The tyranny of the minority

There's been much talk recently about the fate of the US Senate's filibuster.

The filibuster has been most often used to preserve white supremacy and to obstruct voting rights. And both remain its primary uses today. 

The filibuster should have been abolished a long time ago. There's a reason why no other legislative body in the country has anything like it.

It's also worth remembering that the filibuster is not indicating anywhere in the Constitution. It was also never used during the first 50 years of the Senate's history.

The pretext used to cover up the white supremacy-preserving purpose of the filibuster is gobbledygook about "preserving minority rights." 

In deviously gaslighting fashion, "minority" in this context means white elites.

Our constitutional system was designed to protect the rights of the (white) minority. But 'preserving minority [sic] rights' has been corrupted into something far more sinister: a minority veto.

Our system already has plenty of protections from the so-called tyranny of the majority.

In order for a bill to become law, it needs to...

1) Pass the House 

2) Pass the Senate, whose very structure is already tilted in favor of states where few people choose to live

3) Be signed by the president, who himself is elected as the result of a system already tilted in favor of states where few people choose to live.

4) If vetoed by the president, it requires a 2/3 majority of each house of Congress to become law.

5) We also have a federal Constitution with certain safeguards. Even if a bill passes all those hurdles, those offended by a 'tyrannical' law can appeal to the judiciary to overturn said law on constitutional grounds.

Giving 41 senators outright veto power over all legislation is unjustifiable and further corrodes confidence in our already teetering republican democracy. It would be absurd even if the Senate didn't have a nihilistic minority of members.

People have talked about returning to the old filibuster where you could only block legislation by actually standing on your feet and talking. Or about requiring 41 votes to block rather than 60 to approve. These are but band aids on a gaping flesh wound. They don't address the fundamental injustice of a minority veto.

You could argue that the problem is not the existence of the filibuster but the low character of the current crop of senators. But the filibuster has been used in this fashion for most of our country's history. It's impossible to plausibly argue that the filibuster has done more good than harm.

I admit, the existence of the filibuster isn't as corrosive to public confidence as the suffocating influence of money in politics. But the sclerosis it ensures is one more giant hurdle preventing a truly representative political system from emerging.

The Constitution begins with pious words about 'forming a more perfect union." It's long past time we got back to working on that task.

Christian fanatics threaten far more Americans than ISIS

There's been much talk in recent years about "religious liberty" and "religious freedom." In general, this is a fraud. What is usually being discussed is the supremacy of a particular religion. What many want is for the US to implement the Christian equivalent of Sharia Law.
This is a grave threat to our constitutional republic, something that threatens far more Americans than anything ISIS is doing in Syria or Iraq.

Remember, if you are a soldier, politician, Peace Corps volunteer or any other kind of public servant, you swore an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC.

The Founders of the republic intentionally devised a system where no one faith had official status. This is why no specific religion is mentioned in the Constitution.

While everyone is focused on the chaos in the Trump regime, much truly evil legislation is being pushed at the state level with far less notice.

The Texas legislature has a bill which would allow medical "professionals" to deny care to LGBT people. This is not refusing to sell someone a cake.

You could be dying and the doctor could refuse to treat you because s/he doesn't like gay or trans people. Seriously WTF?! Is this America or Saudi Arabia?

It would allow nurses and doctors to discuss a woman's medical condition with her husband against her wishes, if their religious beliefs state that a husband is the head of the household.

But theocrats should beware of this double edged sword: such a bill would also permit a Jewish or Muslim nurse to refuse treatment to Christians.

It would also let them refuse to serve you because you're a man or woman if their religion bans them contact with people of the opposite gender not related to them. Your intent may be to harm LGBT people but you risk harming yourself.

So-called Christians are plotting and, in some cases achieving, far more damage to American citizens than any Muslim extremist group. Civilized Christians need to denounce this and loudly.

If you are a medical PROFESSIONAL, your job is to help people, not to refuse to help them.

You have the right to a religion. You don't have the right to a job.

If your religion states you can't do your job helping someone because of who they are, you either need a new religion or a new job. Or perhaps a new country.

