Category Justice

“A vote of conscience”

Pat Ryan 2 Comments

Congratulations to the New York legislature for legalizing gay marriage in the state, for doing it with support from Democrats and Republicans, for stepping forward and changing the law to protect the civil rights of all New York citizens.  I read that the passage of the New York law is being credited to a couple of senators, one of whom voted against a similar proposal two years ago, both of whom cited the same reason for their vote this time: conscience.  “It was the right thing to do” is a powerful weapon.

I’m happy to see that people are coming around.  Yes, much more slowly than you might like, but big changes don’t happen overnight.  Now you’ve got the lawmakers in New York, the third-most populous state in the nation, accepting that gay marriage is a question of civil rights, one that can’t be pushed aside any more.

The objections still come predominantly from a religious point of view, and I get that.  These people want the civil law to enforce their religious beliefs on everyone, but that’s not the way it works in this exceptional country.  For the sake of the discussion, let’s accept the premise that the United States was founded on Christian principles; that still doesn’t make the United States a “Christian nation,” despite the fact that more Americans identify as Christians than as members of any other religion.   The Founding Fathers—not all devout Christians in the modern sense, not by any means—believed in everyone having the freedom to worship as they choose to, and in a government that does not show preference for any one religion over another (my translation of the establishment clause).  Legislators pass laws to protect the rights of all Americans, not just the ones who practice the majority religion.

You don’t believe in gay marriage?  OK, that’s your right.  Your church doesn’t believe in gay marriage?  Don’t perform any; no one’s forcing you.  What New York and other states have done is make it legal for two people of the same sex to take out a marriage license under civil law and enjoy the rights and responsibilities that come with being married.  They don’t need the approval of any religious group, they’re married in the eyes of the law.  From a legal point of view, I don’t see the substantive difference between a heterosexual couple who get married in a civil ceremony and a homosexual couple who get married in a civil ceremony—none of them have the approval of any church, nor do they need it.  More power to ’em all.

News on the march

Pat Ryan 3 Comments

Tidying up the files and hoping no one has noticed the “funny” little comments at the top of the page while I find out where they’re coming from:

I am still annoyed at the decision announced last month by the Obama Administration not to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged September 11 attack plotters in civilian court…actually, “shameful” is the word that first came to mind.  It caved in to bullying and fear-mongering from those who don’t really trust the justice system and want a guarantee of a conviction, which they believe they get from a military tribunal instead of a dozen New Yorkers off the street (I refer you to a prior discussion to the issue last year).   On the other hand, Osama bin Laden didn’t get a public trial, either…

Good news and bad from our Texas Legislature.  The state senator who took heat for her plan to railroad accused sex offenders by changing the rules of evidence in their trials had the temerity to defend her position in the paper by claiming her plan actually protects the rights of the accused!  On the other hand, the bogus statistical machination that the state education agency has been using to falsely pump up the annual student assessment test results is on its way out.

In another development on the fungible facts front, the Arizona senator who intentionally misspoke on the Senate floor about the use of funds by Planned Parenthood, and who had his press secretary try to explain it all away by assuring reporters that those words were “not intended to be a factual statement,” has had the Congressional Record edited so that he’s not lying misspeaking anymore.  Because members of Congress have granted themselves the “privilege” to do things like that.

Some days you think you have a pretty good handle on things and the world is spinning in greased grooves…and then you’ve got to figure out how to reconcile that world with one in which an Iranian government power struggle in the 21st century has led to arrests on charges of sorcery, and where the Chinese have outlawed time travel in works of fiction.  If they’re against mythical stories, why do they keep calling their country a republic?

Don’t let the rules of evidence get in the way of a guilty verdict, not when you can change the rules

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Did I grow up on another planet?  Was my education about the basics of a criminal trial, or even just the nature of plain old fairness, totally alien?  Apparently so, when I read what the Texas Legislature is up to…

We here in the Texas state senate are voting to change a rule of evidence in criminal trials.  Now, this wouldn’t be for every criminal trial, just a special kind of case, one where the defendant is accused of rape or sexual assault.  Y’see, people accused of rape or sexual assault—not convicted or admitted rapists, mind you, but accused rapists—they are so clearly evil (evident by the fact that they have been accused) that we think our good God-fearing prosecutors deserve a little help inflaming the passions of connecting with the jury.

This bill would make it legal in rape and sexual assault cases for the state to present evidence to a jury—after the judge hears the evidence outside the presence of the jury and decides that it is relevant—that at some time in the past there had been similar allegations of rape or sexual assault made against this same defendant.  Now, we’re not talking about telling the jury about a person’s record of criminal convictions during the punishment phase of the trial, after they already found the guy guilty of the new charge; that’s already in the law.  No, we mean telling the jury before they reach a verdict in this case about any time in the past when the same defendant was ever even accused of a similar crime.

