Texas Progressives jump into the middle of summer

A state district judge has ordered DPS to release Uvalde shooting records. While DPS head and Strangeabbott flunky Steve McCraw didn't comment, contra the mush of the spox that did, this will surely be appealed. It is a good ruling and let's hope it stands on appeal.

Off the Kuff looked at the new laws that are likely to result in lawsuits over various constitutional issues.

SocraticGadfly took a look at the escalating dust-up at TSHA.

Politico gives a long profile of Democratic state legiscritter James Talarico, including the buzz that he's likely to run against Strangeabbott in 2026 AND the scuttlebutt that he had considered taking on Havana Ted next year but decided not to when Colin Allred jumped in.

The Texas Supremes said Greg Abbott's blocking of local COVID masking regs was constitutional. And, of course, this gives ammo to today's Lege continuing to erode local control.

The Trib wonders if, in the wake of the national Supremes gutting affirmative action as part of college admissions, if other states will adopt some version of Texas' Top 10 percent plan. The Trib ignores that his applies to public universities in Texas only, and that, in general, public universities don't have class-based and luck-birth-based legacy admissions. It also admits that Top 10 is itself only a partial, and only a modest, semi-solution.

The Monthly remembers John Goodenough, who, if he did not "perfect" the lithium ion battery, certainly made it good enough to kick off today's electronics world, and above all, hybrid and electric cars, as well as consumer electronics.

Meet the Bushman of the Riverwalk.

What's worse than ROTC or active-duty military recruiting captive kids on on high school campuses? TDCJ doing the same, whoring for prison guards.

Brandon Rottinghaus collects a list of issues the next Mayor of Houston will be facing.

One urban demographics and economy site ranks Dallas 53rd most expensive city in the world. Believable, indeed, with soaring housing prices, the Lege's electric surcharges + disconnected grid, swinging temps to drive electric use, and more.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project posted the Project's weekly report on the pre-trial hearings for the horse hockey Harris County Republican election-denial lawsuits. 

The San Antonio Report reports on the initial construction of a new and long-envisioned bus rapid transit system in that city. 

Michael King ponders the "bookends" of the 88th Legislative session, Bryan Slaton and Ken Paxton. 

Charlotte Clymer catalogs Lance Armstrong's many transgressions.

Independent Political Report is often good, though its third-party reporting is massively Libertarian. That said, George Phillies appears to have jumped into the deep end of an empty pool with his recent First Amendment fear-mongering.

Corey Robin claims 303 Creative was NOT about religion. Oh, in a technical sense, he's right. The plaintiff (besides having a fake basis for the suit) cited Freeze Peach, but it was ultimately free speech in the service of religious issues. Wiki gets that right, Corey.

Smoke on the US East Coast from Canadian wildfires, mainly in Quebec, will probably last until the end of summer.

Reason 1,074 I'm not a Dem/am not voting for Joe Biden? Warmonger Joe wants to name convicted felon and Henry Kissinger Jr. level neocon Elliott Abrams to an inside-baseball diplomacy committee.

Thomas Knapp, who has left me semi-hot and definitely cold in the past, is running for prez as an "independent." Unless he's repudiated his Boston Tea Party Veep run, what he's really running as in as a Ron Paul-tard. Beyond being an idiot on "fiat money," by being radically anti-abortion and other things, Paul was and is not an actual L/libertarian. And, per the announcment, Knapp also worked for the campaign of the late, not-so-great, drive without a license Michael Badnarik.

The unbelievable daftness of Corey Robin (and James Surowiecki)

And, yes, I do love bad pun headlines!

For whatever reason, Corey Robin claims 303 Creative was NOT about religion. Oh, in a technical sense, he's right. The plaintiff (besides having a fake basis for the suit) cited Freeze Peach, but it was ultimately free speech in the service of religious issues. Wiki gets that right, Corey. And you apparently don't read analysis of past or present Supreme Court decisions. Shit, your own piece has Smith saying she didn't BELIEVE in gay marriage. In a quote-tweeting, Robin stands by his statement. I referenced the immediately above, plus the Hobby Lobby angle, in a reply.

Robin, in a later quote-tweet, chides me for not having read the 303 Creative ruling. Maybe I didn't read every word, but I did read Sotomayor's dissent, per my original blogging on this, where she nails it.

In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.” She was joined by the court’s two other liberals, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sotomayor said that the decision’s logic “cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” A website designer could refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, a stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple, and a large retail store could limit its portrait services to “traditional” families, she wrote.

Nothing about Freeze Speech there, not as the "ultimate cause." So, here's MY quote-tweeting Robin. (I added the Sotomayor as D in a second threaded Tweet):

A. Taking SCOTUS wingnuts at face value?
B. As the TNR fake complainant background story makes clear, this was about religion. As does free speech IN THE SERVICE of religion.
C. Informal Logic 101: Proximate cause? Free speech. Ultimate cause? Religious rights.
Off to blog. https://t.co/cD8kMchx1Q

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) July 2, 2023

What else is there to say? Well, let's start with quoting the AP piece from whence Sotomayor's dissent, the link above the pull quote up top:

The decision suggests that artists, photographers, videographers and writers are among those who can refuse to offer what the court called expressive services if doing so would run contrary to their beliefs.