Confrontation is central to human rights movements

With Martin Luther King day coming not long after the death of Nelson Mandela, the fundamental essence of these two heroes has been saccharinized into something that completely misrepresents their struggle and that of their movements.

They both rejected or came to reject violence. But they both recognized that confrontation was essential to any sort of fundamental change. It would've been nice if they could simply have gotten on their knees and pleaded to their masters for basic humanity dignity, as the comfortable chastised them for not doing. But, as King rebuked them in Letter From a Birmingham Jail, this doesn't work in the real world.

Confrontation of injustice - those who tolerated it as much as those who inflicted it directly - was central to these movements and human rights struggles in this country and around the globe. It'd be nice if 'please' alone worked in these situations. But it never does.

Pro-civil rights senator's defeat sends wrong messages

You often hear people whining that elected officials have no independent thought, that they merely vote the party line, that they just stick their finger in the wind rather than do what's right. And yet when a politician does show independent thought, bucks the party line and does what he thinks is right, the public too often punishes him. The situation of New York state Sen. Roy McDonald is a case in point.

McDonald was one of four Republicans senators who voted in 2011 to approve a marriage equality law in the state. Without those four votes, the measure would have failed in the GOP-controlled chamber.

As a result, McDonald, who'd never faced a primary challenge to his re-election, was opposed by Kathy Marchione. As Saratoga County clerk, Marchione once pulled a George Wallace, threatening not to apply the same-sex marriage law if it passed.

Marchione very narrowly won the Republican primary. McDonald decided he wouldn't contest the general election, despite having a slot on the Independence Party line.

The most common criticism of his vote in favor of civil rights for gay people seemed to be that he went against the will of the majority of his constituents. This is debatable. But even if that was true, his vote was to respect his oath of office which demanded that he respect the New York and US constitutions, both of which contain equal protection clauses.

Another, more stupid, criticism was that McDonald only did this to get 'gay money,' after the revelation that gay rights groups had donated to his campaign. In reality, if he'd taken the easy way out and voted against gay marriage, he never would've had a far right primary opponent and wouldn't have needed the 'gay money.' Needless to say, much 'anti-gay money' was funneled to Marchione's campaign as well.

The general election will be interesting since Marchione, whose campaign was almost entirely based on her opposition to civil rights for gays, will face openly-gay Democrat Robin Andrews.

It was surely unpleasant for someone with such a conservative voting record as McDonald's to be so crucified by the neo-Taliban for a single vote. Still, it's unfortunate that he choose to not contest the general election. Instead, he let a tiny fringe kick him out of office.

Civil rights opponents are crowing about McDonald's primary defeat. But they should be careful to overestimate their victory. All three other Republican legislators who voted for civil rights and contested primaries won those elections, though some were subjected to some disgusting bigotry as well. Secondly, McDonald was rejected by only a tiny minority of his constituents, all from one party. We'll never know how he would've fared had he subjected himself to the entire electorate.   

Each New York senate district contains around 311,000 people.  About 14,500 people voted in the GOP primary. Thus, his fate as an elected representative was decided by fewer than 5% of his constituents, all from a single party, and only a razor thin majority of that rejected him. The other 95% won't even have a say. This is democracy?

Sen. McDonald lost his job because 2.4% of his constituents, all from a single party, didn't like the job he was doing. There's something about this that fundamentally doesn't sit well.

He should've stayed in the race. His job as senator was given to him by everybody in the district; his service shouldn't be taken away from everyone else just because 2.4% of them didn't like one of his votes.

What Occupy can learn from Dr. King and the civil rights movement

I'm reading this really excellent book called Nixonland: The Rise of the President and the Fracturing of America (more details here). It's a fantastic analysis of the political career of Richard Nixon, who may well be the most brilliantly cynical and manipulative president in American history. The book gives great insight if you want to understand what's behind the 'Tea Party' movement and the right-wing's martyr complex politics in general.

Nixonland points out something interesting and still relevant. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. may be a sanitized figure in death but, as I've written about in the past, he was hardly a consensus figure in life.

The strategy of his wing of the civil rights movement was to disturb the (illusion of) peace and draw out the hatred that was really there, but lurking just beneath the surface.