Now, just to be clear: we’re not saying the jury should know that this guy was once arrested, or indicted, or tried on a similar charge; that’s OK and all, but we mean we want it to be OK for the jury that hasn’t yet decided if this scumbag’s defendant’s guilty of this crime to be told if he was ever accused of any similar crime—doesn’t matter if he was never arrested, or indicted, or tried on the previous accusation.

You and I both know that there’s some of them whiny types (folks who came here from New York City, probably) who’d say we’re ignoring fundamental rights and revving up some kind of witch hunt, but they just don’t understand how we do things here in Texas, is all.  We’re putting this together to go with a new package of laws we think’ll be good for Texas, stuff like:

Not getting all spun up about $27 billion in state budget “challenges” and starting the session off with having Governor Haircut declare that things like mandatory pre-abortion sonograms and outlawing sanctuary cities and demanding Congress pass a balanced budget amendment are emergencies, and need to go to the head of the legislative line; and

Making sure we get our money’s worth out of our lazy-ass liberal college professors by putting a premium on productivity and emphasizing more time in the classroom, not that egg-headed research they’re so keen on; and

Seeing to it that the long-suffering public servants in the Legislature get the treatment they deserve and can carry their concealed handguns in places like bars and amusement parks, places where we already decided it wouldn’t be safe to have everyone packing.

Any questions?  Well, thanks for your attention.

These are my favorite stories about the Texas Legislature:

There was a “typo” when they wrote the state constitution back in 1876—they didn’t mean to have the legislature in session for 140 days every two years, they meant for it to be two days every 140 years.

In the 1970s the mayor of Austin, who was noted for an irreverent sense of humor, was holding his weekly news conference and a reporter idly mentioned, “Well, the Legislature’s coming back to town soon.”  The mayor’s immediate response: “Lock up the kids and dogs!”

The Extent of Pandering-ization in the American Political Community

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

What’s causing me a good bit of non-specific discomfort about Rep. Peter King’s hearing today ("The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response") is the premise that we should investigate if Muslims are cooperating with law enforcement in the fight against terrorism.  Why isn’t he investigating the cooperation of Baptists, or Buddhists?  Or the Unitarians or the Wiccans or the Scientologists?

Because they didn’t attack America on September 11?  No, they didn’t; a few adherents to a twisted interpretation of Islam did.  But “Muslims” as a group did not, and certainly Muslim Americans didn’t.

First, King has only a handful of anecdotal examples of Muslims not cooperating with the FBI or other law enforcement agencies in investigating homegrown terrorism; certainly nothing to justify this hearing, which could actually have been something constructive if it had been used as an opportunity for Muslims in America to talk about what they really believe.

Second, he’s wrong: research shows that law enforcement’s biggest source of help in fighting domestic terrorism comes from Muslim Americans and Muslim organizations (page 6).

Third, it shows the rest of the world just how stupid we can be at times, and might help Al Qaeda convince a few feeble-minded individuals that America really does hate Muslims.

That’s not to say that no Muslim Americans hate America or sympathize with Al Qaeda; crazy people belong to every religion—religions don’t test for crazy when they you sign up.  But this hearing targets people for suspicion because of their religion, and that’s just not right.

People are not the groups they belong to.  As Harry Reasoner put it, labels only lump me in among people with whom I have one thing in common.  Granted, it’s much easier to stereotype…once you understand that all Irish are drunks, all Mexicans are lazy, all Hindus worship cows, and all Muslims want to kill Americans, then no hard thinking is required.

This is history we’re seeing

Pat Ryan 4 Comments

First Tunisia; then Egypt; then Yemen and Bahrain and Iran, and now Libya, where the country’s ambassador to the UN  has broken with the government, and Qaddafi has ordered the military to attack the people but two fighter pilots flew to Malta and asked for political asylum rather than attack the protesters in Tripoli.

This is just stunning to see: across a part of the world that we Americans just assume has given in to the rule of kings and despots, people are standing up for themselves.  They’re not demanding an Islamic theocracy—they’ve taken to the streets to claim their right to self determination.  Outstanding!

I don’t know if any or all of these popular uprisings will succeed; I don’t know how far the rulers will go to keep their grip on power and privilege.  (I don’t know what the literati of 18th century Europe thought of the first reports of rebellion by the British colonists in the Americas, either.)

But I have a feeling…I think that by this time next year, we’ll see more than a couple of new democratic governments in northern Africa and the Middle East.  We’re witnessing a new birth of liberty, right where we’d have never bet we see it.