The TNR story speaks for itself. If you can't believe that is strong circumstantial evidence for this ultimately being seen as a religious rights case, Corey, dunno what to say, other than the above plus "Hobby Lobby" and all points in between, per ZZ Top.

Well, yes, I'll cite Amy Howe from Howe on the Court and SCOTUSBlog, writing IN HER LEDE:

The court handed a major victory to business owners who oppose same-sex marriage for religious reasons on Friday.

Ye gads, Corey.

Yes, Gorsuch talked about "speech" but again, Informal Logic 101. But wait, per SCOTUSBlog, let's go back to Sotomayor:

Sotomayor’s 38-page dissent argued that the Constitution “contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.” Colorado’s public accommodations law, she contended, only bars business owners from discriminating against members of the public based on (among other things) their sexual orientation. It does not regulate or compel speech at all. If a business owner like Smith “offers [her] goods or services to the public,” Sotomayor suggested, she “remains free under state law to decide what messages to include or not to include.” But what Smith can’t do, Sotomayor stressed, is “offer wedding websites to the public yet refuse those same websites to gay and lesbian couples.”

Again, Corey, you always take winger majority opinions at face value? In his own piece, he actually kind of disses on Sotomayor.

Robin had probably been declining a bit in my opinion for some time. I know the late Leo Lincourt loved him some Corey Robin. That said, Leo was a left-liberal, not a leftist, IMO. (Left-libs, in my US political geography, reject neoliberalism but believe the existing liberal project is certainly capable of reform, rather than needing at least partial rejection. Already in 2018, trying to reduce "socialism" to "freedom," he raised my eyebrows.

His "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas," while good, was not blindingly good; it got four stars from me (expanded version of Goodreads review). See the end for why. "The Reactive Mind" got five, but it's more a 4.5. Per this blog post, based on part on the book, with more hindsight, the idea of American political cycles is either now broken or else in the political science version of a frozen war. I still wouldn't call Trump a full fascist, but after Jan. 6, semi-fascist, or faux fascist, or fascist on the cheap? Yeah, that I would. I don't know, and don't really care a lot, if Robin's thought has emerged.

And, I forgot that a full decade ago, Robin came off as a semi-apologist for Thomas Jefferson. I also note that Robin way back then claimed I had misread him. This is "fool me once ... fool me twice" territory, Corey. I didn't misread you. Nor did I misread your stanning for Dear Leader. (Both that, and the Jefferson, were while Leo was still alive; not sure what he said about either.)

And, on the Jefferson, I referenced that to James Surowiecki when he butted in on the Twitter convo. Of course, he's a neolib at the Atlantic, so he's going to say that. He's as stupid and literalist as Robin. He's also an elitist from the neolib Eastern Establishment, modern version; you are, if you go to Choate, chud. You're also muted.

After THAT, Sunday night, I picked up another buttinski, jumping on Surowiecki's tweets after I muted him. I told Laurie McKenna, in my first comment, about Wiki, SCOTUSBlog, Sotomayor, and then to backread and not comment again until she'd done so.

Oh, elitist Surowiecki and academic Robin? If I'm not high-enough profile for you, Ronald Brownstein, referencing Sotomayor's dissent, says "religious beliefs."

Gay rights, college affirmative action take it in the shorts in favor of "poor, persecuted Christians"

Today, SCOTUS allowed discrimination against gays in the 303 Creative ruling, even with the case almost certainly being based on a fake order, indeed, a fake gay man, for the basis of the complainant's suit. Sotomayor nails it.

In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.” She was joined by the court’s two other liberals, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sotomayor said that the decision’s logic “cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” A website designer could refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, a stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple, and a large retail store could limit its portrait services to “traditional” families, she wrote.

Exactly right, and that leads to yesterday's ruling, basically gutting affirmative action in college admissions.

What's to stop a new Bob Jones University from refusing to admit Blacks period, and saying that past decisions removing it from federal educational funds was wrong? Especially if it's a religious institution?

By the way, all of this, per the first link, show that the tired old meme of "poor, persecuted Christians" is nothing but Religious Right bullshit. But, going beyond the AP piece at top link, this is nothing new. Hobby Lobby winning its contraceptive lawsuit against Dear Leader show this has been a steady current for 15 years now.

That said, per a National Review piece, on colleges, and Sen. Tim Scott? Why don't you end legacy admissions? Per many leftists, this would also, indirectly, address a class issue. Librulz are on the losing end of this if they don't push for it. (And, at the national level, they won't; another reason I'm a leftist.)

Corey Robin claims 303 Creative was NOT about religion. Oh, in a technical sense, he's right. The plaintiff (besides having a fake basis for the suit) cited Freeze Peach, but it was ultimately free speech in the service of religious issues. Wiki gets that right, Corey. And you apparently don't read analysis of past or present Supreme Court decisions. Shit, your own piece has Smith saying she didn't BELIEVE in gay marriage. In a quote-tweeting, Robin stands by his statement. I referenced the immediately above, plus the Hobby Lobby angle, in a reply.

