I am very excited to be able to report that I'll have a new book coming out in the Fall of 2009 (Broadview):
Five Critical Issues for Contemporary Feminist Theory and Activism:
Sexual Identity and Politics,
Reproductive Technology,
Economic Inequality and the Culture Industry,
Religious Fundamentalism,
and The Status of Nonhuman Others
The new book includes many of the themes that have characterized my work throughout my career as a philosopher, writer, and university professor. But it also includes some new themes, for example, the emergence of religious fundamentalism - Christian and Islamic- and its place within the global capitalism responsible for the ongoing exploitation of women, children, and indigenous peoples. Broadly socialist feminist in perspective, Five Critical Issues seeks to connect some of the dots between, for example, the effort in Pennsylvania to constitutionalize heterosexuality and its attendant ratification of second class citizen status for gays. lesbians, bisexuals, inter-sexed persons, and transsexuals in that state, and the role that religion, racism, sexism, the commodification of sexuality, and our treatment of nonhuman animals figure into these complex political and moral dynamics. My principle aim, however, is to add one more voice to the 21st century's emergent coalition of movements - feminist, environmental, anti-racist, animal welfare, social and economic justice - in the effort to help us see that, especially in light of global emergencies like climate change, terrorism, the use of torture, sex-trafficking, and the widening gap between the wealthy and the indigent, there is no more important a time than now to work towards progressive change.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Patriot's Voice Tea Party: A Case Study in Hate Speech
Dear Mr. Sachetti,
This is not a letter to the editor.
It is an attempt to correct Michael Lester's tepid account of the Patriot's Voice Tea Party on July 4th at the Bloomsburg Town Park. I have no issue with Mr. Lester; however, his account seriously under-represents--and hence misrepresents--the speech and actions of the Tea Party participants. This record needs to be corrected, and it needs to be corrected publicly.
I attended the Tea Party from 1:30-2:50.
I took careful notes.
A friend was with me and, while I cannot of course speak to his interpretation of these events, he can vouch for the fact that I was there, that I took notes, and that I was approached by two Patriot's Voice members. Here are the events that took place at the podium:
1. Al Togno, self-identified speaker, claimed that without belief in a creator there could be no democracy--and that therefore atheists (as in the far past) ought not to be allowed to testify in courts. (applause)
2. Anonymous Speaker 1: refers to the Obama administration as a "gang." (applause)
3. Robert Runyon (especially rambling): The only moral government is based on natural law, handed down by God, whose specific aims are to realize God's plan on Earth. Without this God, there can be no government. (applause)
4. Anonymous Speaker 2: Identifies Obama with the Communist Party (repeatedly), referring to "Barack Hussein Obama." calls Obama a "Muslim Appeaser," and calls the Democrat Party "Socialists." (loud applause)
5. Anonymous Speaker 3: "The U.N. wants to disarm all people."
6. Robert Runyon thanks "his adversary Wendy Lynne Lee for coming and taking notes." (Laughter; crowd turns to stare, several boo).
7. Anonymous Speaker 4: claims that what's "wrong with America" is not the economy, but "homosexuality," that such persons must be "made to repent," and that "we must all come to repent...It is my desire to see people saved." (applause)
8. Anonymous Speaker 5: "All my news is from FOX." (loud applause)
9. Anonymous Speaker 6: "Republicans have failed because they have turned away from the Bible." (applause)
10. Anonymous Speaker 7: "Obama is good news because we're going to soon be raptured up." (applause)
11. Anonymous Speaker 8: "I want to talk about a delicate subject, abortion." The speaker then went onto deride Dr. Tiller as a "baby-killer." Claimed that "the media is controlled by liberals," and that what's coming is the "euthanasia of the elderly." (loud applause)
12. Anonymous Speaker 9: Claims that "Barack Hussein Obama is proud of his Muslim heritage," calls Michael Jackson a "pervert," implies that he's is glad that Jackson is dead, and claims a crowd in attendance of 200 people. I counted at that point, and the number was definitely not more than 70 (2:40). (very loud applause--despite dwindling audience)
Could the evidence of racism and religious bigotry really be any clearer?
There is no religious litmus test in the United States for becoming president, but what this speaker clearly implied is that if Obama were Muslim, this disqualifies him tout court.
Michael Jackson was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Could the evidence of bigotry towards homosexuals be clearer than in anonymous speaker 7's remarks (for which he received significant applause)?
Conservatives are not necessarily either homophobes or bigots. This was not an exercise in conservatism. It was an exercise in hate speech--protected by the 1st amendment, but as hateful, and as consistently hateful, as Kurt Smith mentions to Lester. Part of what I am trying to make clear here is that this speech characterizes ALL of the remarks made by the speakers at this event.
Patriot's Voice members can respond that they are not responsible for the specific remarks of the people they encourage to step up to the microphone.
But indeed they are.
This was their sponsored event; they applauded the speaker's remarks; they actively and repeatedly encouraged this group of speakers to "come forward" The passed around a petition to "fire" Arlen Spectre. They flew the Confederate flag directly next to the American flag. Could any African American person really feel comfortable at this event? A Jewish person? A gay person?
There are many African American, Jewish, and gay conservatives--they were not represented at this Tea Party.
Did Mr. Lester ask Mr. Runyon for proof that an invitation to Alan Keyes had been accepted? Perhaps it had--but it is unlikely in the extreme given that Keyes is a nationally known speaker who can command a significant speaker fee. Mr. Keyes could have offerred to do the event for free--but, again, hihgly unlikely. If the Patriot's Voice has access to this sort of revenue, they ought to file with the IRS--and it is highly unlikely that they either have such access or have so filed.
During the event, Evy Lysk walked directly up the the picnic table where Jay and I were sitting (we approached no one at any time before, during, or after the event), and took my picture (she did not ask permission). She called me "Miss Wendy." She told me to smile because it was Independence Day. I responded that her actions were not something to smile about. She laughed. I am sure this doesn't seem like a significant event, but the intent was clearly to intimidate.
What if they post that picture on their website along with the sort of language they routinely use to describe me in 30 Seconds? What if they post it on Facebook where Runyon remarks: "We are having a 4th of July Tea Party at the town park of Bloomsburg beginning at 12:00 noon till 4:00pm. This promises to be Memorable as we have an ahtiest, lesbian professor who wishes time to counter our party as she deems us as haters and homophobes. Come join the fun" (www.facebook.com/pages/The-9-12-Project-Pennsylvania-Chapter/57461030678). What was the point of this action? An event scrapbook?
No.
Along with another picture and text already available on their website (posted 4.9.09), their aims are hardly consistent with the first amendment rights professed by conservatives and liberals alike. Their aim is to encourage precisely more of the hate speech to which I was a witness at this event.
Lastly, Kathy Wells approached me and said "I hate your articles in the newspaper." She turned to walk away, but then turned again towards me and said that she "didn't hate me," but that "she felt sorry for me," and then she repeated that she "hated my PE articles." I did not respond to Ms. Wells.
Let me be very clear: I am in no way suggesting that this gathering should not have taken place. This was an exercise in the right to free speech, and I applaud that. But it is the responsibility of the PE to report on the events accurately.
I am also not suggesting that any of these events were in any important way about me. I do, however, represent (whether accurately or otherwise) much of what they regularly demonize, and as the hateful and bigoted remarks of the attendees demonstrate, I--among millions of others--am not included in their America.
Again, this is not conservatism.
One can oppose the stimulus plan without identifying it as the product of a Muslim/Communist/Socialist conspiracy. One can object to the policies of the Obama administration without resorting to the incendiary language of "Barack Hussein Obama." One can be a conservative without insisting that ONLY a Christian nation can be composed of a free people (and this is a logical contradiction). Many conservatives, moreover, have little to say in support of the hero of this event, Glenn Beck.
I would be happy to talk to Mr. Lester further about this, and what I have posted here is a complete account of my notes. Had I access to Mr. Lester's email address, I would gladly have included him in this missive. This was not simply another Independence Day event like the Millville parade or the fireworks display. To report it as if it were misrepresents its meaning.
Thank you for attending to this matter.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
This is not a letter to the editor.
It is an attempt to correct Michael Lester's tepid account of the Patriot's Voice Tea Party on July 4th at the Bloomsburg Town Park. I have no issue with Mr. Lester; however, his account seriously under-represents--and hence misrepresents--the speech and actions of the Tea Party participants. This record needs to be corrected, and it needs to be corrected publicly.
I attended the Tea Party from 1:30-2:50.
I took careful notes.
A friend was with me and, while I cannot of course speak to his interpretation of these events, he can vouch for the fact that I was there, that I took notes, and that I was approached by two Patriot's Voice members. Here are the events that took place at the podium:
1. Al Togno, self-identified speaker, claimed that without belief in a creator there could be no democracy--and that therefore atheists (as in the far past) ought not to be allowed to testify in courts. (applause)
2. Anonymous Speaker 1: refers to the Obama administration as a "gang." (applause)
3. Robert Runyon (especially rambling): The only moral government is based on natural law, handed down by God, whose specific aims are to realize God's plan on Earth. Without this God, there can be no government. (applause)
4. Anonymous Speaker 2: Identifies Obama with the Communist Party (repeatedly), referring to "Barack Hussein Obama." calls Obama a "Muslim Appeaser," and calls the Democrat Party "Socialists." (loud applause)
5. Anonymous Speaker 3: "The U.N. wants to disarm all people."
6. Robert Runyon thanks "his adversary Wendy Lynne Lee for coming and taking notes." (Laughter; crowd turns to stare, several boo).