The book also points out that the civil rights movement was adamant in NOT being linked to a particular political party, but rather to an agenda. When some Democrats refused to push, or even obstructed, parts of their agenda, the civil rights movement did not hesitate in encouraging people to not vote for Democrats.

They recognized that threatening to withhold their vote - and being willing to actually do it - was the only real leverage they had on legislators. They refused to reward people who crapped on them. They were about their agenda, not about a particular party.

I wonder if Occupy sympathizers will heed this lesson.

Single parenthood causes child abuse, claims GOP Taliban

It seems the Republican strategy for 2012 is to see how low a percentage of the women's vote they can get. The latest in their anti-female crusade comes from Wisconsin. Two (male of course) state legislators have introduced a bill mandating that schools brainwash children into blaming "non-marital parenthood" for child abuse. The bill would also describe fathers as the primary prevention against such domestic violence.

One of the co-authors of the bill, obviously an admirer of the Taliban's social views, has also come out against divorce for any reason, including spousal abuse. His advice to battered women: try hard to find reasons to love the man that's brutalizing you.

The arc of history

Gay marriage opponents upset that they can’t use state power to deny equal protection of the law to a law-abiding minority. Segregationists commiserated with their frustration.

Maybe we need a little *more* incivility

Civility and consensus are my default preferences, but boy, they make it hard sometime. In mainstream political analysis, the description 'bipartisan' is designed to make us turn our brains off, clap our hands like robots, squeal in joy like school girls and sing Kumbayah about 'cooperation,' 'civility' and the like. So imagine my reaction I read about this Congressional effort to invalidate the 5th Amendment by allowing the head of state to detain his nation's citizens indefinitely and without charge. Initially, I was outraged. This isn't possible. After all, wasn't such an abomination one of the main grievances in America's Declaration of Independence? But then, I just numbed my mind and intoned warm-over nothings about this joyous effort at bipartisanship and that made it all better.

The class warfare against the Occupy movement

The UK Guardian has a great op-ed about the well-coordinated police crackdown on the Occupy movement. 

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality, it notes.

"Reporting on a murder is taking a pro-homicide position" and other absurdities

North Country Public Radio announced that it is planning on doing a story on area gay couples who are getting married when it takes effect in New York. Seems pretty straight forward (no pun intended). Gays have never been able to legally marry in the state so doing a story on something that's never happened before seems a no-brainer.

Some of the enlightened commenters on NCPR’s In Box blog whined that such reporting constitutes the station “taking a political stance” on marriage equality.

Strangely, the “political stance” accusation wasn’t leveled at the public radio station when it aired a long interview with the Catholic archbishop of Ogdensburg railing against the gay marriage bill.

According to this sad logic, if a news outlet interviews a convicted murderer, it’s taking the political stance of being pro-homicide.

Those fishing for the dreaded “liberal bias” ogre will look under every nook and cranny for the tiniest semblance of evidence and are not bound by the logic of normal people.

In the same announcement, NCPR also mentioned that it was going to include in the report the views of municipal clerks who have religious reservations about issuing marriage licenses to gay couples (of course they should issue the license or resign on principle).

For some reason, this inclusion was not subjected to the “taking a political stance” accusation; in fact, it wasn’t even acknowledged by the whiners in question. According to the whiners, NCPR's real bias isn't that it's ignoring the anti-gay marriage position; it's that the station is including the pro- side.

But it’s well-known that selective vision and hearing are critical elements in any martyr complex.

'Cuz God says so' is not good enough anymore

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.” ~James Madison, one of the main authors of the US Constitution.

I read a comment on a blog that two people of the same gender living together, having kids and getting married was “the slippery slope to moral decline.” Ten years ago, cultural warriors were telling us that people living together, having kids and NOT getting married at all was the slippery slope to moral decline. It’s a mark of the culture warriors' adaptability that, as society evolves, they can switch scapegoats so easily.

And that's what the passage of marriage equality in New York was such an achievement. The main benefit is, of course, to gay couples who want their union recognized by law and thus to receive the attendant benefits. It's also important to legislation reflect the equal protection of the law provisions of the state and federal constitutions.