Texas Progressives salute Susan Sarandon, talk Uvalde and gas

Uvalde and related

The Trib says that even some Texas GOP donors want something done on gun control — and by Congress, not at the state level — as in things like a red flag law and expanded background checks. This includes Abbott donors with deep pockets, like Ray Hunt. Here's what Biden proposes; here's what House Dems proposed in a heated committee hearing. And, as we wait on Big Schmuck John Cornyn and Yacht Harbormaster Joe Manchin to gut this, think of Susan Sarandon.

Pete Arredondo, Uvalde ISD top cop, remains a rat in hiding. Uvalde ISD refused (NOT "declined," Trib) to fire him at a board meeting after the shooting. That's even with reports he didn't have his radio with him at the Robb Elementary scene. He's also, don't forget, on the Uvalde City Council. Meetings have to be held in public. Many city councils have "self-termination" rules after failure to attend a certain number of meetings.

A 13-year Uvalde resident says it's not as stereotyped, including noting a white elite as well as old Hispanic patróns. 

Mimi Swartz, channeling her inner Chris Hooks, talks about the weaselly Strangeabbott once again not wanting to face the music for crisis management. Former Dem political candidate Barbara Radnofsky piles on.

Off the Kuff looks at social media monitoring tools and why they were of no value in Uvalde.

Liz Hanks finds a bit of common ground with her gun-owning father. 

Robert Rivard asks Republicans a simple question.

The TSTA Blog has no patience for the Republican "solutions" to school shootings.

Other items

SocraticGadfly talks about how much, or how little, that OPEC meeting meant, while noting there IS something Biden could do, and no, it's not his plan to renormalize MBS, which he's writing about this week.

Federal prosecutors have reached a deal with builders of a private border fence in the Valley that locals say is insufficient.

Electric cars are cheaper and cheaper than ever, compared to gas-powered ones, on fueling. On non-local travel, though, the paucity of charging stations, especially fast chargers, remains a problem.

Can't afford a vacation because of those high gas prices? The Monthly has staycation ideas.

But, even if you're not homeless with limited resources, mind the heat.

The Observer header says "Southern Baptists face up to sexual abuse." The story says, no, they haven't; they've received a report about it that denominational leadership is slow walking.

"Jessica Wildfire" talks about how we'll be told it will all be mild for the rest of the decade.

The Texas Signal presents a brief history of Pride in Texas.

Houstonia lists the top LGBTQ+ bars in Houston.

Who is Nomiki Konst? Per that Politico link, a fringe player on the inside-circles of people presenting themselves as progressives within the left hand of the duopoly, while unable to explain how they worked for a nat-sec agency and in the past touted Biden for president, while apparently straight lying about some political issues, now wanting a NY State Senate seat.

#GunControl, gay rights — the #ReligiousRight shoots itself in the long-term foot

Last year, according to a Gallup Poll survey, theistic evolutionists, by self-report, hit the same number as creationists. AND, pure naturalists on life development were up to nearly 20 percent.

Other surveys show that liberal Christians may actually outnumber the Religious Right and that "Nones" (who are NOT all, or nearly all, atheists — down, Gnu Atheists) continue to grow. I talked about that in a bit more detail in this post last year.

So, in all the talk about who's politicizing gun violence, surely the Religious Right, to the degree it writes blank checks to gun nutz in general, and at top fiscal levels, stays in bed with the NRA. Even in small towns, it surely bleeds a small drip to liberal Christianity, and maybe even a small drip to Nones, as it does this.

I mean, you're saying, you believe in a god who is omnipotent but can't stop the gun violence. Why? Not even Pat Robertson et al have gone down the road of claiming that gun violence, like AIDS, is god's punishment for sinners in America. They know where that would land.

That said, from my POV, liberal Christians, when we get past politics, face their own theodicy problems on this issue. If they really want to go down the road of "god's inscrutability," they come off as no better than fundamentalists. And, god isn't chastising the NRA at this point.

Gun control was the most obvious one a week ago.

But, Mike Huckabee's resignation from the board of the Country Music Association Foundation after just one day illustrates that in the country music world that infiltrates red states, gay rights is a big deal there, too. Oh, sure, the Religious Right can turn to gospel or contemporary Christian, but the idea that country music, even excluding "outlaw" country, is a conservative monolith, appears to be shattering for public viewing.

TX Progressives talk #SandraBland, race relations, #HERO, more

The Texas Progressive Alliance is always on the side of equality as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff decries the Supreme Court ruling that will force a vote on whether or not to repeal Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance.

Harold Cook explains why the Republicans won't nominate Donald Trump, but won't be able to escape him, either.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos and contributing to Daily Kos never ceases to be amazed by Rick Perry's serial hypocrisy. Have YOU No Decency, Rick Perry?