7. Anonymous Speaker 4: claims that what's "wrong with America" is not the economy, but "homosexuality," that such persons must be "made to repent," and that "we must all come to repent...It is my desire to see people saved." (applause)
8. Anonymous Speaker 5: "All my news is from FOX." (loud applause)
9. Anonymous Speaker 6: "Republicans have failed because they have turned away from the Bible." (applause)
10. Anonymous Speaker 7: "Obama is good news because we're going to soon be raptured up." (applause)
11. Anonymous Speaker 8: "I want to talk about a delicate subject, abortion." The speaker then went onto deride Dr. Tiller as a "baby-killer." Claimed that "the media is controlled by liberals," and that what's coming is the "euthanasia of the elderly." (loud applause)
12. Anonymous Speaker 9: Claims that "Barack Hussein Obama is proud of his Muslim heritage," calls Michael Jackson a "pervert," implies that he's is glad that Jackson is dead, and claims a crowd in attendance of 200 people. I counted at that point, and the number was definitely not more than 70 (2:40). (very loud applause--despite dwindling audience)
Could the evidence of racism and religious bigotry really be any clearer?
There is no religious litmus test in the United States for becoming president, but what this speaker clearly implied is that if Obama were Muslim, this disqualifies him tout court.
Michael Jackson was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Could the evidence of bigotry towards homosexuals be clearer than in anonymous speaker 7's remarks (for which he received significant applause)?
Conservatives are not necessarily either homophobes or bigots. This was not an exercise in conservatism. It was an exercise in hate speech--protected by the 1st amendment, but as hateful, and as consistently hateful, as Kurt Smith mentions to Lester. Part of what I am trying to make clear here is that this speech characterizes ALL of the remarks made by the speakers at this event.
Patriot's Voice members can respond that they are not responsible for the specific remarks of the people they encourage to step up to the microphone.
But indeed they are.
This was their sponsored event; they applauded the speaker's remarks; they actively and repeatedly encouraged this group of speakers to "come forward" The passed around a petition to "fire" Arlen Spectre. They flew the Confederate flag directly next to the American flag. Could any African American person really feel comfortable at this event? A Jewish person? A gay person?
There are many African American, Jewish, and gay conservatives--they were not represented at this Tea Party.
Did Mr. Lester ask Mr. Runyon for proof that an invitation to Alan Keyes had been accepted? Perhaps it had--but it is unlikely in the extreme given that Keyes is a nationally known speaker who can command a significant speaker fee. Mr. Keyes could have offerred to do the event for free--but, again, hihgly unlikely. If the Patriot's Voice has access to this sort of revenue, they ought to file with the IRS--and it is highly unlikely that they either have such access or have so filed.
During the event, Evy Lysk walked directly up the the picnic table where Jay and I were sitting (we approached no one at any time before, during, or after the event), and took my picture (she did not ask permission). She called me "Miss Wendy." She told me to smile because it was Independence Day. I responded that her actions were not something to smile about. She laughed. I am sure this doesn't seem like a significant event, but the intent was clearly to intimidate.
What if they post that picture on their website along with the sort of language they routinely use to describe me in 30 Seconds? What if they post it on Facebook where Runyon remarks: "We are having a 4th of July Tea Party at the town park of Bloomsburg beginning at 12:00 noon till 4:00pm. This promises to be Memorable as we have an ahtiest, lesbian professor who wishes time to counter our party as she deems us as haters and homophobes. Come join the fun" (www.facebook.com/pages/The-9-12-Project-Pennsylvania-Chapter/57461030678). What was the point of this action? An event scrapbook?
No.
Along with another picture and text already available on their website (posted 4.9.09), their aims are hardly consistent with the first amendment rights professed by conservatives and liberals alike. Their aim is to encourage precisely more of the hate speech to which I was a witness at this event.
Lastly, Kathy Wells approached me and said "I hate your articles in the newspaper." She turned to walk away, but then turned again towards me and said that she "didn't hate me," but that "she felt sorry for me," and then she repeated that she "hated my PE articles." I did not respond to Ms. Wells.
Let me be very clear: I am in no way suggesting that this gathering should not have taken place. This was an exercise in the right to free speech, and I applaud that. But it is the responsibility of the PE to report on the events accurately.
I am also not suggesting that any of these events were in any important way about me. I do, however, represent (whether accurately or otherwise) much of what they regularly demonize, and as the hateful and bigoted remarks of the attendees demonstrate, I--among millions of others--am not included in their America.
Again, this is not conservatism.
One can oppose the stimulus plan without identifying it as the product of a Muslim/Communist/Socialist conspiracy. One can object to the policies of the Obama administration without resorting to the incendiary language of "Barack Hussein Obama." One can be a conservative without insisting that ONLY a Christian nation can be composed of a free people (and this is a logical contradiction). Many conservatives, moreover, have little to say in support of the hero of this event, Glenn Beck.
I would be happy to talk to Mr. Lester further about this, and what I have posted here is a complete account of my notes. Had I access to Mr. Lester's email address, I would gladly have included him in this missive. This was not simply another Independence Day event like the Millville parade or the fireworks display. To report it as if it were misrepresents its meaning.
Thank you for attending to this matter.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Why the First Amendment to the United States Constitution is so Important
*The following is a response to the Press Enterprise Editor, Jim Sachetti's threat to banish me from posting remarks on local and national issues. My aim in posting it here is to reiterate the point that until progressive change comes to small towns like mine--Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania--it cannot endure anywhere.
w
6.25.09
To the Editor,
Is it possible to condone an act of violence, even murder, through inaction? Through words that cry foul, but in fact excuse? Yes. Few who condoned the Ramirez murder used words like “his death’s OK with me.” But as the meaningless sentence, lack of local outcry for justice, and comments that begin in faux-condemnation but quickly give way to a “BUT, he had it coming,” show, it’s not NOT OK to murder undocumented workers.
As I point out in 30 Seconds (6.26), this same condoning posture informs J. Pushinaitis’ 6.20 O-Ed remarks concerning late term abortion.
Pushinaitis: “Dr. Tiller killed 60,000 babies with a saline-filled syringe,” and “not one word uttered by [Bruce] Rockwood to impose syringe controls, but instead he chooses to clamor over gun control.” Pushinaitis’ point is that while we ought to repudiate LTA, we ought not to regulate gun-ownership. He offers no defense of the assumption that LTA is murder—and none to support unregulated gun ownership. One’s evil, the other good; end of story.
There is much to be said about the gun ownership side of this strained analogy, but my aim is to concentrate on the subject of Sachetti’s “challenge,” or rather threat to banish me from 30 Seconds for claiming that Pushinaitis condones the murder of Dr. Tiller.
Pushinaitis’ assumptions: (a) although LTA comprises fewer than 1% of abortions, and (b) is performed to save the mother’s life/health and/or to prevent suffering for a hopelessly damaged fetus, that if (c) LTA nonetheless constitutes murder then (d) the fetus’ life-value outweighs the mother’s. It should thus be banned regardless the consequences for the mother. Given that ignorance of the facts is no excuse, “P. denies that women have an equal right to life/health.”
Pushinaitis thus condones Tiller’s murder on two grounds: first, in inciting public outcry against abortion, the “baby-killer” rhetoric fosters callousness towards the lives of doctors who perform them. We turn away, and say to ourselves, ‘Well, I didn’t kill him, BUT he had it coming.” Second, why else refer to Tiller only in the context of “baby-killing” except to imply that his murder embodies a certain justice—that Tiller deserved to be murdered?
Editor Sachetti claims my response to Pushinaitis is unjust, and challenges me to defend it on threat of banishment. Done. But isn’t this strange for someone who claims not only to be committed to free speech, but who publishes comments that border on libel? I neither impugn Pushinatis’ character nor slander him, yet not a day transpires that Sachetti doesn’t publish personal and professional assault aimed at me.
Does he forget that in 2007 he printed numerous false, potentially libelous, claims about my divorce, all without comment? In fact, although he had access to the evidence, he silently condoned this defamation and even defended the assassination of my character (October-December, 2007). I’ve never requested anyone’s banishment.
I BELIEVE in free speech.
But if it applies only to those whom Sachetti favors, it’s not freedom, not even for those who applaud his challenge. They’re in fact the biggest dupes of all in Sachetti’s game of “up the stakes.”
Perhaps 30 Seconds is really the Truman Show, its contributors unwitting sit-com actors. Maybe the show was getting dull for Sachetti, and he needed to ratchet up the anger at one of its antagonists. We’re about to find out—and it applies to us all. Will it matter that I’ve met the challenge? Probably not. Were Sachetti committed to free speech, he would never have leveled it.
Your move, Mr. Sachetti. Who’s next?
Wendy Lynne Lee
592 words.
w
6.25.09
To the Editor,
Is it possible to condone an act of violence, even murder, through inaction? Through words that cry foul, but in fact excuse? Yes. Few who condoned the Ramirez murder used words like “his death’s OK with me.” But as the meaningless sentence, lack of local outcry for justice, and comments that begin in faux-condemnation but quickly give way to a “BUT, he had it coming,” show, it’s not NOT OK to murder undocumented workers.
As I point out in 30 Seconds (6.26), this same condoning posture informs J. Pushinaitis’ 6.20 O-Ed remarks concerning late term abortion.