But one of the secondary benefits was to strike a blow against theocratic tendencies. In the NYS debate, the main argument against marriage equality was simple: "God's law says marriage is between one man and one woman. And Man does not have the right to change it."

Except that the debate was not about changing God's law. It was about changing Man's law. The NYS marriage law was written by men and thus men (and women) have it entirely within their power to change that law. "God's law" remains unaffected. Man's law ought to be democratic. God's law can't be.

One reason marriage equality was such an important victory is that it reminds us that we don't live in Iran or Saudi Arabia. We live in a state run by secular and constitutional values. If you are going to deny equal rights to a group of citizens, if you want to change or defend any piece of governmental action or inaction, you have to come up with a better reason than just "Cuz God says so."

A great day for civil rights

After intense debate, the New York Senate finally voted on and passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The bill was quickly signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The irony is that a similar measure failed two years in a Democratic-controlled Senate. But this bill was approved by a GOP-controlled chamber.

Interestingly, a combined 55% of legislators supported the civil rights measure, which is actually a lower percentage than in the 2009 vote. Perhaps surprisingly, a recent Siena poll showed that 59% of Catholics in New York supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, despite the obstinance of their leaders.

Shortly after the bill was signed, someone I know announced that she and her partner were engaged. I checked outside and noticed that the sky did not appear to be falling.

Critics make the farcical claim that allowing gays and lesbians to marry will cause society to implode. I think the real sign of the apocalypse is that the legislature actually did something to make us proud to be New Yorkers.

Bigotry today! Bigotry tomorrow! Bigotry forever!

Regular readers will know that I am a staunch supporter of equal treatment under the law for all citizens, including based on sexual orientation. In short, I believe in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. That gays should have the same civil rights as other law-abiding Americans seems a no-brainer to me. And it isn’t just that I support civil rights for gays. It’s that, for all the heated rhetoric, I’ve yet to hear a single compelling argument against it. Not even necessarily one I agree with... just one that I think isn’t completely ludicrous.

Not everyone thinks that way.

My friend Bob over at Planet Albany blog has a report on a march in Albany against equality for gays.

I want to preface my remarks by saying I do not know for sure what Bob’s position is. I have never heard him state his own personal position explicitly. Mostly, he just relays the position of the Catholic Church and other social conservatives which is, of course, staunch hostility toward these civil rights. Given his avowed status as a social conservative and his megaphoning of the Catholic Church’s positions, one can infer his own view but I do not wish to put words into his mouth (a courtesy not often extended in the other direction). Hence, an explicit statement would be welcome.

But to sum up his reporting, here is my take...

-Opposition to civil rights for gays has “religious foundations” (no surprise there) and is a heart rendering example of unity between fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims;

-Democratic state Sen. Ruben Diaz, the leading opponent of equality in the New York legislature, has “love in his heart” for gay people... he just doesn’t think the state should treat them as full-fledged citizens. Gay people might have a little less objection to this view if they weren’t forced to pay the same taxes as full-fledged citizens. Maybe Diaz should show his “love” by getting them a tax break. If not, Diaz should understand that I love Hispanics too... so long as they don’t expect any rights;

-Saint Diaz, a Pentecostal minister, doesn’t appear have an actual legal argument for why gays should be denied constitutional rights, at least as reported by Bob, but he does object to people calling him meanie names. Diaz seems to be under the impression that him being a minority gives him license to take discriminatory positions against other minorities and then snivel when he’s criticized for it; bullies usually are the ones most hypersensitive to criticism. Diaz vowed that he is “not keeping his mouth shut” despite the fact that he has nothing of substance to say... though that’s usually the case about those who talk to loudest;

-A speaker from the New York State Catholic Conferences fears the ramifications of the Church having to (gasp) treat gay people decently. The Church might, for example, have to choose between its anti-gay positions and its participation in the adoption industry. Sorry, but that’s a pathetic argument against equality. Equal treatment under the law a constitutional right. Participation in the adoption industry is not. It’s that simple;

-That speaker wrongly claims that Catholic Charities has already been forced to close adoption agencies in Boston and Washington, D.C. In actual fact, they were not forced to close such agencies. What they were actually forced to do is to choose between helping kids and their anti-gay positions. That they chose the latter is sad and telling, but it was their choice and the consequences are on their conscience;

-A “Reverend” Duane Motley implied that tolerance for gay people was responsible for straight people getting divorced and living together unmarried... going so as to invoke the menace of health problems, school dropouts and crime;

-Motley also made the counterintuitive claim that legalizing gay marriage would weaken the institution. It’s more likely marriage would be STRENGTHENED by the inclusion of people who believe so strongly in that institution that they want to participate in it and are willing to struggle to do so.