Socratic Gadfly talks about the Dunning-Kruger effect and why many people think their local race relations are much better than national race relations.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that many people in South Texas do not have clean drinking water.  This should be a scandal, but, as Donald Trump has amply explained, Texas Latinos are nothing but piñatas to republicans.

Ben Hall and Steven Hotze, Ben Hall and Dave Wilson... a lot of prayers got answered for the Houston bigots and homophobes when the Texas Supreme Court ordered the City of Houston to either repeal its equal rights ordinance or put it on the November ballot.  PDiddie at Brains and Eggs knows that we don't need another HERO referendum, but we're going to get one anyway.

With football season fast approaching in Texas, Neil at All People Have Value posted about the NFL's refusal to allow Junior Seau's family to speak at his Hall of Fame induction as Seau's family sues the NFL over his terrible head injuries. Football is unsafe to play at any level. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

=====================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

The Texas Election Law Blog tries to clear up some confusion about resignations and vacancies.

Ex-pat Texan Elise Hu-Stiles documents what it's like to live and have children in Seoul, South Korea.

The TSTA Blog wishes our state leadership cared as much about schools as teachers, parents, and charities do.

Scott Vogel, editor of Houstonia, has some choice words for a couple of readers who objected to an ad showing a multi-racial family.

Tamara Tabo examines the problems of jail surveillance cameras.

Paradise in Hell knows that Texas is great in spite of Rick Perry, not because of him.

Eric Berger geeks out over the pictures from Pluto.

Grits for Breakfast tries to distill some lessons from the Sandra Bland tragedy.

Democrats, minority voters and thinking beyond 2 social issues

Fort Worth Star-Telegram political columnist Bud Kennedy pens an insightful piece on these issues as gubernatorial voting nears. He starts with a Hispanic opponent from Wendy Davis' first Fort Worth City Council election.

The general tenor of his piece is that many minorities still care more about employment, job security and income, rather than two hot-button issues of abortion and gay rights.

Indeed, as many Hispanics reinvigorate their personal religious lives by leaving Catholicism for conservative Protestant churches, like African-Americans, they may be opposed to liberal stances on those two issues.

As a newspaper editor, at the community level, in a majority-minority small town, I can attest to black religiosity, and the conservativeness of it.

Because of Republicans' bad history with blacks on civil rights, other than the occasional poster child for the Tea Party like Herman Cain or Allen West, the GOP is no threat to make serious inroads on black votes, these issues aside. (And, with things like the attempts at vote suppression through the just-struck-down photo ID law, it's not getting better.)

However, their history with Hispanics is, comparatively, not as bad. (Not that that says a lot, and with things like photo ID, it's not getting better.)

Democrats have a tightrope to walk.

Unfortunately, in many states, as at the national level, more and more Democrats are becoming more neoliberal. And, they haven't learn to riff off the Occupy movement and talk to working-class white voters about socioeconomic class inequality, and solidarity with minorities as part of this.

That's why pundits who keep saying growing Hispanic numbers in particular, and minority numbers in general, will turn Texas blue, or guarantee long-term national Democratic advantage?

Wake up, smell the coffee, and drink about 5 cups of it instead of your current Kool-Aid. You're wrong, or, at a minimum, you're nowhere near being guaranteed right.

That's you, Battleground Texas. That's you, Lone Star Project.

At the same time, liberal white Democrats, with agreed liberal minority allies, shouldn't back off on the reproductive choice (with flexibility), or gay rights issues.

Black storefront church pastors? If you don't like gay marriage, nobody's forcing you to have one. But, 47 years ago, "they" weren't allowing you to have a black-white wedding. Civil rights is civil rights, and "pecking order" battles on civil rights are ultimately no-win games.

#RickPerry hits new levels of cluelessness on both #gays and #fracking

I don't know if his pain meds are acting up again or what, but his comments out in California are idiotic in several ways.

A lot of people are talking about blogging about his latest comments about "teh gay," of course, namely that it's like being alcoholic. Well, given old rumors about Tricky Ricky, and old facts about Shrub, there's one way to solve this — a confab of idiotic Texas Republican governors.

It's idiotic in other ways, too. Except for the hard liners in the Orange County and San Diego parts of the Southland, most California Republicans aren't Texas mouth-breathers on gay rights, or lack thereof, as demonstrated by this year's Texas GOP confab. So, if Tricky Ricky actually wants to be successful in recruiting California businesses, he'd have brains enough to shut his yap as well as come in from the rain of teh stupidz.

But, he doesn't. And, with Tesla, the California business chickens are coming home, but likely NOT to Texas, to roost.

That said, comments on teh gay were probably overshadowed by something as stupid, and that was his Palinesque frack, baby, frack, which were in turn part of larger energy stupidity:

Perry said he believes Texas is leading the way in achieving energy independence by producing crude oil and electricity in many forms, including solar power.

Perry also suggested that deregulating electricity had started a boom for renewable energy in Texas, which he called the nation's leading developer of wind energy.

Perry said shale drilling techniques had doubled oil production in Texas, and he urged Californians to tap the full energy potential in its Monterey Shale.