Pushinaitis: “Dr. Tiller killed 60,000 babies with a saline-filled syringe,” and “not one word uttered by [Bruce] Rockwood to impose syringe controls, but instead he chooses to clamor over gun control.” Pushinaitis’ point is that while we ought to repudiate LTA, we ought not to regulate gun-ownership. He offers no defense of the assumption that LTA is murder—and none to support unregulated gun ownership. One’s evil, the other good; end of story.
There is much to be said about the gun ownership side of this strained analogy, but my aim is to concentrate on the subject of Sachetti’s “challenge,” or rather threat to banish me from 30 Seconds for claiming that Pushinaitis condones the murder of Dr. Tiller.
Pushinaitis’ assumptions: (a) although LTA comprises fewer than 1% of abortions, and (b) is performed to save the mother’s life/health and/or to prevent suffering for a hopelessly damaged fetus, that if (c) LTA nonetheless constitutes murder then (d) the fetus’ life-value outweighs the mother’s. It should thus be banned regardless the consequences for the mother. Given that ignorance of the facts is no excuse, “P. denies that women have an equal right to life/health.”
Pushinaitis thus condones Tiller’s murder on two grounds: first, in inciting public outcry against abortion, the “baby-killer” rhetoric fosters callousness towards the lives of doctors who perform them. We turn away, and say to ourselves, ‘Well, I didn’t kill him, BUT he had it coming.” Second, why else refer to Tiller only in the context of “baby-killing” except to imply that his murder embodies a certain justice—that Tiller deserved to be murdered?
Editor Sachetti claims my response to Pushinaitis is unjust, and challenges me to defend it on threat of banishment. Done. But isn’t this strange for someone who claims not only to be committed to free speech, but who publishes comments that border on libel? I neither impugn Pushinatis’ character nor slander him, yet not a day transpires that Sachetti doesn’t publish personal and professional assault aimed at me.
Does he forget that in 2007 he printed numerous false, potentially libelous, claims about my divorce, all without comment? In fact, although he had access to the evidence, he silently condoned this defamation and even defended the assassination of my character (October-December, 2007). I’ve never requested anyone’s banishment.
I BELIEVE in free speech.
But if it applies only to those whom Sachetti favors, it’s not freedom, not even for those who applaud his challenge. They’re in fact the biggest dupes of all in Sachetti’s game of “up the stakes.”
Perhaps 30 Seconds is really the Truman Show, its contributors unwitting sit-com actors. Maybe the show was getting dull for Sachetti, and he needed to ratchet up the anger at one of its antagonists. We’re about to find out—and it applies to us all. Will it matter that I’ve met the challenge? Probably not. Were Sachetti committed to free speech, he would never have leveled it.
Your move, Mr. Sachetti. Who’s next?
Wendy Lynne Lee
592 words.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Rural Pennsylvania Hate Group Sponsors Tea-Party
5.19.09
To the Editor,
Joining the chorus of Fox-sponsored Tea-parties are voices belonging to none other than members of our homegrown hate group, the Patriot’s Voice. In his 5.19 Op-Ed, “CEO” Robert Runyon announces a July 4th Tea Party scheduled for Bloomsburg Town Park. He invites American citizens who are “mad as hell.” Apparently citizens of other nations aren’t welcome at the park on July 4th.
Stay home you Canadians!
No Mexican citizens allowed!
You French folks stay away!
Runyon does, however, insist that the event is non-partisan, and that no political signage will be permitted—though I wonder on what authority he could actually keep me from holding up such a sign (perhaps one that reads: “Just say NO to Torture”)—in a public space—where my first amendment rights are fully protected—but let’s not quibble about silly things like rights. He wants a Tea Party. Fine. Now let’s see what he really means.
To discover this, you have to go to the “Obama Nation” page of the Patriot's Voice website where you’ll find a number of unsubstantiated claims directed at the Obama administration.
So much for non-partisan!
In fact, here you’ll find the full measure of the far right’s shrill, nationalistic, and patently racist Anti-Obama propaganda. No criticism of the Bush administration graces the website (although these are the same folks who posted their “Yeah for Joseph McCarthy!” page until it threatened to upset their runs for school board seats).
They claim that under Obama Americans will see the end of marriage, the imposition of Communism, the end of capitalism, the dictatorship of environmentalists, and global domination via the United Nations. According to the Patriot’s Voice, Obama will take away your guns, tax you into the grave, release terrorists onto U.S. soil, and make decisions about your healthcare that used to be your doctor’s.
They consistently refer to the Democrats as Democrat-Socialists. Makes you feel welcome to their party, doesn’t it? They go on to applaud Fox’s Glenn Beck who routinely compares the Obama government to the Nazis, and insists that you cannot be an American without being a Christian. I can only wonder where Runyon got the 76% of Americans who think we’re going in the wrong direction—since Obama’s approval ratings are sky-high.
But I suppose citing sources might distract from the fear mongering.
And a vacuous fear-mongering it is, since the 5.19 Op-Ed itself says virtually nothing about what we’re to be “mad as hell,” what “insanity” they oppose, what job-saving alternatives there are to the bailouts, which inalienable rights the government is threatening to reppress, what “empty promises” we’ve been sold, or what they mean by “social engineering.”
Nope.
They simply parrot the scary—but utterly vacant—platitudes fed to them by the likes of Beck. If this is your idea of patriotism, by all means head out on Independence Day for the PV-Tea Party. But if you think that being a citizen means becoming engaged not merely at the level of hate-mongering propaganda, but rather in the critical evaluation of what Obama really says, what his proposals and policies really stipulate, what his appointments really represent, and what direction your country is really taking, skip the Tea Party.
It’s an easy thing to allow ourselves to be manipulated by patriotic-sounding slogans like “We’re mad as hell!” The challenge, however, is to be a citizen who can think for themselves. Nothing less than our democracy hinges on this thinking. The tea parties are, simply, a cynical attempt by a flailing far right to fire-up a mob in hopes of saving an ideologically waterlogged Republican Party.
That Patriot’s Voice members would be readily suckered by such a strategy is hardly surprising—but YOU don’t have to be.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
615 words.
To the Editor,
Joining the chorus of Fox-sponsored Tea-parties are voices belonging to none other than members of our homegrown hate group, the Patriot’s Voice. In his 5.19 Op-Ed, “CEO” Robert Runyon announces a July 4th Tea Party scheduled for Bloomsburg Town Park. He invites American citizens who are “mad as hell.” Apparently citizens of other nations aren’t welcome at the park on July 4th.
Stay home you Canadians!
No Mexican citizens allowed!
You French folks stay away!
Runyon does, however, insist that the event is non-partisan, and that no political signage will be permitted—though I wonder on what authority he could actually keep me from holding up such a sign (perhaps one that reads: “Just say NO to Torture”)—in a public space—where my first amendment rights are fully protected—but let’s not quibble about silly things like rights. He wants a Tea Party. Fine. Now let’s see what he really means.
To discover this, you have to go to the “Obama Nation” page of the Patriot's Voice website where you’ll find a number of unsubstantiated claims directed at the Obama administration.
So much for non-partisan!
In fact, here you’ll find the full measure of the far right’s shrill, nationalistic, and patently racist Anti-Obama propaganda. No criticism of the Bush administration graces the website (although these are the same folks who posted their “Yeah for Joseph McCarthy!” page until it threatened to upset their runs for school board seats).
They claim that under Obama Americans will see the end of marriage, the imposition of Communism, the end of capitalism, the dictatorship of environmentalists, and global domination via the United Nations. According to the Patriot’s Voice, Obama will take away your guns, tax you into the grave, release terrorists onto U.S. soil, and make decisions about your healthcare that used to be your doctor’s.
They consistently refer to the Democrats as Democrat-Socialists. Makes you feel welcome to their party, doesn’t it? They go on to applaud Fox’s Glenn Beck who routinely compares the Obama government to the Nazis, and insists that you cannot be an American without being a Christian. I can only wonder where Runyon got the 76% of Americans who think we’re going in the wrong direction—since Obama’s approval ratings are sky-high.
But I suppose citing sources might distract from the fear mongering.
And a vacuous fear-mongering it is, since the 5.19 Op-Ed itself says virtually nothing about what we’re to be “mad as hell,” what “insanity” they oppose, what job-saving alternatives there are to the bailouts, which inalienable rights the government is threatening to reppress, what “empty promises” we’ve been sold, or what they mean by “social engineering.”
Nope.
They simply parrot the scary—but utterly vacant—platitudes fed to them by the likes of Beck. If this is your idea of patriotism, by all means head out on Independence Day for the PV-Tea Party. But if you think that being a citizen means becoming engaged not merely at the level of hate-mongering propaganda, but rather in the critical evaluation of what Obama really says, what his proposals and policies really stipulate, what his appointments really represent, and what direction your country is really taking, skip the Tea Party.
It’s an easy thing to allow ourselves to be manipulated by patriotic-sounding slogans like “We’re mad as hell!” The challenge, however, is to be a citizen who can think for themselves. Nothing less than our democracy hinges on this thinking. The tea parties are, simply, a cynical attempt by a flailing far right to fire-up a mob in hopes of saving an ideologically waterlogged Republican Party.
