be illegal to buy sex. On one hand, I am convinced by arguments pointing out that vice laws don’t usually work well enough to justify the loss of freedom, and that there’s a weird nonsensical nature to the argument that it’s okay to sell but not to buy, and inverse of the already-ridiculous drug laws that make selling a worse crime than buying. On the other hand, I’m disgusted by some of the intellectual dishonesty employed by people defending prostitution. By that, I mean the invocation of the Sad Unfuckable John. You know the image—in any debate about prostitution, the pro-legalization ones will overplay their hand and argue that prostitution is this positive thing, because it makes sex available to men, who by virtue of being ugly or deeply nerdy or whatever, are basically unable to get sex from volunteers.

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From the Police Brutality Blog, yet another incident of law enforcement’s use of the Taser as a first resort, even when the number of cops outnumber the unarmed “suspect,” or there is no imminent threat of violence.

Take this incident in Seattle, Washington, where a man was pepper-sprayed and tased from behind by police after he was already subdued and on his hands and knees. The video is here. Via KOMO 4 News:

Francis L. Holland of the Police Brutality Blog and Tasered While Black:

It is also clear from this video that the police pointed a Taser gun at a Black woman who was holding a cup of coffee in her hand while attempting to observe what police were doing. They continued to point the Taser gun at her until they had backed her up some twenty yards from a man who appears to be a relative of hers. (In this video, it appears that they Taser may have a red light on it, like a gun, that indicates where it is being pointed.)

It really doesn’t matter how this incident started. It doesn’t matter if the arrested Black man had an arrest or conviction record. It doesn’t matter if he cheated at Bingo in second grade. It is simply unnecessary as a matter of police and public safety, and morally wrong, to taser people who are on their hands and knees. This constitutes torture and it has to be stopped.

People can watch the video and say “but the guy was running…”. Well, yes he was, but he wasn’t tased until he was already restrained, on his hand and knees and surrounded by cops. As Francis also noted, It is not appropriate to taser people “for good measure” who are already compliant. Just because the man was running at some point in the recent past doesn’t mean that police should Taser him at any and all points in the near future. A taser is to immobilize, period. People who are already immobilized ought never be tasered.

No doubt this sort of outlandish use of this law enforcement tool continues unabated, and not only in the U.S. These next items of madness were collected by Dan Caprine and Hob at the must-read Taser of the Day blog. It’s sad that this is a growth area for that site; there’s never a lack of incidents to report — and a few are below the fold.
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I’m sorry — I know I’m supposed to be resting but look at this ridiculous e-blast from Mike Hein, administrator of the Christian Civic League of Maine, who is up in arms over the enactment of civil unions in New Hampshire today.

Public Comment on the New Hampshire Homosexual Civil Unions Law Enactment

For immediate release:

With New Hampshire’s enactment of its homosexual civil unions law, Maine becomes one of only two remaining New England states to not formally allow this deviant behavior.

The Christian Civic League of Maine supports the Biblical precept that all sex outside of traditional marriage, including homosexual behavior, is sin. The celebration of this sin as seen in the events of January 1st in New Hampshire is wrong.

As it has for over 110 years, the League will continue to oppose homosexual civil unions, and preserve marriage in Maine as between one man and one woman only, so help us God.

Hein and his cohort at the CCLM, Mike Heath, love reading the blog. Hein endorses our work, calling Pam’s House Blend “a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy” and turn away from “wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior.”

UPDATE: Then a second release hit my inbox, Clergy Unite Homosexuals in New Hampshire, with this nonsense:

Maine Pastor Neil Farrar of Maine’s Church on the Rock in Topsham publicly asked listeners of Maine’s Christian radio station WBCI for a day of fast and prayer on January 1, 2008 to acknowledge New Hampshire’s homosexual civil unions law going into effect.

From his RockTalk radio and online commentary, Farrar stated: “What [the homosexuals who participate in the civil unions ceremonies] fail to clearly understand is that their choice not be accountable to God, will have an eternal bearing on not only this life, but also on eternity.

“They are certainly not free or released from standing before the Living God…and giving an account for their decadence and lawlessness!

“These men and women will face a quivering terror, as they are sentenced to an eternity in the Lake of Fire.

…New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation U.S.Presidential primary is set for January 8, and recently the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, the Right Reverend Vicky Gene Robinson, announced plans in June to participate as a “bride” to his homosexual partner in a civil union ceremony.

