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Instilled Memory by Uri Avnery |
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July 7, 2011
FOR SEVERAL weeks now, our
army and navy have been in a state of high alert, bravely facing a
deadly threat to our very existence: ten little boats trying to reach
Gaza. These vessels are carrying a dangerous gang of vicious terrorists,
in the form of elderly veterans of peace campaigns.
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The Legalization of Gay Marriage in New York State: There's Good News and Bad News by Steve Jonas |
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July 7, 2011
The legalization of marriage between partners of the same sex in New York State has special meaning for me. After my mother and father divorced in 1946, my mother lived with my "aunt" until 1959 (when the latter walked out on her to join a much younger, much prettier woman - this sort of behavior being found not just among heterosexual couples). We were members of an upper middle-class left-wing set in New York City (and I do include myself in the group because I was very political from a very young age - I can remember discussing his work with Howard Fast in my mother's living room when I was about ten, and joined my mother and 'aunt' at many of the parties and other events). No one said boo to a goose about their relationship. They were as 'out-of-the-closet' as one could be back then. As for me, I thought nothing special of it either. I saw my Dad about once a month and during vacation time becoming very close to him only as an adult. The rest of the time it was Mom, Hanna, and me.
The new New York State law was finally passed with the help, I must say, of four very politically brave Republican state senators. Mine from the First Senatorial District on Long Island, Ken LaValle, who, as an attorney should know better, sadly was not among them. Indeed, I had thought that the bill would not make it through to passage. But it did. Just think, Mom and Hanna could have married if they were still with us and still together. Of course, back then no one even thought of such a thing. But, they could have now.
At the present time, I have a second personal reason for being thrilled with the law's passage. Late in life I have come to have a gay step-son, one who blesses my family with his presence as both my own son and daughter will tell you. So now, in my state and his too, should my step-son meet a suitable partner, they will be able to get married, just like any other loving couple. And, fortunately in my state we do not have 'Initiative and Referendum' as they do in California.
Originally, over a century ago, "I & R" was set up by progressives to overcome an entrenched reactionary state legislature run by the then equivalent of the Koch Brothers and their ultra-right wing clones. But, in the modern era the system for the most part has come to be used by the very reactionary forces that it was originally designed to combat. And so came California's infamous Proposition 8, adopted after a stealth campaign funded primarily by the Mormon Church, operating from its home-base of Utah. Well, that cannot happen in New York State. And it would be extremely difficult for the Republican Christian Right to amend the state's Constitution, since that is not subject to change by referendum either; and going the legislative route is very cumbersome. Such an amendment would never get through the State Assembly as it is now constituted anyway. So, good news all around. Well, not all around, but we'll come to that below.
The good news is that the proposed change in the law passed in New York, and it passed with the votes of legislators who were voting for it on Constitutional, not necessarily political, grounds. Yes, same-sex marriage bans are not fair, are unjust, and are dog whistles for homophobia. But, the primary reason for the legalization of same-sex marriage has nothing to do with fairness and justice. It has everything to do with the bimodal nature of marriage in our country and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. (It happens that the case challenging Prop. 8 is being made on Constitutional grounds, but the argument predates its adoption by the revoke-Prop.-8 legal team.) It also has to do with the provisions on freedom of religion of the First Amendment, which the 14th applies to the several states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Gay marriage bans, which their supporters always tell us are based on biblical-religious law, on their face violate both the Establishment clause and the free exercise clause.
Every religion in the United States has a system for marriage under its own rules. But, how odd it was that the Mormon church is one of the most prominent proponents of the, "marriage is between one man and one woman" mantra. The Mormon Church led and heavily funded the Proposition 8 campaign in California. But, oddly enough the fundamentalist Mormons, who trace their heritage, and rules, directly back to the founder of the Church, Joseph Smith, Jr., have a quite different form of marriage. It is, on paper, illegal throughout the United States, but in their home state and certain counties in neighboring states it is openly tolerated. You know the rule of this particular group of Latter-Day Saints: "marriage is between one man and whole bunch of women." You can bet your sweet pitootie that no one would ever go after Mormon polygamy under the infamous "Defense of Marriage Act." But consistency has never been prominent among Rightists either of the religious or non-religious type, and hypocrisy is one of the prominent trademarks of the GOP.