That Patriot’s Voice members would be readily suckered by such a strategy is hardly surprising—but YOU don’t have to be.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
615 words.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
1.31.09
To the Editor,
If the creationism/natural selection (NS) “debate’s” interesting, it’s not because there’s any debate here; it’s because what the real debate’s about is who gets to control the production and dissemination of knowledge—who gets to decide what counts as knowledge. Pretenders to an expertise clearly beyond their educations, would-be experts like Terry McAfee and Robert Runyon mimic bits and pieces of scientific-sounding jargon as if putting on academic garb could magically convert them into scientists so accomplished that their “arguments” against NS will prevail over decades of research, argument, and evidence. Responding, for example, to a point I made about NS and xenotransplantation, Runyon claims that if we cannot see evolution occurring—a creature “caught in the act”—it must not be! (www.the-patriot-s-voice.org). But this not only betrays willful ignorance with respect to the mechanisms of NS, it demonstrates a willingness to suspend common sense in order to cling to thread bare conviction. We don’t see the erosion of mountains directly either—but we surely don’t doubt its occurrence.
Runyon then resorts to the one strategy he can count on to have some effect so long as people aren’t really looking—self-righteous fallacy-pumping. He sets up the straw claim that I’m calling him “dumb” as if name-calling would make it magically true that NS is false—as if my being mean lends his position credibility. But I’ve neither said nor implied that he’s “dumb.” He’s not; it’s worse: Runyon’s strategy is a manipulative charade motivated by the arrogant smugness of one who thinks that, having a god in their pocket, that they’re required neither to do the hard work of comprehending alternative explanations of natural phenomena nor examine their own assumptions. Similarly, McAfee’s calling his opponents “Christian-haters” is just one more cynically deployed strategy to distract attention away from the real issues: who controls the content of science education.
And that’s just the point: the world’s McAfees and Runyons aren’t interested in education; it’s not about that. This is about the lengths one religious camp will go to enforce a worldview in direct conflict with the separation of church and state. McAfee, moreover, holds two beliefs that are plainly false: (1) even if NS were falsified (as is a possibility—however unlikely—for ALL scientific hypotheses—such is the very point of testing them), this would not verify creationism. The falsity of one theory is not verification of another; insofar as McAfee can produce no positive evidence, test, or opportunity for falsification for his view, it’s not even a scientific theory. (2) He apparently thinks that what ought to be taught in publicly funded schools is a matter for public decision, as if a “debate” of the merits of NS should determine science curricula—as if knowledge were merely a product of what folks want to be true. Good thing it’s not; after all, astrology, telekinesis, talking to the dead, and alien babies have no place in science education either.
What we’re left to conclude—if we’re honest—is that this “debate’s” not about knowledge; it’s about power. No one’s being kept from believing in gods, goddesses, flying spaghetti monsters, or alien babies. The issue is who gets to say what counts as science, and what counts as good science education. My vote goes to the folks soundly trained in scientific method—not because they’re always right, but because they—utterly unlike McAfee and Runyon—are willing to be wrong. What the creationists don’t get is that “willing to be wrong” doesn’t mean “ready to sign onto superstition,” but rather willing to be guided by the application of well-honed reason to evidence—not a creationist value.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
594 words.
To the Editor,
If the creationism/natural selection (NS) “debate’s” interesting, it’s not because there’s any debate here; it’s because what the real debate’s about is who gets to control the production and dissemination of knowledge—who gets to decide what counts as knowledge. Pretenders to an expertise clearly beyond their educations, would-be experts like Terry McAfee and Robert Runyon mimic bits and pieces of scientific-sounding jargon as if putting on academic garb could magically convert them into scientists so accomplished that their “arguments” against NS will prevail over decades of research, argument, and evidence. Responding, for example, to a point I made about NS and xenotransplantation, Runyon claims that if we cannot see evolution occurring—a creature “caught in the act”—it must not be! (www.the-patriot-s-voice.org). But this not only betrays willful ignorance with respect to the mechanisms of NS, it demonstrates a willingness to suspend common sense in order to cling to thread bare conviction. We don’t see the erosion of mountains directly either—but we surely don’t doubt its occurrence.
Runyon then resorts to the one strategy he can count on to have some effect so long as people aren’t really looking—self-righteous fallacy-pumping. He sets up the straw claim that I’m calling him “dumb” as if name-calling would make it magically true that NS is false—as if my being mean lends his position credibility. But I’ve neither said nor implied that he’s “dumb.” He’s not; it’s worse: Runyon’s strategy is a manipulative charade motivated by the arrogant smugness of one who thinks that, having a god in their pocket, that they’re required neither to do the hard work of comprehending alternative explanations of natural phenomena nor examine their own assumptions. Similarly, McAfee’s calling his opponents “Christian-haters” is just one more cynically deployed strategy to distract attention away from the real issues: who controls the content of science education.
And that’s just the point: the world’s McAfees and Runyons aren’t interested in education; it’s not about that. This is about the lengths one religious camp will go to enforce a worldview in direct conflict with the separation of church and state. McAfee, moreover, holds two beliefs that are plainly false: (1) even if NS were falsified (as is a possibility—however unlikely—for ALL scientific hypotheses—such is the very point of testing them), this would not verify creationism. The falsity of one theory is not verification of another; insofar as McAfee can produce no positive evidence, test, or opportunity for falsification for his view, it’s not even a scientific theory. (2) He apparently thinks that what ought to be taught in publicly funded schools is a matter for public decision, as if a “debate” of the merits of NS should determine science curricula—as if knowledge were merely a product of what folks want to be true. Good thing it’s not; after all, astrology, telekinesis, talking to the dead, and alien babies have no place in science education either.
What we’re left to conclude—if we’re honest—is that this “debate’s” not about knowledge; it’s about power. No one’s being kept from believing in gods, goddesses, flying spaghetti monsters, or alien babies. The issue is who gets to say what counts as science, and what counts as good science education. My vote goes to the folks soundly trained in scientific method—not because they’re always right, but because they—utterly unlike McAfee and Runyon—are willing to be wrong. What the creationists don’t get is that “willing to be wrong” doesn’t mean “ready to sign onto superstition,” but rather willing to be guided by the application of well-honed reason to evidence—not a creationist value.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
594 words.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Dear President-Elect Obama:
11.5.08
Dear President-Elect Obama,
This morning, November 5th, I am bone-tired and my speaking voice is worn-out from a long day volunteering at the polls. But even as I write this, I am weeping with elation at what might be the closest thing to a miracle I’ll ever see. Your election inspires hope for a more just, more equitable, and more compassionate America than I along with millions of others have seen in a long while. We believe in you and will continue to work for and with you as you undertake the daunting task of recreating our country around what are really its oldest and most precious ideals: opportunity for every citizen, individual and collective responsibility, the conservation of our environment, and the immense value of education. We will also hold your feet to the fire every step of the way—just as you tell us we must—because we aren’t invested merely in the rhetoric of justice and opportunity; we are committed to realizing, to living, this promise. We will expect no less from you than what we have expected these last weeks and days from ourselves, and I can assure you that has been a great, great deal.
Nowhere have I seen the hope symbolized by your presidency realized more authentically than in the tireless work of the Obama campaign team here in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. I can’t even express in words with what high esteem I hold each and every one of these volunteers. Were any one of these folks, especially the excellent young members of your grassroots organizing team, at your breakfast table this morning, you’d know just how this historic victory was won, with what hope we invest you, and how seriously we take our responsibility to build a better country. We are the citizens of a small college town in Pennsylvania—but we’re also a microcosm of the better world we hope to live in.
I also want you to know, Mr. President-Elect Obama, about the students of Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. They’re magnificent. These students—like so many others all over the country—stood in line for hours to vote. Not all of them voted for you, but this is, of course, irrelevant. They VOTED, some for the first time, all with good humor, awaiting pizza and popsicles, listening to live music, telling “comfortable shoe” jokes. No atmosphere could have better personified the democratic process than this beautiful day. They came out in record numbers; they helped each other; they made new friends, they danced in the streets at word of your victory, and most of all, they participated in history.
This election has been about so many things, Mr. President-Elect. It’s been about the divisive and painful history of race and racism in America; it’s been about an immoral war; it’s been about 48 million people without health care; it’s been about an economy despoiled by greed. But mostly it’s been about whether we can continue to believe in the promise of democracy amidst such challenges. Yes we can. And as we have shown you, yes we will.
Wendy Lynne Lee
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania
wlee@bloomu.edu (508 words)
Dear President-Elect Obama,
This morning, November 5th, I am bone-tired and my speaking voice is worn-out from a long day volunteering at the polls. But even as I write this, I am weeping with elation at what might be the closest thing to a miracle I’ll ever see. Your election inspires hope for a more just, more equitable, and more compassionate America than I along with millions of others have seen in a long while. We believe in you and will continue to work for and with you as you undertake the daunting task of recreating our country around what are really its oldest and most precious ideals: opportunity for every citizen, individual and collective responsibility, the conservation of our environment, and the immense value of education. We will also hold your feet to the fire every step of the way—just as you tell us we must—because we aren’t invested merely in the rhetoric of justice and opportunity; we are committed to realizing, to living, this promise. We will expect no less from you than what we have expected these last weeks and days from ourselves, and I can assure you that has been a great, great deal.
Nowhere have I seen the hope symbolized by your presidency realized more authentically than in the tireless work of the Obama campaign team here in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. I can’t even express in words with what high esteem I hold each and every one of these volunteers. Were any one of these folks, especially the excellent young members of your grassroots organizing team, at your breakfast table this morning, you’d know just how this historic victory was won, with what hope we invest you, and how seriously we take our responsibility to build a better country. We are the citizens of a small college town in Pennsylvania—but we’re also a microcosm of the better world we hope to live in.