Really? On solar?

Texas is a leader on windjamming electricity and everybody knows that. Please show me how Texas is a leader on solar electric, though.

As for the Monterey Shale, he's behind the curve.

Last month, the feds cut the estimated recoverable oil from there by 96 percent. Based on details of the updated estimate, oil would probably have to hit $200/bbl, in today's real dollars, for it to be worthwhile to drill there.

==

That said, given that Greg Abbott is using a private plane owned by anti-gay frackers, maybe there's a reason for Perry's twofer stupidity.

Eich and Mozilla — SJW overkill or legitimate action?

Brendan Eich/Wikipedia photo

By now, everyone tuned in to gay rights news knows that protests by gay activists and others concerned about civil rights have forced Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich out of his CEO's position, after it was discovered he had given money to the campaign to pass Proposition 8 in California.

Then, even as Eich was stepping down, senior leaders in promoting gay awareness, starting with Andrew Sullivan, cried foul.Contra the likes of Sully and Tod Robberson of the Dallas Morning News, while Eich has his right to his personal views, activists have a right to protest against Mozilla hiring him as CEO.

Besides, as the Guardian has documented, this is part of a pattern of Eich's, who also made donations to Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul, and to Buchanan back when he was challenging Poppy Bush in the early 1990s.

Another gay activist, whom I certainly respect more than Sullivan in general, Michelangelo Signorile, tells Sully, at least, to get a clue (and drop some pretenses). Another gay activist, John Aravosis, says, please, don't call this personal choice.

He then brings up the issue of, what if Eich had contributed to the KKK? Well, given that Eich contributed to Ron Paul at the time that racist newsletters were going out from his congressional office under his byline as publisher, that's not just a theoretical question.

(And, apologies for saying in a Facebook thread that Aravosis' stance was the same as Sully's.)

Aravosis, in a later post, was worried somewhat, but didn't go into Sully territory. However, he does worry about the likes of Suey Park and Brittany Cooper of #CancelColbert infamy, steering something like this in the ditch. I think he's probably about right on this issue.

Per people who say that inclusiveness should include being inclusive of the refusing-to-be-inclusive, tosh. That's as nonsensical as "the set of all sets which are not members of this set" or similar.

Per people claiming this isn't free speech? Sure it is. It's certainly more that than money is, contra John Roberts. More than that, banding together to threaten boycotts or other actions is explicitly freedom of assembly, the most forgotten of the four freedoms of the First Amendment.

People who know me know that I am by no means in the corner of the "social justice warrior" movement. But, this was more broadly supported than that. And, no, contra Sully, he wasn't being asked to "repent." Actually, Mozilla was asked to repent.

As for the claim that SJWs should now stop using JavaScript because he invented it? Tosh.

I don't stop reading what Harrison Schmitt said about walking on the moon and doing professional geology work during Apollo 17 because we found out 20-plus years later that he's a climate change denier. Red herring.

As for the idea that right-wingers could do similar boycotts?

Well, we already know that Hobby Lobby, wanting a contraceptive exemption from portions of Obamacare, invests in contraceptive makers, and as of yet, I've heard bupkis about any threatened Religious Right boycott of it. It may happen soon enough, but I'll give you 50-50 odds that, other than the fringes, the real fringest, of the Religious Right, there is no such boycott threat.

Related to that, Brian Beutler nails it on wingnuts getting into a fake tizzy on this issue.

My example, even more than his? If conservatives really care about freedom of speech and freedom of assembly (technically, it's NOT freedom of "association") then they can start working to repeal "right to get fired" laws in red and pale-pink states. (It's my blog, and I'll call said laws what they are.) As every liberal, and every honest conservative, knows, "right to get fired" laws are regularly used to stifle free speech at the workplace.

OTOH (April 8): OKCupid's CEO (remember, that's the company that started this all) lives in a partial glass house. Even if Yagan has rethought some of his politics, per the MoJo story, this may have been a PR stunt as much as anything. And so, would-be gay lovers? You've been used like a $2 tool. How's it feel?

On the third hand (April 8) Jamelle Bouie says not so quick on castigating OK Cupid's Sam Yagan as a hypocrite. And, I'll at least halfway agree, since Yagan's was a contribution to a politician and Eich's Prop 8 was to a special-interest cause. With a Congresscritter like Cannon, he may have been pushing a specific piece of legislation Yagan liked. And Eich's longer list of contributions, to me, as noted above, establish a pattern.

Rod Dreher: Pot for me but not for thee; it's gotta be the gay

Rod Dreher channels his inner David Brooks on legalization of marijuana, and gets even worse.

Old "crunchy con" (I guess a nutbar with extra rocks in it can be "crunchy") Dreher says, nope, no pot for you, you huddled masses, you 47 percenter slackers. Only the financial titans vulture carcass feeders of America are entitled to smoke dope:

Most of these driven, type-A personalities would benefit heavily from being able to relax and avoid burn-out. If they experiment with drugs that function as source of stress relief (and pot does that better than anything else!), they see their experiences as overwhelmingly positive. They project those positive experiences externally on the general population, to the extent that they are in urban population centers which have little contact with “ordinary” Americans (those who feel their lives offer little prospect for advancement or self-improvement).