From Scott, I see that the Federalist Society is proposing an ill-advised constitutional amendment aimed at thwacking a strawman—an amendment, I swear to god, banning the citation of legal norms in foreign countries in Supreme Court arguments. Scott has a good read on the insanity of this:

What’s strange is the amount of energy being expended over what it quite obviously a trivial issue — it’s not clear why anyone thinks such dicta have any actual causal effects on the outcome of cases. Such citations are likely to come up almost exclusively in cases where the text of the Constitution can plausibly support a wide range of outcomes, and hence are overwhelmingly likely to be used only to back up conclusions judges have reached for independent reasons. This is certainly true of the cruel and unusual punishment clause, at issue in the case that has generated the greatest outrage about the supposedly pernicious effects of citing foreign law. Does anybody seriously think that a single vote in the case would have changed had the Constitution forbidden the citation of law of other democracies? Scalia noted in his dissent that Kennedy would be unlikely to cite foreign law when its conclusions were less favorable to his position, but that’s the point: the cites are window dressing. It may be true that Kennedy’s experience teaching abroad has had a moderating effect, but this would remain true whether his opinion cited the laws of other countries or not.

Crucial to making this triviality into a major issue is a strawman. According to Adler, the advocate of the amendment laid out the “basic case against relying upon foreign or international law in constitutional interpretation.” [my emphasis] But, of course, nobody says (as the word “rely” would seem to imply) that American judges are bound by the laws of similar countries; rather, at most it’s simply one of many sources that a judge might consult when trying to construe the meaning of an ambiguous constitutional clause.

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My Elunium PU36 explosive space modulator beats rock!

Overheard from the other room:

Augustlet: Mama, do you want to play rock-paper-scissors?

Augustienne: Okay.

Augustlet: 1, 2, 3, draw! I win. 1, 2, 3, draw! You win. Wait, what was that?

Augustienne: That was a rock.

Augustlet: Yeah, okay, you win, I had scissors. 1, 2, 3, draw! You win. 1, 2, 3, draw! Ah, you win again. 1, 2, 3, draw! I win!

Augustienne: Wait, what is that?

Augustlet: I had lasers.

———

Also of note: It appears that Augustlet is now using the word “ginormous” entirely without irony. Thanks a bunch, Merriam-Webster!

Here’s an ethical dilemma that should be fun for Pandagonians to kick around. I knew that it would be shocking if Cary Tennis could get through an answer to this question— “Should I come out as an atheist? I’ve been lying to my family, my friends and my religious university — I don’t believe in God! I don’t! I don’t!”—without making me want to bang my head against the wall, and naturally he delivered. The kid’s dilemma is a trying one; he’s completely hemmed in by pious people who demand total compliance with their bullshit from everyone around them, and he’s not sure he can keep living the lie that he’s a fellow believer. He knows his parents will likely disown him, his friends abandon him, and his school will kick him out,* but he’s tired of the lie. It’s interesting to me, because his dilemma shows exactly how much outspoken atheism is a direct reaction to religiosity—people with nominal relationships to their religion aren’t the sort that are always pushing themselves on you in a way that requires you to tell them you’re an atheist to get them to back off. You can be an atheist and hang out with non-pushy believers until the end of time and it will rarely, if ever, come up.

But this kid is clearly in a situation where believing—or at least pretending to believe—is enforced through social controls.

For one thing, I attend a Christian-affiliated school that in order to attend I was required to sign a statement of faith. I knew I didn’t believe in a god (or specifically, their God) when I signed it, but I did anyway just so there wouldn’t be any hassle with the college — I’m a transfer student and I just want to finish my degree as soon as possible. If I began actually being honest, however, I have a feeling the school would dismiss me.

The other thing preventing me from “coming out” is the number of relationships that seem like they would crumble as a result. My parents and I have never had the best relationship. We’ve just recently started becoming close, and I don’t want to lose that. They are deeply religious, however, and my admitting to be an atheist might tear that fragile bond apart. This past summer I tried having some conversations with them about my changing religious beliefs, and I’ve never before seen them so angry. While I do not need their approval (there is no way I would claim a belief out of guilt), I also do not need to be alienated from my parents. Then there is all of my friends, who are mostly Christians. They all think I believe likewise, and I haven’t really done anything to prevent the thought. I’m afraid that telling the truth about who I am might place a huge distance between me and the ones I love.