I also want you to know, Mr. President-Elect Obama, about the students of Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. They’re magnificent. These students—like so many others all over the country—stood in line for hours to vote. Not all of them voted for you, but this is, of course, irrelevant. They VOTED, some for the first time, all with good humor, awaiting pizza and popsicles, listening to live music, telling “comfortable shoe” jokes. No atmosphere could have better personified the democratic process than this beautiful day. They came out in record numbers; they helped each other; they made new friends, they danced in the streets at word of your victory, and most of all, they participated in history.
This election has been about so many things, Mr. President-Elect. It’s been about the divisive and painful history of race and racism in America; it’s been about an immoral war; it’s been about 48 million people without health care; it’s been about an economy despoiled by greed. But mostly it’s been about whether we can continue to believe in the promise of democracy amidst such challenges. Yes we can. And as we have shown you, yes we will.
Wendy Lynne Lee
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania
wlee@bloomu.edu (508 words)
Sunday, October 5, 2008
The Dumbing Down of the 2008 Elections
It’s as hard to imagine a more important presidential election as it is to envy its winner. “Winner” might, however, be more appropriate given the daunting reality with which either Barack Obama or John McCain will be confronted come November 5th. The question we must thus confront is which candidate is better prepared to deal with this reality. Few doubt that making this judgment is made all the more difficult by those pundits who substitute character assassination, innuendo, question-begging, and guilt by association for a careful analysis of Obama’s positions and worldviews. But we should be just as insulted by the pandering, distorted, and manipulated promotion of John McCain. AND VICE VERSA. Since when did we become so politically illiterate that we can no longer be presented with arguments, but are only capable of digesting the pabulum of “talking points”? This deterioration of the public square has, moreover, been made all the easier by a gradual but unmistakable turn over the last eight years towards the anti-intellectualism represented in the appeal to “six pack Joe” and now to “hockey moms.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming that there aren’t plenty of “Joes” and “moms” who make thinking choices in the voting booth. I come from just these people, people who didn’t have the benefit of college educations but who strove to educate themselves and who took it to be a moral responsibility to understand their world. But while my childhood was pervaded by the idea that we could do better than our parents, that this “doing better” wasn’t just about making money but about contributing to our communities, our society, to the production of knowledge and to new ideas, it’s clear that in our current political culture the only “knowledge” that counts is that which conforms to a worldview dominated at once by religious exclusion and corporate greed. No comfortable bedfellows. Indeed, the irony of the far right is that for every deregulation of the so-called “free” market we can count on the further regulation of our constitutional liberties, especially first amendment rights. Hence it’s no surprise that some Democrats and many Republicans voted against the bailout—but for very different reasons. While Republicans cling to the absurd doctrine that the “free” market’s benefits trickle down from the few to the many, dissenting Democrats like Dennis Kucinich get that this ideological gruel guarantees precisely what we now have: a disparity of wealth wider than any other industrialized nation’s (rawstory.com/news/2008/Kucinich).
Our current president rose to power as the man with whom the “average Joe” could identify. Sadly, however, this never meant that the president need have any genuine interest in the lives, needs, or economic struggles of this citizen. It meant that so long as citizens share the right ideology—in this case one that replaces patriotism with “your either with us or against us,” the value of education with “elitism,” choice with the double-speak of “pro-life,” torture with “extraordinary rendition,” the theory of evolution with “creation science,” and now welfare for Wall Street with “economic recovery package”—the average Joe or Josephine is welcome to an America where voting out of fear and ignorance somehow makes you a patriot. No politician epitomizes the dumbing down of the electorate better than Sarah Palin whose cutey-pie winking, abominable grammar, and constitutional illiteracy evokes Bush’s own. “Six-pack Joe” and “Hockey mom” ought to be insulted to be so used. This election matters, and we must all vote our conscience. But conscience uninformed by knowledge and critical thinking is neither virtuous nor “cute.” It’s just ignorant. We must do better.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
596 words
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming that there aren’t plenty of “Joes” and “moms” who make thinking choices in the voting booth. I come from just these people, people who didn’t have the benefit of college educations but who strove to educate themselves and who took it to be a moral responsibility to understand their world. But while my childhood was pervaded by the idea that we could do better than our parents, that this “doing better” wasn’t just about making money but about contributing to our communities, our society, to the production of knowledge and to new ideas, it’s clear that in our current political culture the only “knowledge” that counts is that which conforms to a worldview dominated at once by religious exclusion and corporate greed. No comfortable bedfellows. Indeed, the irony of the far right is that for every deregulation of the so-called “free” market we can count on the further regulation of our constitutional liberties, especially first amendment rights. Hence it’s no surprise that some Democrats and many Republicans voted against the bailout—but for very different reasons. While Republicans cling to the absurd doctrine that the “free” market’s benefits trickle down from the few to the many, dissenting Democrats like Dennis Kucinich get that this ideological gruel guarantees precisely what we now have: a disparity of wealth wider than any other industrialized nation’s (rawstory.com/news/2008/Kucinich).
Our current president rose to power as the man with whom the “average Joe” could identify. Sadly, however, this never meant that the president need have any genuine interest in the lives, needs, or economic struggles of this citizen. It meant that so long as citizens share the right ideology—in this case one that replaces patriotism with “your either with us or against us,” the value of education with “elitism,” choice with the double-speak of “pro-life,” torture with “extraordinary rendition,” the theory of evolution with “creation science,” and now welfare for Wall Street with “economic recovery package”—the average Joe or Josephine is welcome to an America where voting out of fear and ignorance somehow makes you a patriot. No politician epitomizes the dumbing down of the electorate better than Sarah Palin whose cutey-pie winking, abominable grammar, and constitutional illiteracy evokes Bush’s own. “Six-pack Joe” and “Hockey mom” ought to be insulted to be so used. This election matters, and we must all vote our conscience. But conscience uninformed by knowledge and critical thinking is neither virtuous nor “cute.” It’s just ignorant. We must do better.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
596 words
Saturday, August 2, 2008
A Monster for Idiots: The National Association of Scholars Argus Project
Thinly veiled indeed are the motives of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) whose recently launched Argus Project is precisely what Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Education and Chris Goff of Free Exchange on Campus say it is: a McCarthy-style recruitment of spies to go and “find” evidence of Leftist indoctrination on college campuses. That’s right, an association that claims to represent a community of scholars wants them to spy on each other and then report their findings to the NAS. To what ends? No doubt, more of what the NAS does best—attack the academy as a bastion of left-leaning radicals. Having, in other words, insufficient evidence with which to make that claim stick—even after years of dirt-digging effort and milking cases like Ward Churchill’s for all they’re worth—the NAS has launched an outreach campaign: They can’t smear the academy all by themselves, so they need the help of those right-thinking stewards of democracy at Townhall.com. NAS President Stephen Balch must be kidding. His insistence that “the Argus Project is a call for volunteers to examine publicly available sources to report and document what’s happening on college campuses” doesn’t explicitly call for spies (www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=288). Balch even claims that his “own notion of etiquette is that if you are going to go to someone’s classroom, you should get permission.” How polite. Nonetheless, when you consider just what it would take to accomplish the objectives of Argus, it becomes patently clear that surveying university policiy is not what the project’s about.
In the first place, policy investigation is a project that could be carried out by one or two NAS staff members on-line—it doesn’t need a thousand and one Argus-eyes to complete it (despite Balch’s protestation to the contrary). In the second place, and far more telling, that the NAS solicited Townhall.com volunteers makes it quite clear that examining university policy concerning student complaints is not what Balch has in mind, namely, “to look into whether that college conducts politicized teaching, requires ideological adherence, or sustains slights to conservative students” (www.nas.org/polPressReleases.cfm?Doc_Id=278). Nope, this goal demands folks who are willing to enter a classroom, and what better a place to find project-participants than a website whose axe to grind with the academy looks, well, just like his own?
Balch can’t possibly think that we academics are so daft that we don’t know that his “volunteers” are self-selected—in other words, biased, ready to do some “Leftist-hunting.” The Argus project specifically solicits professors, parents, and citizens who “have probably noticed university policies, programs, or events at odds with the responsible exercise of academic freedom or the decent treatment of students. You knew, “This is not right.” Perhaps you even told someone; but very likely nothing changed” (www.nas.org/polPressReleases.cfm?Doc_Id=278). This is hardly an example of an unbiased pitch for volunteers, and it’s not likely to produce any objective claims. No patient policy read is going to generate the kind of “information” Balch is after, and even if we supplement policy with syllabi or second hand accounts of professorial abuses alleged by presumed students like those routinely solicited by FrontPageMag/FOX contributor David Horowitz, there’s no replacing an on-site spy. Balch knows this, and just because he says it’s more polite to ask for permission to enter a class (as opposed to just invading it?), this doesn’t imply that “volunteers” are likely to inform professors that they’re there to gather damning information with which to smear a university and its professoriate . Indeed, any professor I know would, if they knew, likely throw the spy out—and Balch knows this too. In fact, he’s counting on our not knowing; he’s counting on the duplicity of the spy. Asking permission to sit in on a class is a far cry from a revelation of dubious motives.
However much he might try to spin it in FrontPageMag style as a tacit admission of guilt, Balch has to know that ejecting a spy has nothing to do with course content or instruction method—much less indoctrination—and everything to do with the oppressive atmosphere created by their revealed presence. And “revealed” it must be—if that’s what Balch means by “permission.” So either that’s what he means, or he’s wholly disingenuous. I think we know which it is. Perhaps Balch thinks he’s crafted a Queen’s fork: Either let the spy surveil your class or risk appearing to be hiding something. But what he’s really hobbled together is just a plain old self-fulfilling prophesy: Send out spies and they’re going to come back with dirt—created right out of their own ideologically saturated imaginations, and this won’t be because there is or isn’t dirt to find; it will be because they’re already convinced it’s out there—just like Balch says.
