[amzn_product_post]
[amzn_product_post]
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
Turkey is experiencing its largest and most violent riots in decades as tens of thousands of young people voice opposition to the moderate Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Hundreds of protesters and police have been injured as authorities try to quell the fourth day of demonstrations with tear gas, water canons, beatings, and a tightening grip on the media. Today, Erdogan accused the protesters of “walking arm-in-arm with terrorism.” Yet his defiant response is only making the crowds larger. In an echo of the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011, the movement has been galvanized by images disseminated on social media, such as a picture of a policeman spraying tear gas at a young woman in a red summer dress, her long hair swept upward by the blast. “The more they spray,” reads a popular Twitter caption, “the bigger we get.”
Click here to go directly to the latest updates.
Why are people protesting? Nominally, the protests were sparked by a government plan to replace Istanbul’s leafy Taksim Gezi Park with a touristy shopping mall—what the country’s leading historian, Edhem Eldem, sardonically derides as a “Las Vegas of Ottoman splendor.” Trees are especially precious in Istanbul, where only 1.5 percent of land is green space (compared to 17 percent in New York). But the protests quickly became symbolic of much broader concerns about Erdogan’s autocratic and socially conservative style of government.
Istanbul’s secularists chafe at the way he has rammed through development projects in this cosmopolitan cultural crossroads with little regard for the European and non-Muslim aspects of its history; a 19th-century Russian Orthodox Church may be destroyed as part of an overhaul of a port. What’s more, Erdogan has placed new restrictions on the sale of alcohol and availability of birth control. And he has jailed political opponents and members of the media.
How widespread are the protests? Since Friday, there have been demonstrations in 67 of Turkey’s 80 provinces, according to Turkey’s semi-official Andalou News Agency. At least 1700 people have been arrested.
What about damage and injuries? Photos show fires in the street and overturned and burned-out cars. One protestor was killed on Sunday night when a taxi slammed into a crowd, but the government’s press office claims the death was accidental. According to CNN, 58 civilians remain hospitalized and 115 security officers have been injured.
Is Erdogan just another Islamist dictator? Not according to Washington, which holds up Turkey as a shining model for democracy in the Islamic world. Since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has twice returned to office with large pluralities of the vote. In recent years, Erdogan has kept up the pace of democratic reforms in Turkey by enshrining individual rights in its laws and placing the military under civilian control. “Yet even as the AKP was winning elections at home and plaudits from abroad,” writes Foreign Policy‘s Steven Cook, “an authoritarian turn was underway…”
In 2007, the party seized upon a plot in which elements of Turkey’s so-called deep state—military officers, intelligence operatives, and criminal underworld—sought to overthrow the government and used it to silence its critics. Since then, Turkey has become a country where journalists are routinely jailed on questionable grounds, the machinery of the state has been used against private business concerns because their owners disagree with the government, and freedom of expression in all its forms is under pressure.
How bad is the crackdown on the press? Pretty bad. At the same time CNN International was broadcasting live from Taksim Square on Friday, CNN Turk, the network’s Turkish-language affiliate, was showing a cooking show and a documentary about penguins.
Manolo88/Reddit
In 2009, Turkey’s tax ministry levied a whopping $2.5-billion fine against CNN Turk’s parent company, Dogan Yayin, in a move that was widely viewed as punishment for its critical coverage of the government. Some journalists who’ve written negative stories about the government and its allies have been fired or imprisoned. See this year-old CNN report on retaliation by the Turkish government:
So how are people in Turkey learning about the protests? Mostly through social media. “Revolution will not be televised; it will be tweeted,” reads a popular Istanbul graffiti scrawl. According to an analysis by NYU’s Social Media and Political Participation Lab, the Twitter hashtag #direngezipark had been used in more than 1.8 million tweets as of this morning—far more than the Egyptian hashtag #Jan25 was used during the entire Arab Spring uprising. And about 85 percent of those tweets that are geocoded have come from within Turkey.