So, like children out of wedlock, this becomes another example of how something that works well for elites can simultaneously become a disaster for the underclass. Middle/lower-class employees in America need the energy and drive to show up at miserable jobs and work long hours for meager wages. That’s something you get from caffeine or nicotine, not from THC. If they mellow themselves out, they become the proverbial pot-smoking ex-roommate on the couch who never holds the same job for more than a couple months, due to apathy and disinterest. So successful members of the working-class are disproportionately not pot-users, and perceive unsuccessful pot-smoking members of their circle of friends and family leeching off them. This is a totally different set of immediate social references than those urban elites ever get to experience.

Old Rodney tries to spin himself as a moderate libertarian, even to the point of deceiving Oprah. But really? He's a hardcore far rightist on social issues who has never met a conservative religious based issue where he didn't want maximum state regulation against your personal rights.

He's antigay and personally homophobic. He's a racism apologist. (Related to that, he's probably some sort of Lost Cause Confederate mythologist.)

But, more than apologizing for the likes of Paula Deen, per the first of my two links in the paragraph above, it's teh gay that really bunches Rod's knickers in a knot. So much that the former Catholic, who's sampled from all the different waters of conservative Christianity, also got his dander up over the idea that Pope Francis might want to turn down the Vatican's boiling pot of antigay down to a low simmer.

So, it's gotta be teh gay, eh Rod?

Pot for me but not for thee? Maybe we should only let straights have pot because, well, teh gay will go all jungly-jiggly on us if they toke, you know? Some big gay black buck might want to molest Rod, fulfilling both his worst nightmare and possibly his top secret dream.

You know, Rod? Most gay and lesbian people just want to be treated as, and called, people. The Castro-district types are a small minority and probably, were it not for gay rights issues, they'd find some other reason to get their freak on.

And, you know, Rod? If you didn't rabidly foam at the mouth over stuff like this, on teh gay, then go on to write classist and racist crap like this on marijuana, people would not take such sharp shots at you.

Gay marriage and black opposition ... still an issue?

At the time that California voters approved Proposition 8, there was debate over the "whys" of it losing.

Mormons were blamed for pumping a bunch of money into the race, first of all. Whether that had any over-the-top help was unclear.

Some pointed the finger in part at black opposition. I was among those.

And I still am, due in part to research aggregation by Nate Silver at the New York Times' 538 blog.

For projected gay marriage support in Mississippi to be at just 21 percent in 2008, or 26 percent now, involves more than just white Republican opposition.

I'm not saying that black Democrats have the same degree of opposition, but simple demographics says they have to be more opposed than white Democrats.

That's supported by, in order from the bottom, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas and South Carolina being next in degree of opposition. All are "original Confederacy" states, along with Texas, separated from them by just Oklahoma. All have large black populations.

But that's not all.

In Maryland, we saw black elected officials oppose gay marriage legalization, as I blogged here. And, as Matthew Lind noted at the time Prop. 8 won, only 31 percent of blacks supported gay marriage in general, as I noted here.

On my first link, I note the especial opposition of black churches, who are going to be more concentrated in the South. So, this could become more and more of a flash point within the Democratic Party for some time. That said, this is nothing new. The start of both women's liberation and gay rights movements 45-50 years ago saw tensions between white women, or gays and lesbians, and minority members of those groups.

Myth vs realilty: Ancient Christianity and #martyrdom

Much of the information is already well-known to me, but this story about Candida Moss' new book, may be enlightening not just to many broader-minded Christians, but even to secularists, even to generally well-informed ones.

In "The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom," Moss lays out in detail just exactly what her title says.

And, it's no atheist who's doing this, whether out of mean-spiritedness or other reasons. Per her Amazon bio:

Candida Moss is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. A graduate of Oxford University, she earned her doctorate from Yale University. Moss has received awards and fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the John Templeton Foundation.

So, she's a Catholic, teaches at a Catholic University, and has gotten money from a foundation that's even been accused, at times, of trying to get scientists who take its money to bend backward to favor religious thought.

A sampling of what's in this book:

Moss ... challenges some of the most hallowed legends of the religion when she questions what she calls “the Sunday school narrative of a church of martyrs, of Christians huddled in catacombs out of fear, meeting in secret to avoid arrest and mercilessly thrown to lions merely for their religious beliefs.” None of that, she maintains, is true. In the 300 years between the death of Jesus and the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, there were maybe 10 or 12 scattered years during which Christians were singled out for supression by Rome’s imperial authorities, and even then the enforcement of such initiatives was haphazard — lackadaisical in many regions, although harsh in others. “Christians were never,” Moss writes, “the victims of sustained, targeted persecution.”

From there, she moves on to a more detailed look at stories of six martyrdoms.