Of course, any church is entitled to formulate and abide by its own rules for marriage, and if they don't want to countenance or recognize same-sex marriage, under the First Amendment they love to denigrate so much, that is their right. And then again, any individual who firmly believes that marriage should be only between persons of opposite genders should definitely not marry someone of his or her same sex. That is their right too.
But, then there is the institution of marriage, with provisions for its legal dissolution, that is found in the law, extensive and sometimes quite dense, that exists on the books of every one of the 50 states. That's civil marriage. This institution has absolutely nothing to do with religion any more than state motor vehicle laws do. In every state a couple can walk into the office of an official endowed by that state's law to perform a marriage ceremony and certify that it is licensable under the law, and get married. Unless, that is, in most states, they happen to be of the same sex.
But, then we come to the clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; . . . nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Open and shut, one would think. Why, it's right there in the Constitution: equal protection under the law. But not so fast. Not open and shut at all. And why? Because unique among nations in the advanced capitalist world, ours is the one in which one of the two major parties runs in part on political homophobia, the dog whistle for which is the issue of gay marriage. That the GOP runs on homophobia is the main reason that we have the problem of the illegalization of same-sex marriage in most of the states, despite the clear provision of the 14th for equal protection under the law. And so comes the bad news.
First, it is that we have such a party, a party that runs on homophobia and uses homophobia politically, just as it uses racism and Islamophobia and the promotion of religious persecution on the abortion issue (You don't believe that life begins at the moment of conception? Well, we are going to criminalize your belief. This latter, fact by the way, should also be regarded as a national disgrace. But there are few, if any, opposition political figures who will come anywhere near that one with even a 100-foot pole.) The second piece of bad news is that while we can say, "Hooray, New York has become the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage," there are forty-four others that have not. Twenty-nine of them actually have state Constitutional bans against it (New York Times, N. Confessore, "Beyond New York, Gay Marriage Faces Hurdles," June 27, 2011).
A significant number of those came into being when Karl Rove led a campaign to place proposals for such Constitutional amendments on the ballot in those states where the Constitution can be amended in such a way -- in the 2004 Presidential elections in order to get as many right-wing voters to the polls as he possibly could. Another twelve have laws against it. Yes, folks, that's forty-one out of the remaining forty-four in the NG column. Bad arithmetic. Bad news.
The Proposition 8 case is obviously of huge significance. For if the legal challenge to it as unconstitutional is upheld then the pro-14th Amendment forces will be able to go after every one of those homophobic State Constitutions and State laws that make second-class citizens of the homosexual members of our nation's population, on 14th Amendment grounds. But that's a very big if, given the right-wing, and Catholic, majority on the Supreme Court, which just loves to ignore "Original Intent" or "Amendment Intent" when in a given case paying attention to either one would go against the grain of their reactionary worldviews and projected policies. So we shall see.
But for now, in New York State at least, we can celebrate the passage of a law that brings us into adherence to the 14th, and I can celebrate for the memory of my Mom and my 'aunt' and for the very present reality of my step-son Mark.
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The Jewish Ayatollahs by Uri Avnery |
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July 4, 2011
THE ARCHBISHOP of New York
announces that any Catholic who rents out an apartment to a Jew commits a
mortal sin and runs the risk of excommunication.
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American Exceptionalism: A GOP Mantra by Steve Jonas |
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June 27, 2011
Ah, Newt Gingrich, how you have disappointed me. The moment that I heard that you had decided to enter the race for the GOP Presidential nomination a few weeks back, I started planning this column. After all, based upon what you had been saying about President Obama for the last few months, I was certain that I would have a very nice fat target to shoot at. (Fat indeed, Newt, for you have gotten rather heavy in recent years, no doubt due to the fact that you are spending much less, if any, time chasing after women. Rather, you seem to be being pulled around by the ear by just one.) And it would be an exceptional one, not built around substance, like programs designed to pull the US out of the foreign and domestic mess it is in, but around the process arguments you love so much, like the first eight components of your famous "Contract on America" (oops, sorry, "Contract for America") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America.