Here’s a taste of what people are sharing:
The picture of the dervish protester in a gas-mask is already iconic. #occupygezi twitter.com/YiannisBab/sta…
— Yiannis Βaboulias (@YiannisBab)
@unmedialiaison POLICE BRUTALITY GOES ON IN IZMIR&ANKARA RIGHT NW! HELP US GET THE WORD OUT! twitter.com/OccupyJapan12/… #occupygezi
— Alizeo (@ADosdogru)
Facebook has also emerged as a major source of viral Turkey content as citizen journalists use it to post videos of violent protest scenes. The Daily Dot‘s Joe Kloc has compiled some of the most widely shared street scenes:
A tear-gassed protester getting brutally kicked and beaten by police:
This morning, Erdogan called social media “the worst menace to society,” saying it has been used to spread lies about the protests and the government’s response. That’s probably not the best way to look like you care about what the protesters are saying.
What do hackers think about this? Over the weekend, Anonymous launched #OpTurkey, an anti-government hacking and DDoSing operation that resembles its work in Egypt and other countries during the Arab Spring. It has also given activists tools to skirt government internet censorship.
So is this the next wave of the Arab Spring? Not exactly. For one thing, most Turks are not “Arabs,” and they don’t necessarily view their nationality through an ethnic or religious lens. Compared to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, or Syria, Turkey is much more Western-oriented, stable, prosperous, and egalitarian. From 2002 to 2011, the Turkish economy tripled in size. Per capita income in Turkey is $15,000 (compared to $6,600 in Egypt), and income inequality is less pronounced than it is in the United States. For now, at least, the protests seem less likely to spark a revolution than simply pull the rug out from Ergodan’s political agenda and electoral prospects. That said, Turkey’s last coup was just a little more than 30 years ago. The power dynamic could change quickly if Ergodan overreacts.
Who do I follow for more news about the protests? The blog What Is Happening in Istanbul has been rolling out updates. The leading Twitter hashtags are #direngezipark and #occupygezi. The Guardian is live-blogging the protests. Check back here for updates.
UPDATE 6/3/2013 5:15 ET: During a press briefing on the Turkey protests today, White House spokesman Jay Carney voiced “serious concerns” about the violent crackdown on protesters, whom he characterized as mostly “peaceful, law-abiding citizens exercising their rights.” That’s a far cry from how they’ve been painted by Erdogan.
UPDATE 6/3/2013 5:55 ET: Using a crowd-funding website, Turkish protestors have raised enough money to publish this letter to Erdogan as a full-page ad in the New York Times.
UPDATE 6/3/2013 6:54 ET: Turkish media is reporting that 22-year-old Abdullah Comert, a member of the opposition Republican People’s Party, died tonight of wounds to the head. Turkey’s Star Gazette reports that security forces are investigating the incident. Activists on Twitter immediately blamed police for the shooting, which, if true, would mark the first instance of security forces killing an #occupygezi protestor. However, the allegation hasn’t been independently confirmed.
Link to article:
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
The site where Mark Carson was shot on West 8th Street, New York. Police say the killing was a hate crime. James West
Blinding afternoon sun lit the biggest gay rights demonstration in years in New York’s West Village Monday. The LGBT community and its supporters, including a couple of mayoral candidates, marched in the wake of a murder that has capped a month-long spate of homophobic violence.
Demonstrators—police say 1,500, organizers say many hundreds more—marched through the leafy streets that gave birth to the gay rights movement to the corner where Mark Carson, 32, was shot in the face and killed Friday night as he walked with a friend. Police have charged Elliot Morales, 33, with second-degree murder and a hate crime, accusing him of hurling homophobic slurs at Carson.
Flourine Bompars, Carson’s aunt, addressed the crowd, calling Carson “a loving and caring person” who will not be forgotten.
The audience applauded and cheered loudly after Bishop Zachary Jones of Unity Fellowship Church of Christ, East New York, shouted, “There is room for everyone at the table of love… and we will march and we will come closer together to make sure everyone has the right to be who they are.”
Protestors march through New York’s west village. Police and community groups say there has been an upwing in “bias” crimes. James West
The randomness of Carson’s death has sent a jolt through the gay community. “It’s clear that the victim here was killed only because and just because he was thought to be gay,” the police commissioner, Ray Kelly, said on Sunday.
Community leaders say Carson’s death is part of a worrying citywide trend: an uptick in violence against gay people, with five incidents this month alone. Police say “bias crimes” have risen this year compared to the same period last year, from 13 to 22, and advocates say that was on top of rising reports of violence from the previous year.