Tennis dances around the issue and accidentally implies the kid hasn’t thought his beliefs through, but whatever. What creates the interesting ethical dilemma I want to kick around with everyone here is the signing of the loyalty oath, or statement of belief, or whatever you call it. Tennis really goes into heavy insult mode there.

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The nightmare continues for the GOP. Toe-tapping Larry invited Idaho newsman Mark Johnson of KTVB into his home and sat for a 90-minute interview that aired Tuesday. Craig's wife Suzanne dutifully sat by his side as he told his side of the story about the encounter in the Minneapolis airport bathroom that made him a household name for all the wrong reasons. The transcript is up.

I'll give you the money quote from the interview first:

Mark Johnson:  We gave folks an opportunity on our website to ask questions - and boy did they submit the questions. Many of them you've answered here tonight.  Mark from Boise… not this Mark from Boise - had one that I think you might find interesting.  Mark writes “You are accused of a sex crime without physically committing one.  Would you support legislation that protects citizens from police entrapment in restrooms and other public places.

Sen. Larry Craig: Mark, I'd have to take a very serious look at that. I've not only heard from Mark - I've heard from a lot of citizens and e-mailers.  They've felt they got entrapped, they felt they got profiled. The worst thing in a free society is to have law enforcement profiling people because they look a certain way, therefore they must be.  That is just wrong. I've always opposed it - and I'll continue to oppose it. If legislation like that comes along, I'll take a very serious look at it. I'm innocent, I've been through it. It's not a very pleasant experience. It's changed my life, it's changed my family's life, it may have changed the political life in Idaho, I don't know. But, it is the question - a very important one.

So, if someone proposes such legislation to protect citizens from profiling — doesn't sound like he's ready to take up activist arms and do it himself — how many of Larry's GOP colleagues do you think are going to co-sign it? A bill that protects busts of people for “looking a certain way” (guess this time he couldn't squeak out “gay”) when caught up in a public restroom sex sting? These stings focus almost exclusively on gay men cruising in these public facilities — an issue right there that probably has Republicans squirming.   

Oh my, the gift that keeps on giving… .

The interview is full of a lot of fluff, but he does recount what he says really happened in the restroom (which differs from or leaves out details in the police report, or even the police interrogation after the arrest [audio | transcript]).

A snippet is after the jump.
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Anita Hill is a rock:

In 1992, I bought Sonic Youth’s Dirty along with a pile of CDs through one of those mail order CD clubs that were basically our only source of non-country or non-pop-schlock music out in the boondocks of West Texas. The song “Youth Against Fascism” referenced the recent Senate hearings for Clarence Thomas’ confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.

Black robe and swill
I believe Anita Hill
Judge will rot in hell
It’s the song I hate, it’s the song I hate

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L-O-S-E-R. Boston resident Stephen Dunne has asked a federal court to dismiss his ridiculous lawsuit that claimed his religious rights were violated when he was presented with a question on same-sex marriage. His 268.866 score on the November 2006 bar just missed the passing score of 270 points.

This is the question that offended Mr. Dunne:

“Yesterday, Jane got drunk and hit (her spouse) Mary with a baseball bat, breaking Mary’s leg, when she learned that Mary was having an affair with Lisa. As a result, Mary decided to end her marriage with Jane in order to live in her house with (children) Philip (and) Charles and Lisa. What are the rights of Mary and Jane?”

In July I blogged about this suit, after Dunne launched a website, christianlawsuit.com (it only goes to his dismissal document now), he put up a batsh*t insane statement. Read it after the jump.

Dunne in July:

My dream is to become a Lawyer, but I cannot defile my Christian faith simply to pass an examination. I will not pay the price that the Defendants are forcing me to pay in order to practice law in Massachusetts. There is no price tag on my faith. It is not for sale.

He also modestly proclaimed:

I am challenging the constitutionality of Homosexual Marriage and Homosexual Parenting in Massachusetts. In 2003, four unelected judges legalized Homosexual Marriage in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, 798 N.E. 2d 941 (Mass. 2003). I sincerely believe that this ruling is profoundly undemocratic and un-American.

I have preemptively fired the first shot that has been heard around the world.

Uh, not really.