It’s not, however, the smug self-certainty of the Argus project that troubles me so much. After all, this just is what we’ve come to expect from the NAS and its sister organizations like Campus Watch, FIRE, and FrontPageMag. No, what’s troubling is that they can get any volunteers at all, that they’ve been able to manufacture sufficient fear and mistrust of intellectuals that they can recruit spies. It’s certainly no accident that they’d appeal to the disaffected and often very shrill Townhall.com folks; they’re the perfect pitchfork audience for the witch hunt the Argus project really is. Troubling too is that, denial notwithstanding, the project actually goes to very little effort to conceal its motives. To appeal to fellow professors is as McCarthyite as it gets: Balch wants his academic neighbors to spy on each other. Naomi Klein argues in The Shock Doctrine that the strategy of Milton Friedman’s “disaster capitalism” is to either take advantage of an existing catastrophe (like Hurricane Katrina and the corporatization of New Orleans’ public school system), or to create the appearance of one in order to justify some form of oppressive appropriation of resources (that “just happen” to offer a marketable opportunity). Isn’t that what the Argus Project’s really about? A thousand eyes all seeing the same thing—Leftist indoctrination—is just the catastrophe NAS needs to justify the substitution of their own conservative ideological agenda for, well, education. What Balch knows, very much like Friedman, is that you can’t control a citizenry without controlling what it thinks. What better a strategy than to undermine a nation’s centers of knowledge, research, and ideas—its universities—by converting their classrooms into opportunities for distrust.
Perhaps a better metaphor for Balche’s project than Argus, a monster covered in eyes, is a disease like Mad Cow that indiscriminately attacks its host from the inside out. It needn’t be able to see anything; it need only create conditions adequate to destroying and then reconstructing the academy in the image of a single vision of knowledge, intellectual exploration, and citizenship. But this is ideology, not education. Argus is not the projects of scholars, but of charlatans who wrap themselves in the flag.
Wendy Lynne Lee, Professor
Department of Philosophy
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
Bloomsburg, PA 17815
wlee@bloomu.edu
In the first place, policy investigation is a project that could be carried out by one or two NAS staff members on-line—it doesn’t need a thousand and one Argus-eyes to complete it (despite Balch’s protestation to the contrary). In the second place, and far more telling, that the NAS solicited Townhall.com volunteers makes it quite clear that examining university policy concerning student complaints is not what Balch has in mind, namely, “to look into whether that college conducts politicized teaching, requires ideological adherence, or sustains slights to conservative students” (www.nas.org/polPressReleases.cfm?Doc_Id=278). Nope, this goal demands folks who are willing to enter a classroom, and what better a place to find project-participants than a website whose axe to grind with the academy looks, well, just like his own?
Balch can’t possibly think that we academics are so daft that we don’t know that his “volunteers” are self-selected—in other words, biased, ready to do some “Leftist-hunting.” The Argus project specifically solicits professors, parents, and citizens who “have probably noticed university policies, programs, or events at odds with the responsible exercise of academic freedom or the decent treatment of students. You knew, “This is not right.” Perhaps you even told someone; but very likely nothing changed” (www.nas.org/polPressReleases.cfm?Doc_Id=278). This is hardly an example of an unbiased pitch for volunteers, and it’s not likely to produce any objective claims. No patient policy read is going to generate the kind of “information” Balch is after, and even if we supplement policy with syllabi or second hand accounts of professorial abuses alleged by presumed students like those routinely solicited by FrontPageMag/FOX contributor David Horowitz, there’s no replacing an on-site spy. Balch knows this, and just because he says it’s more polite to ask for permission to enter a class (as opposed to just invading it?), this doesn’t imply that “volunteers” are likely to inform professors that they’re there to gather damning information with which to smear a university and its professoriate . Indeed, any professor I know would, if they knew, likely throw the spy out—and Balch knows this too. In fact, he’s counting on our not knowing; he’s counting on the duplicity of the spy. Asking permission to sit in on a class is a far cry from a revelation of dubious motives.
However much he might try to spin it in FrontPageMag style as a tacit admission of guilt, Balch has to know that ejecting a spy has nothing to do with course content or instruction method—much less indoctrination—and everything to do with the oppressive atmosphere created by their revealed presence. And “revealed” it must be—if that’s what Balch means by “permission.” So either that’s what he means, or he’s wholly disingenuous. I think we know which it is. Perhaps Balch thinks he’s crafted a Queen’s fork: Either let the spy surveil your class or risk appearing to be hiding something. But what he’s really hobbled together is just a plain old self-fulfilling prophesy: Send out spies and they’re going to come back with dirt—created right out of their own ideologically saturated imaginations, and this won’t be because there is or isn’t dirt to find; it will be because they’re already convinced it’s out there—just like Balch says.
It’s not, however, the smug self-certainty of the Argus project that troubles me so much. After all, this just is what we’ve come to expect from the NAS and its sister organizations like Campus Watch, FIRE, and FrontPageMag. No, what’s troubling is that they can get any volunteers at all, that they’ve been able to manufacture sufficient fear and mistrust of intellectuals that they can recruit spies. It’s certainly no accident that they’d appeal to the disaffected and often very shrill Townhall.com folks; they’re the perfect pitchfork audience for the witch hunt the Argus project really is. Troubling too is that, denial notwithstanding, the project actually goes to very little effort to conceal its motives. To appeal to fellow professors is as McCarthyite as it gets: Balch wants his academic neighbors to spy on each other. Naomi Klein argues in The Shock Doctrine that the strategy of Milton Friedman’s “disaster capitalism” is to either take advantage of an existing catastrophe (like Hurricane Katrina and the corporatization of New Orleans’ public school system), or to create the appearance of one in order to justify some form of oppressive appropriation of resources (that “just happen” to offer a marketable opportunity). Isn’t that what the Argus Project’s really about? A thousand eyes all seeing the same thing—Leftist indoctrination—is just the catastrophe NAS needs to justify the substitution of their own conservative ideological agenda for, well, education. What Balch knows, very much like Friedman, is that you can’t control a citizenry without controlling what it thinks. What better a strategy than to undermine a nation’s centers of knowledge, research, and ideas—its universities—by converting their classrooms into opportunities for distrust.
Perhaps a better metaphor for Balche’s project than Argus, a monster covered in eyes, is a disease like Mad Cow that indiscriminately attacks its host from the inside out. It needn’t be able to see anything; it need only create conditions adequate to destroying and then reconstructing the academy in the image of a single vision of knowledge, intellectual exploration, and citizenship. But this is ideology, not education. Argus is not the projects of scholars, but of charlatans who wrap themselves in the flag.
Wendy Lynne Lee, Professor
Department of Philosophy
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
Bloomsburg, PA 17815
wlee@bloomu.edu
Monday, June 30, 2008
Why Drilling in ANWR and off the Coast of Florida is Misguided
Of all the absurd arguments I’ve heard this year, Tom Ciccarelli’s “environmentalism is the mother of socialism” takes the cake. Understanding neither environmentalism nor socialism, his evident aim is to fear monger through the use of language loaded in the direction he apparently knows his “evidence” won’t go (if he had the goods, he wouldn’t need the ballast). Using loaded phrasing like “the lefty plan” Ciccarelli substitutes ridicule for reasoning, accusation (“environmentalists are responsible for the ridiculous energy costs”) for evidence.
Ciccarelli’s only reference, Mineral Management Service (www.mms.gov) is not a source of objective evidence about the benefits or hazards of offshore drilling. MMS’s mission is to promote “energy independence” via drilling and natural gas production. The agency also disburses royalties from this production—evidence of its interested aims. That “copious amounts of oil and natural gas” will materialize is, moreover, fantasy at best. Much like the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), it amounts to fewer than 30 years of energy production at present rates of consumption. According to the U.S. Department of Energy “[i]f Congress were to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, crude oil prices would probably drop by an average of only 75 cents a barrel...The report, which was requested in December by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, found that oil production in the refuge "is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices” (www.adn.com/anwr/story/414808.html). Ditto for oil-to-shale in Colorado and Wyoming.
Ciccarelli’s plan rewards the already bloated oil and natural gas industries with additional “huge tax breaks” at the direct expense of future Americans (not to mention the rest of the world). He doesn’t tell you that the dollars corporations like BP (Beyond Petroleum) spend on alternative energy research pales utterly in comparison to their PR campaign to defend their current practice, or that the environmental record of Big Oil is beyond deplorable. Instead he resorts to straw fallacy—distortion of an opponent’s position to make a weaker one look better—with admonitions like “hush up, Greenpeace, there isn’t a tree for 750 miles” ignoring the fact that ecosystems depend on the complex interactions of all their constituent members, especially their predator/prey relationships, and that ANWR’s caribou—and thus everything that depends on their migration—is at risk in drilling. Maybe we think that Alaska’s far away, so what happens there won’t affect the rest of us, but as the scientific evidence for global climate change shows, this thinking is naive in the extreme.