“The most pain is emotional,” said Nick Porto, a 27-year-old fashion designer from Brooklyn, who was assaulted this month with his boyfriend Kevin Atkins, 22, as they walked near Madison Square after a Knicks game. (Police have released a video of the suspects).
“Mark is not going to die in vain. We are not going to get beat up in vain,” Porto said after the rally. “Gay rights, we’re still fighting for them, and the fight is not over. We need to protect each other.”
Nick Porto (L) and Kevin Atkins, a couple, were assaulted after a Knicks game on May 5th. James West
But the source of the increase in violence is hard to pin down, say community leaders. Some who spoke at the rally blamed the increased visibility of gay rights: With a greater presence comes greater pushback, the reasoning goes. Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York Anti-Violence Project, says victims are also feeling more comfortable reporting such crimes.
“But I also think we’re still living in a country where it’s lawful to discriminate against LGBT people, and that sends a message that it’s OK to be hateful towards LGBT people,” she said.
The protest also formed the backdrop to the race for New York City mayor. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, herself a lesbian, marched alongside relatives of Mark Carson at the head of the rally, but did not speak to the crowd. John Liu, the hyperactive city comptroller who is also a candidate, was at the rally shaking hands and introducing himself.
Nick Porto, the assault victim, admitted he was moved when he looked out across the crowd that filled 8th Street, “My knees got weak, I almost fell, I was just a mess,” he said. “It’s proof, it’s absolute hope in our community, that we will survive this.”
“Gay rights isn’t just about gay marriage,” he told the cheering crowd. “We need to live long enough to share in that opportunity.”
John Liu (L), and Christine Quinn with members of the Carson family. Both are running for New York City mayor. James West
Read original article:
"Mark Is Not Going To Die In Vain": New Yorkers Rally After Murder of Gay Man
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
Jason Collins began his coming out essay in Sports Illustrated with the words, “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.”
There’s a reason Collins chose to mention he was black and gay—as though those two things were in as much tension as being the first openly gay male athlete active in one of America’s favorite sports—but it deserves a more thoughtful examination than the one offered by Charles P. Pierce in Grantland. Pierce, feigning a familiarity with the history of the civil rights movement and the black church belied by the weakness of the evidence he’s able to provide, writes:
His explanation for his decision to come out is rich with the historical “dual identity” forced on black Americans under Jim Crow, and the similar dynamic within which he lived as a gay man. Homophobia in the black community—indeed, even among the leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s—was some of the most virulent and stubborn of all, and there are still some who resent the equation of the gay rights movement with their struggle. In his announcement in Sports Illustrated, then, Collins gave every indication that he’s fully aware of the historic and cultural dimensions of his decision, and of the sacrifices made elsewhere so that he would be free to make it now.
Look, man: It’s called “double consciousness,” not “dual identity,” and it’s an intellectual concept applicable to black existence in America prior to Jim Crow and after its demise. “Dual identity” is what Batman has. And Pierce’s mangling of W.E.B. DuBois is the least of the problems with this paragraph.
There was certainly homophobia in the civil rights movement—but in the 1950s and ’60s, American society was homophobic, and Pierce offers no evidence that the civil rights movement was more homophobic than any other American institution during that period. Given that one of the architects of the civil rights movement’s nonviolent strategy was Bayard Rustin, it was arguably less homophobic than much of society at the time. With a few notable exceptions, surviving leaders of the movement—from Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) to Rev. James Lawson to Jesse Jackson to Julian Bond—are all in favor of gay and lesbian rights.
There’s also little evidence for the proposition that black homophobia is “the most virulent and stubborn of all.” Black folks, who were disenfranchised for centuries, didn’t put any of those old anti-sodomy laws on the books. The legal architecture of discrimination based on sexual orientation is one of the few things in America that dates back to colonial times that wasn’t built by black people.