A question of this nature was not included in the most recent bar exam, so Dunne, in his dismissal request, tries to claim victory much in the same way Don Wildmon likes to think Ford is being hurt by his fundie boycott:

In court documents, Dunne said he wanted to drop his suit because the July bar exam didn’t include what he called the “patently offensive and morally repugnant” gay marriage question. He characterized that as a “corrective action” by the board.

In a move to quickly smack down that assertion…[I]n court documents filed yesterday, the board’s attorney said the board has “not agreed to limit the content” of any future bar exams. The board’s decision not to include the same question on the July exam “merely reflects their standard practice of not repeating questions on successive bar examinations,” the court filing said.

…The board maintains that the question was a legitimate one regarding current Massachusetts law.

Neil had a post up last month about how the attempts to equate John Edwards taking money from unions and trial lawyers with Hillary Clinton taking money from corporate lobbyists is part of the larger conservative effort to redefine “class warfare” in a way that makes it look like workers’ rights are a bad thing.

John Edwards once got a debate question about how he could consistently rail against corporate lobbyists while accepting lots of donations from trial lawyers. Aren’t they just as bad? And how about the other group that likes Edwards so much — organized labor?

The answer is simple. If you think that consumers have been robbing corporations blind, or that the balance of power between workers and executives is unfairly tilted against executives, then these donors should make you look darkly at John Edwards. But if you think consumers need better protection against corporations whose products disembowel little girls, or if you think that the next president needs to fight tooth and nail for working people’s interests, you should be happy that trial lawyers and unions support him.

The “omigod trial lawyers and unions” crap is straight up monocle-clutching robber baron shit. It’s a philosophy that would posit that the real tragedy of a mine collapsing is not the loss of the coal miners’ lives, but the loss of profits that come from rebuilding the mines. It’s the philosophy that made people defend child labor and shoot into crowds striking for some time off so their families know what they look like. It’s the blatant belief that anyone who clears less than a million a year is subhuman. Literally subhuman, as demonstrated by this advertisement that ran in the NY Times a week ago.

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Pam’s already on the Larry Craig story, but I saw a Sensible Liberal meme boiling up on Matt’s blog that I thought needed addressing. Consider that Craig got picked up for sending cruising signals that would go without being detected by anyone who’s not aware of those signals, signals like foot-tapping, etc.

Now, common sense indicates that the officer in question is correct and Craig’s foot-tapping was a cruising signal, but surely tapping one’s foot isn’t a crime in Minnesota. Whatever Craig intended to do here, he doesn’t seem, in fact, to have done anything lewd. I suppose that Craig, wanting to keep this whole thing hushed up, wouldn’t have wanted to fight the charges, but it’s still hard to see how he could have imagined that it wouldn’t come out sooner or later.

That does bring up a whole host of questions, but I think the best place to address the is to look at Craig’s voting history and really soak in that this is a man who votes by the principle of no panty drawer unsniffed, no phone untapped, no surreptitious glances between young lovers (particularly of the same sex) unregulated. He must know at all time what you’re doing not only with your genitals but with your foot taps.

Is the foot-tapping law unjust? Absolutely.

Is it just for Craig to be hoisted by his own petards? Absolutely.

The unwavering support of Craig and those like him has created a situation where vice cops cruise Minneapolis airport bathrooms. Part of the problem with Craig fighting the law is that he can’t actually mount the defense that Matt’s implying here, which is to point out (rightly) that the law is unjust, because he believes in a world where it’s just to harass gay men for tapping their feet at each other.

The best way to handle this is to use it as a teaching moment. Trying to ban flirting and cruising in public places is Draconian to an extreme, a law that can’t even be obeyed by its most ardent supporters. The laws need to be overturned, but the people who pass them and then break them deserve everything that happens to them.

I have my suspicions that when the Republicans talk up “tort reform” to stop “nuisance lawsuits”, they’re not exactly talking about stuff like this:

Some of you may have heard about the latest in frivolous lawsuit madness: PZ Myers and his blog’s mothership, Seed Magazine, have been sued for FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLARS.

He’s been sued in New York’s Southern District Court because he panned a book by Stuart Pivar, a tool of creationists who has sinned against the truth by writing books denying that Stephen Jay Gould—yes, that one—didn’t really believe in evolutionary theory, specifically defined as believing that selection was a “creative” force. I love when people speak for the dead, knowing full well that the dead can’t defend themselves, such as the people who erroneously claim that Margaret Sanger’s main motivation was eugenic in nature (which