But then you went and spoiled it all by making a mess of your campaign right from the git-go (on which mess, upon your return from your vacation in the Greek Isles with the current Mrs. G., you seemed to have doubled down). First you were for US involvement in Libya, then when the President undertook to do that you were against it. Then you were for an individual mandate for the President's something-short-of-national health insurance program. Actually, you have been for such a thing going back to your days in the Congress. After all, no health insurance program, public or private, can work if people can sign on just when they get sick and have not paid premiums during the time they were healthy. That's why the for-profit health insurance companies refused to cover pre-existing conditions. But then you were against the individual mandate (or tried to appear to be). First you were for preserving Medicare as we know it and actually called the Ryan "Plan" radical "social engineering" (a term GOPers apply to any proposed national domestic legislation they don't like), and then you seemed to be for it. At any rate, you were the talk of the political humor shows and etc. and it remains to be seen where your campaign goes, other than into the toilet.
But you did leave us with this gem Newt, apparently indicative of your legendary (sic) genius (sic) for thinking “outside the box,” “so creatively,” “like a true historian.” Yes, Newt, you actually said: “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren] are my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially on dominated by radical Islamists (thestatecolumn.com, March 28, 2011).” What an incredible concept. It’s a political slogan that binds his two principal enemies, the secularists and the “radical Islamists,” into one package. The only problem with it is that, as a secularist, I would hardly build a state “dominated by Radical Islamists” (or Newtonian Republican Christian Rightists either, for that matter). At the same time, I doubt that “Radical Islamists” would want to set up a “secular atheist country.” But then again, there is Newt, definitely thinking outside the box. Yes indeed, he is truly an Exceptional American, managing the kind of truly exceptional thought he, and not many others, can manage to manufacture (for his own political purposes).
But back to "American Exceptionalism." The other potential GOP candidate even dumber and more ignorant than Sara, Trump was the flash-in-the-pan many thought him to be, so heeeere's Sara. And if she does get in, what she calls "American Exceptionalism" will be a major theme of hers. Herman Cain is very quickly going in that direction too. That is, the US is just different from everybody else, so much better, donchaknow, that it just doesn't have to play by anyone else's rules, neither at home nor certainly not abroad. And, she will tell us, President Obama just doesn't somehow, realize that, and that's why he must be replaced. To be fair at this point, one must point out that Tim Pawlenty, "T-Paw" to his friends, an announced candidate, is moving in the direction of the "US exceptionalism" theme too. He focused his opening advertising salvo on his claim that the President "lacks courage" (the point made about four times in a one-minute ad) you know, he's different from us, he is somehow just an unexceptionalist.
Now neither Sara nor Newt (nor T-Paw nor Herm) has yet given us a detailed list of just how exceptional the US is. So (and you may be surprised to read this, coming from me), I am going to help them by giving them a starter list on the subject. It's especially for Newt and Sara, but if T-Paw or Michele (who has made some American Exceptionalism noises herself) wants to use it that's fine with me.
Not necessarily in order of importance here's a list of some outstanding ways in which the US is indeed exceptional among the nations of the world.
1. The US simply ignores treaties to which it is a party, like the Geneva
Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture without so much
as a by-your leave.
2. In the US, Administrations can ignore its own Constitution, as in the case of its Article VI and the above-mentioned torture policy, without anyone in a position of authority saying boo to a goose.
3. The US is the only advanced capitalist country without a national health insurance system, to say nothing of a national health service.
4. The US has the largest military empire in the world, bar none.
5. Among the major Western democracies, it is the only one in which one major party runs in major part on right-wing religious bigotry, homophobia, Islamophobia, and climate change denial.
6. It is one of very few capitalist countries that has no civilian population with a personal recollection of war and its consequences.
7. Of the advanced capitalist countries it has the lowest proportion of workers who are unionized.
8. Of the advanced capitalist countries it is the one with the highest degree of corporate control of election outcomes, and the lowest level of citizen participation in elections.
9. Unlike every other advanced capitalist country, it has no high-speed rail system.
10. It has the highest proportion of government expenditures on the military of any nation in the world.
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