Rather than black homophobia, “stubborn” better describes black resistance to conservative appeals based on homophobia, or the determination of black voters in 2012 who defied a nationwide voter suppression campaign to elect a black president who has himself endorsed the right of same-sex couples to marry. “Virulent and stubborn” doesn’t really explain the sharp reversal in public opinion on gay rights happening not just in the black community but also everywhere else, a reversal so dramatic that the state with the fourth-largest black population in the country became one of the first to adopt marriage equality by a popular vote. In some polls, black voters lag behind other groups in approving of same-sex marriage, but the trend is clear, and black Americans’ loyalty to a party that supports marriage equality makes it clear that however broad the remaining opposition is, it isn’t very deep.
Worst of all, the only evidence Pierce offers for the idea that “the leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s” were the “most virulent and stubborn” homophobes of all (a description that doesn’t even fit Marion Barry) is a link to an article about Rev. William Owens, a Tennessee pastor bankrolled by the National Organization for Marriage as part of their (failed) racial-wedge strategy in 2012 who claims he was a leader of the Nashville sit-in movement.
Well he used to, anyway. Last year, I reached out to three actual surviving leaders of the Nashville sit-in movement, Lewis, Lawson, and Vivian. Not one of them had ever heard of Owens, and Lawson and Vivian were astonished that anyone who might have been part of that movement at that time would be fighting gay rights now. In the last NOM press release I saw, Owens had demoted himself from “leader” to “participant.” If you’re going to slander some of the greatest people America has ever been lucky enough to call her own, you need more examples than one guy history can’t even characterize as a backbencher.
Other than that, sure, he’s a perfect example of how homophobia in the civil rights movement was the most “stubborn and virulent” of all. Cool history, bro.
See original article here:
Don’t Use Jason Collins As an Excuse to Blame Homophobia on Black People
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
Last week, Congress took quick and decisive action to restore funding to the Federal Aviation Administration that had been cut as part of sequestration. The move, which is expected to be signed into law by President Obama, comes as welcome news to America’s frequent fliers. The long-term unemployed, on the other hand, are still totally screwed.
On Monday, New Hampshire residents receiving new emergency unemployment benefits—designed to assist people who have been without work for more than 26 weeks—will see their checks shrink by about 17 percent due to sequestration cuts. (Per the Associated Press, between 150 and 180 New Hampshire residents apply for emergency unemployment benefits every week.) Also laying down the sequestration hammer on the long-term unemployed on Monday: Utah, which will cut its benefits by 12.8 percent. The move is expected to impact roughly 4,000 citizens, according to the Deseret News. Alabama’s 12.8-percent cuts (affecting about 16,500 people) and Rhode Island’s 12.2-percent cut (affecting about 8,000 people) both go into effect this week as well.
As tough as these cuts are, they only get steeper the longer states wait. States that wait to make cuts will have a shorter period of time in which to enact them. As the National Journal explains, “If California waits until June 30 to reduce the checks, for instance, it will have to cut benefits by 22.2 percent between then and Sept. 30 in order to meet the sequester’s requirements.”
This could be averted if Congress restored full funding for the emergency unemployment benefits program. But don’t expect Congress to act fast this time—people on emergency unemployment assistance generally don’t fly business class.
View original post here:
It’s a Monday, So Unemployment Checks Are Being Slashed Somewhere
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
Andrew Sullivan argues that the Boston bombings orchestrated by Tamerlan Tsarnaev were clearly an act of Islamic jihad:
One reason the Miranda rights issue is not that salient is that the evidence that this dude bombed innocents, played a role in shooting a cop, shutting down a city, and terrorizing people for a week is overwhelming and on tape. And yes, of course, this decision to commit horrific crimes may be due in part to “some combination of mental illness, societal alienation, or other form of internal instability and rage that is apolitical in nature.” But to dismiss the overwhelming evidence that this was also religiously motivated — a trail that now includes a rant against his own imam for honoring Martin Luther King Jr. because he was not a Muslim — is to be blind to an almost text-book case of Jihadist radicalization, most likely in the US.
….We see the sexual puritanism of the neurotically fundamentalist. We have his YouTube page and the comments he made in the photography portfolio. To state today that we really still have no idea what motivated him and that rushing toward the word Jihadist is some form of Islamophobia seems completely bizarre to me.
Please. Just stop this. What we know about Tamerlan Tsarnaev is that he was (a) Muslim and (b) enraged about something. Was he enraged, a la Sayyid Qutb, about the sexual libertinism of American culture? Was he enraged about perceived American support for Russia against Chechen rebels? Was he enraged about American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Was he acting on orders from a foreign terrorist group?