They include Polycarp, a bishop in Smyrna during the second century who was burned at the stake, and Saint Perpetua, a well-born young mother executed in the arena at Carthage with her slave, Felicity, at the beginning of the third century. Moss carefully points out the inconsistencies between these tales and what we know about Roman society, the digs at heresies that didn’t even exist when the martyrs were killed and the references to martyrdom traditions that had yet to be established. There’s surely some kernel of truth to these stories, she explains, as well as to the first substantive history of the church written in 311 by a Palestinian named Eusebius. It’s just that it’s impossible to sort the truth from the colorful inventions, the ax-grinding and the attempts to reinforce the orthodoxies of a later age.

She doesn't deny thast some Christians were killed. Thast said, she also, per the story, distinguishes between "persecution and "prosecution."

And, as she notes, Christians hauled into courts for other issues deliberately provoked the magistrates:

Christians wound up in Roman courts for any number of reasons, but when they got there, they were prone to announcing, as a believer named Liberian once did, “that he cannot be respectful to the emperor, that he can be respectful only to Christ.” Moss compares this to “modern defendants who say that they will not recognize the authority of the court or of the government, but recognize only the authority of God. For modern Americans, as for ancient Romans, this sounds either sinister or vaguely insane.”

Indeed, that's anything but "persecution." However, contra Alternet, for many of today's Religious Right who perpetuate the myth of persecution, it probably doesn't sound insane at all. Nor does it to some religious cults, whether rooted in Christianity or not.

That said, it did sound insane to some Christians at the time. We have letters from some bishops telling members of their flocks not to do this.

And, judging by the review, Moss, even, may not go back far enough.

This all actually starts with Paul. "Luke" made up the idea that he was a Roman citizen. He may or may not have been martyred himself, and if he was, it was because he was a Jew. The idea that Christians were blamed for the Great Fire in Rome has little historic support.

The reality?

The Roman historian Suetonius' warning about what's often called "Christian disturbances" in Rome in the reign of Claudius should be translated as "Messianic disturbances." To the degree Acts has any historical truth behind it at all, it partially describes what can be found in more detail in Josephus: Messianic-claimant Jews popped up all the time, and not just in Palestine. The fact that Tacitus doesn't use the Greek word "Christos" but a similar one, often used for Apollo, shows how little he knew about Judaism.

Now, back to Paul, alleged martyrdom in Rome for him, and related details.

First, the word "Christian" wasn't even used until well into the second century. That's one of several relevant facts that you can find in Paul Tabor's "Paul and Jesus," reviewed by me here.

Second, as far as we know, the names of Jesus-believers in Paul's letter to the Romans may have been ALL of them in Rome, or nearly so.

Third, Paul likely was NOT a Roman citizen.

Therefore, in Acts 26, his "appeal to Caesar" didn't happen either.

In reality, as Tabor points out, his ongoing, increasing, enmity with James and even Peter may well have reached a boiling point in the late 50s CE. As part of that, Paul may have violated some precept of Torah, even in the Temple court. Or, if not, contra Acts, he may have refused to correct the impression he was telling even Jews not to circumcise.

In any case, some disturbance probably did happen, and the Roman procurator Felix arrested him.

Maybe he was eventually flogged to the degree a non-Roman could be, whether by Felix or his successor Festus, and then told to stay out of Jerusalem on pain of death. From there, he could then have scrounged a trip to Rome on his own. And, quite possibly, died a natural death before the Great Fire of Rome.

Tacitus claims Nero blamed Christians for this. However, he's not a primary source. Suetonius, the only other halfway close Romans to write about early Christians (see above) says nothing about Nero blaming Christians. So, even if Tacitus' statement is not an interpolation, given Tacitus' ax-grinding, it's not likely  to be true. Or, as with Josephus' statement about Jesus, it may have a genuine core, but a Christian expansion, in which case, like Suetonius, we should read him as talking about Messianic Jewish disturbances in general.

And, if the Paul of Acts is actually true, especially as interpreted by Tabor, it's as plausible that he would have denied being a Jew, and told Nero, if he had a chance, his "cosmic Christ" had nothing to do with "Jewish self-mutilators."

Of course, there's another possibility for Paul's death.

Maybe followers of James and Peter killed him in Jerusalem after high priest Ananus had killed James. Or even more notably Zealot followers of Jesus did. It's at least as plausible as the tale Luke and early Christian myth spin.

And that myth, of Paul's martyrdom, coupled with the one spelled out in Acts about Stephen, started this whole thing.

It sounds like Moss didn't quite go deep enough. (She could also have mentioned intra-Christian persecution after the Council of Nicaea, where Christian "brotherly love" exceeded anything pre-Diocletian, at least, on the pre-Christian Roman imperial side.

But, this isn't just about the past.

Thoughts for today below the fold:

Roger Cohen misfires on #StopKony

Usually, he's much more insightful than in this column. But, he gives a pass to Jason Russell and Invisible Children. This is the worst he can say, at bottom line:

On balance I back Russell over his armchair critics. He’s put his boots on the ground and he’s doing something. Gross simplification of Africa is nothing new. It’s the poor, disease-ravaged, war-torn continent where every complicated war is about control of diamonds, right? The reduction of Uganda’s many problems to Kony abusing children is not much different from the reduction of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a fight for mineral riches. So, Russell works in a well-established genre, even if he pushes it. 