Contrary to Ciccarelli’s cynical effort to dismiss environmentalists as leftists, the future of energy production isn’t about party politics; it’s about how much we care about the future of our children. Without the development of environmentally sustainable alternatives, this future’s in jeopardy. The writing’s been on the wall since at least 1973—the first oil crisis—and our lack of innovation and action is not just Big Oil’s fault (although resistance to alternatives is well-documented for Exxon, Chevron, BP); it’s ours. We are the world’s energy gluttons, and more of the same a la Ciccarelli will only hasten the demise of our energy independence. He’s right that we do have smart people. Let’s put them to work asking smart questions like “Hey PPL, where DO you store those spent nuclear rods?” “What more could we do with solar, wind, a diversity of bio-fuels, hydrogen?” The environmentalists, of course, have been asking the hard questions for years. Their proposals for limiting meat production, producing gas efficient vehicles, reducing the production of plastics, controlling pollutants, etc., offer tough medicine—the kind that just might save us from soiling ourselves to extinction.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
594 words
Ciccarelli’s only reference, Mineral Management Service (www.mms.gov) is not a source of objective evidence about the benefits or hazards of offshore drilling. MMS’s mission is to promote “energy independence” via drilling and natural gas production. The agency also disburses royalties from this production—evidence of its interested aims. That “copious amounts of oil and natural gas” will materialize is, moreover, fantasy at best. Much like the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), it amounts to fewer than 30 years of energy production at present rates of consumption. According to the U.S. Department of Energy “[i]f Congress were to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, crude oil prices would probably drop by an average of only 75 cents a barrel...The report, which was requested in December by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, found that oil production in the refuge "is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices” (www.adn.com/anwr/story/414808.html). Ditto for oil-to-shale in Colorado and Wyoming.
Ciccarelli’s plan rewards the already bloated oil and natural gas industries with additional “huge tax breaks” at the direct expense of future Americans (not to mention the rest of the world). He doesn’t tell you that the dollars corporations like BP (Beyond Petroleum) spend on alternative energy research pales utterly in comparison to their PR campaign to defend their current practice, or that the environmental record of Big Oil is beyond deplorable. Instead he resorts to straw fallacy—distortion of an opponent’s position to make a weaker one look better—with admonitions like “hush up, Greenpeace, there isn’t a tree for 750 miles” ignoring the fact that ecosystems depend on the complex interactions of all their constituent members, especially their predator/prey relationships, and that ANWR’s caribou—and thus everything that depends on their migration—is at risk in drilling. Maybe we think that Alaska’s far away, so what happens there won’t affect the rest of us, but as the scientific evidence for global climate change shows, this thinking is naive in the extreme.
Contrary to Ciccarelli’s cynical effort to dismiss environmentalists as leftists, the future of energy production isn’t about party politics; it’s about how much we care about the future of our children. Without the development of environmentally sustainable alternatives, this future’s in jeopardy. The writing’s been on the wall since at least 1973—the first oil crisis—and our lack of innovation and action is not just Big Oil’s fault (although resistance to alternatives is well-documented for Exxon, Chevron, BP); it’s ours. We are the world’s energy gluttons, and more of the same a la Ciccarelli will only hasten the demise of our energy independence. He’s right that we do have smart people. Let’s put them to work asking smart questions like “Hey PPL, where DO you store those spent nuclear rods?” “What more could we do with solar, wind, a diversity of bio-fuels, hydrogen?” The environmentalists, of course, have been asking the hard questions for years. Their proposals for limiting meat production, producing gas efficient vehicles, reducing the production of plastics, controlling pollutants, etc., offer tough medicine—the kind that just might save us from soiling ourselves to extinction.
Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu
594 words
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Building a Firewall: The Unconstitutionality of SB 1250 (The PA Marriage Protection Amendment)
April 9, 2008
Testimony on Senate Bill 1250, a proposed marriage amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution
Wendy Lynne Lee, Professor, Department of Philosophy
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
Bloomsburg, PA USA 17815 (wlee@bloomu.edu)
First, please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Wendy Lynne Lee and I am a professor of philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania where I have taught for nearly sixteen years. My primary interest here, however, is that of a citizen. In my view, the Pennsylvania Marriage Protection Amendment (SB 1250) is premised on faulty if not disingenuous reasoning, a distortion of the Pennsylvania Constitution, a paucity of substantial evidence, and an obvious violation of the separation of church and state. It is, in effect, an attempt to build a constitutionally enforceable firewall against an unconstitutional law (PA-DOMA).
As The Support Center for Child Advocates (Philadelphia) makes clear in its March 13th testimony, such an amendment may function to deny legal protection for partners and their children in cases of domestic violence (as has already occurred in Ohio), and could have direct and damaging effects on an already struggling Pennsylvania foster care system. Moreover, SB 1250 could restrict “[a] child’s access to health insurance, medical care, Social Security, and pensions.” “At a minimum,” they go on to argue, “domestic partner benefits—and thus the benefits available to the children of the domestic partner—would no longer be available to any state or local government employee, nor the employee of any contract agent, government agency, or recipient of government funds!”
First to the amendment’s logic: Pennsylvania already has DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) statutes. But, as is made clear on the amendment’s promotional website (www.pa4marriage.org), the proponents of the current law do not regard it as immune to law suit. In fact, they specifically claim that “[i]t's true that Pennsylvania, like 37 other states, already has a law which limits marriage to one man and one woman. Legal experts agree, however, that in the event of a lawsuit, the DOMA is likely to be overturned or struck down. It is also possible that court rulings at the national level could render such laws "unconstitutional"; an amendment to the state constitution is much more likely to withstand such challenges.” In other words, the aim of the amendment is to build a firewall in case of a lawsuit that would challenge the constitutionality of PA-DOMA. The sponsors of the amendment know that the current law is unconstitutional, and that this is why it’s unlikely to withstand challenge. So, the only way to insure that marriage remain an exclusively heterosexual institution is to amend the constitution itself. That the amendment’s proponents place the term “unconstitutional” in scare quotes only serves to underscore their view that the Pennsylvania constitution is bound to recognize only heterosexuals as full citizens and only heterosexual unions as meriting the privileges and responsibilities of specific social contracts, namely, marriages. Such manipulation is clearly inconsistent with the very concept of a constitution, leaving it open to the further erosion of its guarantees.
Second to its paucity of substantial evidence: Contrary to the religiously motivated rhetoric of the Pennsylvania for Marriage website, no evidence supports the claim either that gay unions endanger heterosexual unions or that children raised by gay parents are likely to suffer trauma on that count. That some children of gay parents are stigmatized or even bullied in a society that continues to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation shows only the extent to which bills like SB1250 are likely to harm children and their families by reinforcing—indeed legitimating by constitutional amendment—second class citizenry. The bill’s proponents know that this is why the current law will not withstand constitutional challenge, but are effectively willing to allow, if not actively encourage, discrimination and its attendant harmful consequences for families and their children in the interest of enforcing a narrow and religiously proscribed definition of marriage on Pennsylvanians. The very title of the website offers a telling clue—Pennsylvanians for Marriage—implying that there is only one configuration of marriage that counts, and that whomever would oppose such an amendment opposes marriage per se. That the bill includes an addition to outlaw civil unions (SB 2381) further attests to this intent.
Third, to its violation of the separation of church and state: That the Protect Marriage Amendment’s motives are religious—despite the careful choreographing of the website to avoid overt religious references—could not be clearer. It’s no accident that many of its endorsements come from churches and other religious organizations. Its proponents claim that “if same-sex relationships are legally recognized, schools will be forced to change curricula to reflect homosexual role models and same-sex parenting as normal and acceptable. Parents will lose control of their children's moral education.” This passage, one of many like it, assumes without evidence or argument that homosexual role models are immoral and that same-sex parenting is abnormal and unacceptable. Its aim is to fear monger on the unsupported assumption that gays and gay marriage endanger the “traditional” family.
This reasoning is without justification: Sexual orientation is irrelevant to parenting skill, and as even the most cursory tour of family composition in the United States and elsewhere amply demonstrates, the nuclear, male-headed household does not have a monopoly on successful family structure. Moreover, the burden of proof to demonstrate that gays and lesbians are not adequate parents falls on the bill’s proponents, not on gay and lesbian parents.
That the amendment’s proponents site no fault divorce as an unqualified failure should send a very cold chill up the backs of women whose only escape from violent marriages are no-fault divorce laws. As, moreover, University of Pennsylvania law School Professor Tobias Barrington Wolff makes clear in his March 17th 2008 testimony,
SB 1250 threatens to write into the PA Constitution a license for deadbeat spouses to flee to Pennsylvania in order to avoid their alimony obligations; for disgruntled parents to disrupt the results of child custody resolutions; and for reckless individuals to use Pennsylvania as a safe haven to escape paying their judgments when their actions cause the wrongful death of a same-sex partner. I cannot imagine that any member of this body intends these results, but the amendment invites these bad public policies and even more.
The real motives behind the amendment are in fact to define a civil contract in terms of a religious institution; why else ban civil unions in addition to gay marriage? What makes the proponent’s arguments particularly onerous, however, is that the arguments in support of the so-called unnaturalness of homosexuality have been so thoroughly discredited, and for so long, that it demands nothing less than willful blindness to ignore them. This amendment erects a second-class citizenry in Pennsylvania; it overtly discriminates against citizens, their families, and their children. Professor Wolff makes the point clear in its constitutional context: “[DOMA] takes one class of citizens and (gay men and lesbians) and deprives their relationships, and only their relationships, of equal treatment under the full faith and credit clause [of the federal constitution].” SB1250 is rightly compared to laws that denied marriage across color. Yet, when I queried one legislator directly as to why he has sponsored this bill, his response was that it was the will of his constituents. Would he find this answer acceptable were the amendment to deny marriage across color? I doubt it.