We don’t know yet. Yes, there’s plainly evidence of his growing Islamic extremism over the past three years. But if there’s anything we’ve learned over the last week, it’s that jumping to conclusions on this stuff is foolish. Our natural curiosity isn’t a good enough reason to rush to judgment about Tsarnaev’s motivations. Just wait. There’s no harm in it. We’ll find out soon enough.
See original article here:
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
A quick update on yesterday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon:
There was not a third bomb at the JFK Library (it was a fire in the building’s mechanical room).
There are no suspects in custody (the “Saudi national” that dominated the news yesterday is a witness, not a suspect).
There are not 12 people dead (the New York Post just jumped the gun).
Police did not find any unexploded devices elsewhere in the city (that’s what Gov. Deval Patrick says, anyway).
Cell phone service was not shut down by the authorities after the bombs detonated (AP has walked back its original claim, and various people have reported sending texts immediately after the bombing.)
Just thought you’d like to know. For more on what did happen, check out our ongoing explainer here, which is being updated regularly. In the meantime, read Bruce Schneier on how we should think about all this.
UPDATE: Dana Liebelson and Tim Murphy have a longer, more detailed version of this list here. Plus a bonus sixth report that turned out to be false!
More:
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
How many former Republican solicitors general does it take to prevent a filibuster?
Almost a year ago, President Barack Obama nominated Caitlin Hannigan and Sri Srinivasan to be judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, a key court that has jurisdiction over federal regulations and is often seen as a stepping-stone to the US Supreme Court. Four of the 11 seats on the court are currently vacant, but Senate Republicans have refused to confirm any of Obama’s nominees, leaving the court dominated by conservatives eager to toss out federal regulations dealing with everything from air pollution to financial reform. Last month Halligan withdrew her nomination after Republicans filibustered her into oblivion.
That leaves Srinivasan, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who is the Obama administration’s principal deputy solicitor general and argued before the Supreme Court in the Defense of Marriage Act case. There are things liberals will like about Srinivasan (he wrote Supreme Court briefs supporting affirmative action and arguing cops should need a warrant to put a GPS on your car) and things they won’t (he’s represented corporate and anti-union interests). His nomination has gone untouched since June 2012, but next Wednesday the Senate will be holding a confirmation hearing. Monday a bipartisan group of former solicitors general sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) urging his confirmation. The list includes former Bush administration solicitors general Paul Clement and Theodore Olson, as well as former George H.W. Bush Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, who as special counsel investigated the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
“Sri is one of the best lawyers in the country,” the letter reads. “He is extremely well prepared to take on the intellectual rigors of serving as a judge on the DC Circuit.”
There are more vacancies on the federal bench today than when Obama took office. The Obama administration hasn’t put forth enough nominations to fill them all, but the chief impediment is that Republicans have slowed the judicial confirmation process to a crawl. The average Bush circuit or district court nominee waited 175 days for a vote, compared to 227 under Obama.
Srinivasan exemplifies this dysfunction. He clerked for a Reagan-appointed Supreme Court justice; he worked for Republican and Democratic administrations, and he’s endorsed by the guy who helped the GOP almost bring down Bill Clinton. Yet thanks to GOP obstruction—and the Democrats’ refusal to reform the filibuster—he still might not get confirmed.
Here’s the letter:
DV.load(“//www.documentcloud.org/documents/670235-sri-srinivasan-letter.js”,
width: 630,
height: 500,
sidebar: false,
container: “#DV-viewer-670235-sri-srinivasan-letter”
);
Sri Srinivasan Letter (PDF)
Sri Srinivasan Letter (Text)
An earlier version of this post stated that Starr was solicitor general under Reagan, he was solicitor general under George H.W. Bush.
Read article here:
Ken Starr (!) Pleads With Senate GOPers to Confirm Obama Nominee
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who was chosen by House Republicans to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court, had previously argued that people can change their sexual orientation, that marriage is only for couples that can produce children, that gay and lesbian couples could be worse parents than heterosexuals, and that barring same-sex marriage “encourages heterosexual relationships.”