Exploiting his child in the video, coming late to the party, or oversimplifying Africa are the half of it. Cohen totally misses that Russell's group is a right-wing anti-gay Christian outfit using the video in part as an evangelism tool. He could and should have done better research.

And, a day later, it looks like Nick Kristof misses the same issues.

UPDATE, March 17: As many people have no doubt heard, Russell had some sort of mental meltdown. Of course, the LA Times, and I'll bet other mainstream media, (conveniently?) fail to mention that said meltdown included this fine fundamentalist Christian masturbating in public. Somehow, I doubt we'll get a follow-up from either columnist.

Gayness probably isn't 100 percent genetic

From the fact that there's more male bisexuality in societies other than America to a long history of situational homosexuality, from Greek pederasty to American West "brokeback mountain" moments, it's clear that, while inclinations to a gay/lesbian orientation are primarily genetic (and, in gay males, also, likely to some degree "environmental," but womb-environment affected) this is NOT a 100 percent genetic issue.

And I am totally with Frank Bruni -- a "gay orthodoxy" that says a Cynthia Nixon simply can't choose to be a lesbian is very, very, very wrong, in a number of ways.

Gay rights advocates should instead, in my opinion celebrate choice as well as nature in this issue. After all, this is ultimately about freedom, isn't it?

Even professional philosophers, or one at least, has/have the same take. Buying into the "it's in my gay genes" comes close to fundamentalist Christian ideas about original sin. It also undercuts claims of having science on one's side, if the science shows that choice is involved to a degree on sexual preference, level of activity within sexual preference, etc.

It's not as bad as "green" types excoriating the GOP for being anti-climate science while they're antivaxxers themselves. But, it's going down that type of road, at least to a degree.

Why does even Sonoma County, Calif. hate gays?

If anti-gay rights actions and government attitudes like this can happen even in a theoretically liberal bastion, it shows that gay relationship rights simply are not safe, fully safe, anywhere in this country that doesn't have gay marriage.

Now, what if this couple hadn't wanted to be married? Nonetheless, if California had gay marriage, I think Sonoma County officials would have had a lawyer hit them over the head — a county lawyer — from the start, telling them that gay long-term live-togethers had the same rights as straights.

Obama discovers gay rights!

At least, for lovers and partners of people sick in hospitals, he's actually discovered civil rights.

More of Obama's thoughts at the link. Maybe he'll discover DADT repeal next.

At the same time, Sully has half a point on Obama's move being a special interest group sop, at least in part. But, no, Andrew, it's not a full point, either.

Halfway agree with Sully. Not totally, but halfway.

Obama's call to action will have no effect on state laws that allow barring of domestic partners. It does nothing about DADT. It says nothing about Obama's attitude toward gay civil unions, let alone gay marriage.

A new philosophy for pledging allegiance

First, yes, Michael Lind is spot on. We should be pledging to other people, not the government.

Second, I like that a 10-year-old kid whose parents have gay friends refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school because it’s not liberty and justice for all.

Greenwald, Obama, gays, media irresponsibility

Glenn Greenwald unpacks the fetid mess of media “who grant anonymity to pass along playground insults.”

That’s right, this is playground insults, of the same nature of the folks who wrote the DOMA defense brief this summer.

The WH is disavowing it, but that's because it knows it has no choice. Only if the anonymous person is NAMED, then FIRED will the disavowal mean anything.

Obama WH disses gay rights protestors

The White House says the rally over the weekend was just inspired by "bloggers (who) need to take off their pajamas."

Per NBC:

LESTER HOLT: John what we saw in that protest today, was it simply frustration or does it represent a serious problem the President is having with an important part of his base?

JOHN HARWOOD: As a practical matter Lester I don’t think it’s a serious problem. we’ve seen and certainly Bill Clinton learned that they Democratic President can get punished by the mainstream of the electorate for being too aggressive on social issues so for now I think the administration feels that if they take care of the big issues — health care, energy, the economy — he’s going to be just fine with this group.

HOLT: But in general when yo look at the left as a whole, have there been conversations about some things they thought would have been done but haven’t?

HARWOOD: Sure but If you look at the polling, Barack Obama is doing well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this opposition as really part of the “internet left fringe” Lester. And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn’t take this opposition, one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.

No denial yet from Obama hisself.

I will believe Obama on DADT …

When he delivers action, not just another round of talk.

And, talk inside of talk. At the Human Rights Campaign dinner, he refused to spell out a timetable for action, yet Talking Points Memo has him promising progress within weeks:

"He looks forward to speaking directly with the LGBT community about the steps his administration has taken thus far and the progress he hopes to achieve in the coming weeks and months," said White House spokesman Shin Inouye.

There we go — the clock is ticking for Obama’s petard to hoist him on this issue.

Sully adds his skepticism.