-Some wonder why there’s a growing backlash against churches who are abuse their tax-exempt status to lobby for the arbitrary denial of rights by the state to citizens based on nothing more than their personal religious whim. Some feel churches should not receive these *SPECIAL RIGHTS*. Here’s why. Churches can get a tax exemption while demanding gays be denied rights by the state... and this tax exemption might be threatened if gays were ever granted equal rights. Gays must pay full taxes even while being denied full rights. The revenue not paid by tax-exempt churches is a burden passed on to all taxpayers, including gays. So the cruelest irony of all this is that gays are essentially helping, against their will, to fund organizations hell bent on making sure they are treated like crap. Churches are benefiting from services paid for by those whose oppression they are committed to. No grounds for resentment there!


It’s unfortunate that religious leaders hide behind their religion to excuse their own bigotry. The Constitution gives anyone, individuals and churches alike, the right to be a bigot; it does NOT give the state the right to act in such a fashion toward law-abiding, taxpaying citizens. The state does not follow religious diktats. This is because (and Bob would certainly agree with this) neither the US nor NYS is a theocracy.

At least opponents of black civil rights in the south tended not to hide their prejudices behind the respectable veneer of religion. They simply came out and said, “We hate (black people) because they are inferior beings.” Ditto for those who wanted to keep treating women like chattel. Such candor may be crude but at least it’s honest enough to drop the intellectually insulting pretense of something loving and holy.

Note: Clearly, this is just my take on the anti-fairness rally. You can judge for yourself by reading Bob’s report directly by clicking here.

Bruno, Cheney come out

I see that former New York Senate majority leader Joe Bruno has come out in favor of same sex marriage. Bruno, who describes himself as a "conservative Roman Catholic," refused to allow the same-sex marriage bill come to a vote when he was majority leader. Though he did allow passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in 2002. Bruno's comments came not long after former vice-president Dick Cheney also came out as being in favor of gay marriage.

While Bruno is in embroiled legal troubles and Cheney certainly ought to be, it's quite remarkable that these two conservatives are to the left of President Obama on this key civil rights issue.

An evolution of attitudes on gay marriage?

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This month has seen important victories for gay rights' advocates, notably the decisions by the Iowa Supreme Court and the Vermont legislature to legalize same-sex marriage. The provoked the National Organization for Marriage (heterosexual only, of course) to move up its planned ad campaign.

I generally try to go easy on people who seem earnest (though maybe I shouldn't... see MLK quote above). But the NOM ad (which can be viewed here) provoked only one reaction. Not anger or fury or disgust, but hysterical laughter. Menacing music. Apocalyptic imagery. Sky-is-falling rhetoric. I'm sure if they believed that global warming was real, they would've blamed gays for that too. In parts of it, I honestly don't know how The Onion or Stephen Colbert would've done it any differently.

Despite such unintentional humor, or perhaps because of it, the tide toward equal rights for gays seems to be turning. New York Gov. David Paterson re-introduced a bill that would legalize gay marriage in this state. No doubt, its timing was designed to prop up his personal unpopularity.

But the mere fact that being pro-gay marriage is now seen as an issue that can BOOST your popularity is an example of how much things have evolved... or should I say, been intelligently designed.

A recent poll revealed that only 19 percent of New Yorkers opposed any form of legal recognition for gay couples. New York is certainly one of the more liberal states. But a person or issue doesn't get 81 percent statewide numbers without significant support in the fairly conservative upstate.