But in a sign that the anti-same-sex marriage crowd may be losing faith in its own rhetoric, Clement didn’t deploy any of those arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Instead, he stuck to trying to convince the justices that the Defense of Marriage Act didn’t infringe on the states’ power. Clement insisted that defining marriage as between one man and one woman was acceptable because the federal government needs to characterize marriage for its own purposes. Clement never bothered trying to prove that excluding same-sex couples from marriage is a valid government interest in and of itself. Consequently, he never had to unleash his most controversial arguments. There was nothing in his case for DOMA that mirrored the apocalyptic conservative language of the last decade warning that same-sex marriage could lead to the downfall of Western civilization.
More Mother Jones coverage of gay rights and marriage equality
Big Government or Marriage Equality? DOMA Puts Conservative Justices in a Bind
Here Are the 7 Worst Things Antonin Scalia Has Said or Written About Homosexuality
At Supreme Court, Marriage Equality Foes’ Best Argument Is That They’re Losing
Which Politicians Supported Gay Marriage and When?
The Anti-Marriage Equality Movement Meets on the Mall—and Tries to Think Happy Thoughts
The Supreme Court’s Big Gay-Marriage Week, Explained
VIDEO: The 5 Most Comically Bad Anti-Gay Ads, Ever
Mac McClelland on Gay Rights in Uganda
Gay by Choice? The Science of Sexual Identity
Clement had good reason to tone it down. A day earlier, former Reagan-era Justice Department official Charles J. Cooper, defending California’s ban on same-sex marriage, had not fared so well. When Cooper argued that California was justified in enacting the ban because of “society’s interest in responsible procreation,” Justice Elena Kagan asked if it would be constitutional to ban marriages between infertile couples. When Cooper argued that it’s possible that same-sex marriage harms children, Justice Anthony Kennedy pointed out that there were already more than 40,000 children being raised by same-sex couples in California. Asked by Kennedy and Kagan how same-sex marriage could have a negative effect on “traditional” marriages, Cooper couldn’t offer any examples.
Oral arguments may not sway the justices themselves, but they can affect how the public sees the case. And Cooper’s case against same-sex marriage looked terrible: not rooted in any evidence, and founded on moral disapproval of homosexuality or simple prejudice.
Clement had made many of Cooper’s arguments in legal briefs he filed months ago with the court in advance of the arguments. But on Wednesday, Clement acted as if the questionable assumptions about homosexuality in his brief didn’t exist. He never referred to the argument that sexual orientation is a choice, which the American Psychological Association says is wrong. (This mistaken notion has led to a harmful industry of charlatans who claim they can purge people of their unwanted same-sex attractions.) Clement didn’t claim that marriage is only for couples who can procreate—or he might have found himself in the same awkward position as Cooper, trying to explain why the government cannot also ban marriages between couples too old to have children. Clement also didn’t assert that being raised by same-sex parents might be bad for children. (The APA, citing social-science research, has stated, “the development, adjustment, and well-being of children with lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents.”) Clement didn’t maintain that banning same-sex marriage was necessary to “encourage” heterosexual relationships.
The Democratic appointees on the court did repeatedly attempt to force Clement to defend the underlying anti-gay bias of the Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed in 1996. “Well, is what happened in 1996—and I’m going to quote from the House report here—is that ‘Congress decided to reflect and honor our collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality’?” Kagan said. “Is that what happened in 1996?”
Clement replied that the court shouldn’t strike down the Defense of Marriage Act “just because a couple of legislators may have had an improper motive.” Clement was in a tight spot. He had to concede that “moral disapproval” was an “improper motive” for the law because of prior Supreme Court decisions finding that “moral disapproval” doesn’t justify a law that discriminates against a group of people. But would any supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act deny that their opposition to same-sex marriage was motivated by “moral disapproval” of homosexuality? Of course not. That’s the bottom line.
So Clement avoided looking like a homophobic crank while arguing that same-sex couples shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else. Sticking to the federalism argument may have been a tactical decision to avoid alienating Justice Kennedy, who is sympathetic to gay and lesbian rights. Or it could be that the lawyer chosen by anti-gay advocates to make their case realizes that they don’t have much of one left.
Mother Jones
See original article:
MIA at the Supreme Court: DOMA Lawyer’s Most Homophobic Arguments
Libros