Moreover, the additional amendment to outlaw civil unions clearly endangers current domestic partnership provisions in our and other union contracts. Domestic partnerships are civil unions; to outlaw one is to deny the enforceability of the other. As ACLU representatives make clear in their response to SB1250:
There is significant confusion and disagreement over the interpretation of constitutional amendments that go further than a simple, clear, and concise prohibition on same-sex marriage. The Michigan constitution was amended in 2004 to include this language: “To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.” Michigan Constitution, Article 1, Section 25. The Michigan Court of Appeals has held that this amendment bars state entities from providing health care benefits to domestic partners of state employees. National Pride at Work v. Governor, 274 Mich. App 147, 372 N.W. 2d 139 (Mich. App. 2007). The court found that “the operative language of the amendment plainly precludes the extension of benefits related to an employment contract, if the benefits are conditioned on or provided because of an agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union.” (From the ACLU Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony)
Kentucky has also followed the Michigan precedent: “The Attorney General said that the state cannot provide domestic partner healthcare benefits without violating that state’s marriage amendment” (ACLU testimony). A similar case can be found in Idaho. As the ACLU representatives go on to make clear, the Philadelphia domestic Partnership law is in no way immune from being overturned:
Opponents of the Philadelphia Domestic Partnership Law have already tried to have it overturned once in the court. (They were largely unsuccessful as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against them in 2004 in Devlin v. City of Philadelphia, 862, A 2d 1234). Were this proposed amendment to become part of Pennsylvania Constitution, we would expect another challenge to the Philadelphia law as well as other local laws and that we would see arguments based on this amendment.
Obviously, this is a significant union issue given the recent inclusion of domestic partnership benefits within my current APSCUF contract.
Testimony on Senate Bill 1250, a proposed marriage amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution
Wendy Lynne Lee, Professor, Department of Philosophy
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
Bloomsburg, PA USA 17815 (wlee@bloomu.edu)
First, please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Wendy Lynne Lee and I am a professor of philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania where I have taught for nearly sixteen years. My primary interest here, however, is that of a citizen. In my view, the Pennsylvania Marriage Protection Amendment (SB 1250) is premised on faulty if not disingenuous reasoning, a distortion of the Pennsylvania Constitution, a paucity of substantial evidence, and an obvious violation of the separation of church and state. It is, in effect, an attempt to build a constitutionally enforceable firewall against an unconstitutional law (PA-DOMA).
As The Support Center for Child Advocates (Philadelphia) makes clear in its March 13th testimony, such an amendment may function to deny legal protection for partners and their children in cases of domestic violence (as has already occurred in Ohio), and could have direct and damaging effects on an already struggling Pennsylvania foster care system. Moreover, SB 1250 could restrict “[a] child’s access to health insurance, medical care, Social Security, and pensions.” “At a minimum,” they go on to argue, “domestic partner benefits—and thus the benefits available to the children of the domestic partner—would no longer be available to any state or local government employee, nor the employee of any contract agent, government agency, or recipient of government funds!”
First to the amendment’s logic: Pennsylvania already has DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) statutes. But, as is made clear on the amendment’s promotional website (www.pa4marriage.org), the proponents of the current law do not regard it as immune to law suit. In fact, they specifically claim that “[i]t's true that Pennsylvania, like 37 other states, already has a law which limits marriage to one man and one woman. Legal experts agree, however, that in the event of a lawsuit, the DOMA is likely to be overturned or struck down. It is also possible that court rulings at the national level could render such laws "unconstitutional"; an amendment to the state constitution is much more likely to withstand such challenges.” In other words, the aim of the amendment is to build a firewall in case of a lawsuit that would challenge the constitutionality of PA-DOMA. The sponsors of the amendment know that the current law is unconstitutional, and that this is why it’s unlikely to withstand challenge. So, the only way to insure that marriage remain an exclusively heterosexual institution is to amend the constitution itself. That the amendment’s proponents place the term “unconstitutional” in scare quotes only serves to underscore their view that the Pennsylvania constitution is bound to recognize only heterosexuals as full citizens and only heterosexual unions as meriting the privileges and responsibilities of specific social contracts, namely, marriages. Such manipulation is clearly inconsistent with the very concept of a constitution, leaving it open to the further erosion of its guarantees.
Second to its paucity of substantial evidence: Contrary to the religiously motivated rhetoric of the Pennsylvania for Marriage website, no evidence supports the claim either that gay unions endanger heterosexual unions or that children raised by gay parents are likely to suffer trauma on that count. That some children of gay parents are stigmatized or even bullied in a society that continues to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation shows only the extent to which bills like SB1250 are likely to harm children and their families by reinforcing—indeed legitimating by constitutional amendment—second class citizenry. The bill’s proponents know that this is why the current law will not withstand constitutional challenge, but are effectively willing to allow, if not actively encourage, discrimination and its attendant harmful consequences for families and their children in the interest of enforcing a narrow and religiously proscribed definition of marriage on Pennsylvanians. The very title of the website offers a telling clue—Pennsylvanians for Marriage—implying that there is only one configuration of marriage that counts, and that whomever would oppose such an amendment opposes marriage per se. That the bill includes an addition to outlaw civil unions (SB 2381) further attests to this intent.
Third, to its violation of the separation of church and state: That the Protect Marriage Amendment’s motives are religious—despite the careful choreographing of the website to avoid overt religious references—could not be clearer. It’s no accident that many of its endorsements come from churches and other religious organizations. Its proponents claim that “if same-sex relationships are legally recognized, schools will be forced to change curricula to reflect homosexual role models and same-sex parenting as normal and acceptable. Parents will lose control of their children's moral education.” This passage, one of many like it, assumes without evidence or argument that homosexual role models are immoral and that same-sex parenting is abnormal and unacceptable. Its aim is to fear monger on the unsupported assumption that gays and gay marriage endanger the “traditional” family.
This reasoning is without justification: Sexual orientation is irrelevant to parenting skill, and as even the most cursory tour of family composition in the United States and elsewhere amply demonstrates, the nuclear, male-headed household does not have a monopoly on successful family structure. Moreover, the burden of proof to demonstrate that gays and lesbians are not adequate parents falls on the bill’s proponents, not on gay and lesbian parents.
That the amendment’s proponents site no fault divorce as an unqualified failure should send a very cold chill up the backs of women whose only escape from violent marriages are no-fault divorce laws. As, moreover, University of Pennsylvania law School Professor Tobias Barrington Wolff makes clear in his March 17th 2008 testimony,
SB 1250 threatens to write into the PA Constitution a license for deadbeat spouses to flee to Pennsylvania in order to avoid their alimony obligations; for disgruntled parents to disrupt the results of child custody resolutions; and for reckless individuals to use Pennsylvania as a safe haven to escape paying their judgments when their actions cause the wrongful death of a same-sex partner. I cannot imagine that any member of this body intends these results, but the amendment invites these bad public policies and even more.
The real motives behind the amendment are in fact to define a civil contract in terms of a religious institution; why else ban civil unions in addition to gay marriage? What makes the proponent’s arguments particularly onerous, however, is that the arguments in support of the so-called unnaturalness of homosexuality have been so thoroughly discredited, and for so long, that it demands nothing less than willful blindness to ignore them. This amendment erects a second-class citizenry in Pennsylvania; it overtly discriminates against citizens, their families, and their children. Professor Wolff makes the point clear in its constitutional context: “[DOMA] takes one class of citizens and (gay men and lesbians) and deprives their relationships, and only their relationships, of equal treatment under the full faith and credit clause [of the federal constitution].” SB1250 is rightly compared to laws that denied marriage across color. Yet, when I queried one legislator directly as to why he has sponsored this bill, his response was that it was the will of his constituents. Would he find this answer acceptable were the amendment to deny marriage across color? I doubt it.
Moreover, the additional amendment to outlaw civil unions clearly endangers current domestic partnership provisions in our and other union contracts. Domestic partnerships are civil unions; to outlaw one is to deny the enforceability of the other. As ACLU representatives make clear in their response to SB1250:
There is significant confusion and disagreement over the interpretation of constitutional amendments that go further than a simple, clear, and concise prohibition on same-sex marriage. The Michigan constitution was amended in 2004 to include this language: “To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.” Michigan Constitution, Article 1, Section 25. The Michigan Court of Appeals has held that this amendment bars state entities from providing health care benefits to domestic partners of state employees. National Pride at Work v. Governor, 274 Mich. App 147, 372 N.W. 2d 139 (Mich. App. 2007). The court found that “the operative language of the amendment plainly precludes the extension of benefits related to an employment contract, if the benefits are conditioned on or provided because of an agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union.” (From the ACLU Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony)
Kentucky has also followed the Michigan precedent: “The Attorney General said that the state cannot provide domestic partner healthcare benefits without violating that state’s marriage amendment” (ACLU testimony). A similar case can be found in Idaho. As the ACLU representatives go on to make clear, the Philadelphia domestic Partnership law is in no way immune from being overturned:
Opponents of the Philadelphia Domestic Partnership Law have already tried to have it overturned once in the court. (They were largely unsuccessful as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against them in 2004 in Devlin v. City of Philadelphia, 862, A 2d 1234). Were this proposed amendment to become part of Pennsylvania Constitution, we would expect another challenge to the Philadelphia law as well as other local laws and that we would see arguments based on this amendment.
Obviously, this is a significant union issue given the recent inclusion of domestic partnership benefits within my current APSCUF contract.
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