Tellingly, this this piece from The Adirondack Daily Enterprise on how a fourth Assemblywomen from the conservative North Country, three of whom are Republican, have come out in favor of the governor's gay marriage bill. I'm not sure exactly how many Assembly members the North Country has, but I can't imagine it would much more than four.

This won't change the dynamic of voting in Albany. The gay marriage bill already has overwhelming support in the Assembly, which passed the bill two years ago. It's in the Senate where it might not pass because of a couple of conservative Democrats, unless the leadership can pick off a few Republican votes.

But if legislators from the conservative North Country feel they can take a stand in favor of equal rights without jeopardizing their jobs via a strong primary challenge, then maybe things really are moving in the right direction.

In 2007, my local Assemblywoman, Republican Teresa Sayward, stunned observers by making a moving and impassioned speech in favor of gay marriage. She explained how her views had evolved via her relationship with her gay son. The right was outraged. The Conservative Party refused to endorse her in the 2008 election, even though she votes their position over 90 percent of the time.

The right predicted, in some cases promised, that the vote would be her political demise in this conservative district. In the 2008 general election, 32,029 people cast a legal vote for a candidate in the election for her seat.

She won 99.998 percent of those votes.

She ran unopposed in the primary too.


Update: This 19 pct. opposition to all forms of official recognition for gay couples is even more surprising considering the fact that Catholics, white evangelicals and black Protestants combine to comprise nearly 60 pct. of New York state's population. So this makes you wonder if the rank-and-file of these religious groups might be more open-minded than their leadership.


Further update: The Daily News Daily Politics' blog reports that the Empire State Pride Agenda is enlisting members of the clergy in Massachusetts to push back against claims that passage of gay marriage in New York will force religious institutions to peform same-sex ceremonies against their will.

Bob Conner at Planet Albany blog offers a different take on gay marriage and other issues that a number of Catholics are concerned about.

Jesse Jackson: please retire

Can Jesse Jackson just please retire? He's become such a pale shadow of his former self that he's almost become a cartoon character, such that it threatens to tarnish his well-earned legacy as a civil rights' leader.

While he once stood with sanitation workers in 1968 who were fighting for a living wage, he now is standing up for an 'oppressed' baseball player who is paid more in than 45 minutes (salary alone) than a someone on minimum wage earns in a month.

And what exactly is this baseball player's great burden that so enrages the reverend?

I mean, besides his poverty wages.

Barry Bonds is about the break the Major League Baseball home run record and the commissioner hasn't yet promised to be in attendance.

When is Bonds going to break the record? No one knows. It's different than when Cal Ripken Jr broke Lou Gehrig's record and pretty much everyone could point to a date on the calendar when it was going to happen. Why should Selig put his life on hold for something which might happen tomorrow or might happen in three weeks?

Bear in mind, Selig hasn't even actually snubbed Bonds yet because the event hasn't occured.

But of course Bonds is black so it must be made into a fake issue by Jackson. Selig's non-committal status has been condemned by Jackson. But the reverend has not, to my knowledge, attacked Hank Aaron (whose record Bonds will break) for also not committing to attend the record-breaking night whenever that might be.

Does this dichotomy in Jackson's behavior have even a tiny bit to do with the fact that Selig is white and Aaron is black?

When Aaron broke the home run record in 1974, then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn was not in attendance. Strangely enough, I don't know of any histories of the civil rights' movement that mentions Kuhn's 'snub.' Maybe because within the context of desegregation, voting rights and the fight against lynching and poverty, Kuhn's failure to attend a baseball game was insignificant.

Increasingly, Rev. Jackson, who I once held in great esteem, is a man in search of fake causes to keep himself in the public limelight. Some argue that he was always like that. Maybe I used to be willing to overlook that because he used the publicity to bring publicity to real causes. Not any more.

While racism is certainly less pernicious than it was 40 years ago, there remain many issues facing black communities. Drugs, poverty, family decay, crime, imprisonment, voting access issues, the limited availability of good health care, etc. Any of these are worthy of a public media campaign. But the reverend has trivialized these grave situation with non-issues like this one. How can blacks who want to be real leaders and address real issues get any traction when all the publicity is being hogged by Jackson and his tantrums on behalf of spoiled brat multimillionaires?