Cheers for Obama, Tears for California

Nachus: Joy and pride and happiness all mixed into one. That’s what I felt when Obama won Ohio, and then Virginia, and then Florida. I was watching key counties, seeing how close it was in Virginia. I thought Fairfax County could swing the state, and it did. I barely got a chance to watch Ohio; the media called it for Obama early! 

Florida was another source of nachus. Miami-Dade, Broward, and West Palm Beach Counties were all solid for Obama. The Great Schelp must have worked! Indiana and North Carolina were icing on the cake. All these victories in all these formerly deep red states spoke of a mandate for change, real change. It also told us that more people were willing to vote their hopes than their fears.

I only wish my mother could have lived to see Obama elected. My mother, the Jewish, liberal, democrat. My mother, who—back in the 60s, put a sticker on our front door that said, in essence, “we would welcome a racially-integrated neighborhood.” An historic moment? The first non-white president? My mother would smile and say, “Well, it was about time!”

But my joy and great relief was tainted with the soul-crushing victory of the Religious Right in California. By force of money, lies, and propaganda, they succeeded in taking the marriage rights away from thousands—if not millions—of Californians, relegating them to second-class citizens once again.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: people’s fundamental rights should never, ever, be part of the ballot initiative. What would ballot initiatives have done in the South, before the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education and Congress’ Civil Rights Act of 1964? I wouldn’t have put it past them to try to legalize lynchings back in those days!

All fair minded, compassionate, justice-loving people must continue to fight until our LGBT brothers and sisters have equal rights and equal protections. Californians have failed—52% to 48%—to heed Barack Obama’s call: “we are our brothers’ keepers.”

Voting Our Values: Barack Obama

Today, November 2, 2008, people in evangelical and fundamentalist churches all across America are going to hear a sermon on “voting their values” or “voting Christian.” Unfortunately, this is once again evangelical-speak for “vote Republican.”  Pastors across the land are once again going to bring up abortion/gay marriage; some will even threaten their co-religionists with the fires of hell! (1)

To those Republican shills in clerical garb, we want to shout: we are values voters for Barack Obama. The values that we are voting are from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures—the totality of the Scriptures, not a few cherry-picked references. Our values are informed by Biblical precepts of justice, compassion, and tikkun olam, literally “the reparation of the world”, which is to say making the world a better place. More specifically, the values on which we’re voting have to do with poverty, our planet, and making peace.

Under Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush, the poor in this nation suffered under the illusion of “trickle down” economics. The logic went like this: if we give the rich tax breaks so they’ll have even more money, the benefits will “trickle down” to the poorest of the poor. During the last eight years, instead of “trickling down” we’ve seen “sucking up”: simply put, the rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer, and more and more people joined the ranks of the poor. 

Even worse, Reagan/Bush Republicans have consistently blamed the poor for their own poverty; if they would “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and stop being “lazy” they could apparently go to the same elite schools and belong to the same elite golf clubs that they do! Nothing could be further from the truth. Joe the Walmart Clerk works just as hard—if not harder—than Joe the Wall Street Financeer. But Joe the Walmart Clerk is living below the poverty line.

California Prop 8: The “Arguments” in Favor?

Once in a blue moon I get a “comment” from a troll on the “other side” of the issue or the political spectrum. Yesterday’s post on California Proposition 8 brought to my comment section the full quotation of an article for Prop. 8 by one Craig A. Huey. Mr. Huey appears to run a website in which he interprets politics through the “Christian worldview.” For those of you unfamiliar with American evangelical-speak, “Christian worldview” means anti-choice, anti-gay, and pro-Republican. Period. 

I doubt that Mr. Huey himself posted; presumably one of his followers did the actual cutting and pasting. Even so, I think it is worth a post to “respond” to Mr. Huey directly via his main points. I did not want to dignify the bulk of his article, as it was full of lies and propaganda, so you won’t find it in the comments. I don’t want to give him a link either; “do the Google” yourself, the article is easy enough to find.

His article is entitled “The battle for free speech and conscience.” He has three main points that I want to address: 

1. Proposition 8 protects free speech.
2. Same-sex marriage is “redefining” marriage as a civil right.
3. Homosexuality is a choice.

I will address my comments directly to Mr. Huey; the rest of you may “listen in,” as it were.

NO on California Prop. 8: What Part of “Discrimination” Don’t They Understand?

Write to Marry Day

Why is it that LGBT issues always bring out the most hypocritical and mean-spirited streak in the so-called “Religious Right”? California’s Proposition 8 is yet another attempt to deny gays and lesbians the same rights—in this case, marriage rights—that the rest of us take for granted. Today is “Write to Marry Day” and I’m more than happy to do my part in joining bloggers across the nation to speak out against this hugely discriminatory ballot measure.

To our lasting shame, Oregon passed a similar amendment to our state constitution four years ago. Once again, the Religious Right took the lead, putting up money and propaganda to “defend traditional marriage.” As in California, the amendment was preceded by a judicial decision to permit gays and lesbians to marry under our state constitution. 

Duane and Kent (not their real names) are our neighbors. They have been together as a committed couple for some 30 years. Finally, in 2004, Duane and Kent had the State recognize their long-standing commitment to one another by granting them a marriage license. And then a few months later, the people of Oregon voted their marriage license away, just like that. At least they were refunded the fee of their marriage license. Duane said, “at least we can go out for Greek food with the refund.”

California wants to do exactly the same thing:  vote away the legal recognition, rights, privileges, that gay couples have been granted for only a few short months.

10 Reasons to Oppose the Bailout Boondoggle

1. How about bailing out the people who lost their homes? And what about the rest of us, who are fast losing equity in our homes?
2. Any real bailout should include bankruptcy reform—that is bankruptcy that doesn’t favor the banks—and regulation of predatory lending, right?
3. $700 billion is a big chunk of change. This is what we—the taxpayers—are giving a failed, greedy, unethical banking and lending industry. Since when do “We the taxpayers” reward failure and greed?
4. The bailout “purchases” bad assets, that is debt that no one else will invest in. If nobody else wants them, why should we pay $700 billion for them?
5. Who is this Henry Paulson anyway that he should want to administer this much money with no oversight?
6. How about instead of a bailout, why not give the Wall Street Executives all the bad assets in lieu of compensation? Let them deal with it. They’re supposed to be the financial gurus.
7. Maybe we should give it some time. After all, Warren Buffet and J.P. Morgan Chase are investing, maybe this thing will work itself out.
8. Even some Republicans in Congress oppose the bailout. You know something’s wrong somewhere.
9.  Neocons have been telling us for years that we don’t need regulation, the market will regulate itself. Well, all you neocons—Bush and Paulson included—how about taking a step back and letting the market regulate itself, okay?
10.  Didn’t John McCain say that the “fundamentals of the economy are sound?” He’s running for president and he ought to know. Except maybe he said that last week. Or perhaps the week before…

Note: This was written before the House voted down the bailout. Perhaps the Senate will do likewise.

$700 Billion: The Bailout to Nowhere

The Bailout: Get out of Trouble for Free

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Bush administration has proposed a $700 billion bailout to some of our recently-collapsed financial institutions. The bailout is unconditional; it contains no oversight, no provision to get any of our taxpayer money back. It might as well contain several packs of “Get out of Jail Free” cards too. It is perhaps the Bush administration’s most blatant and outrageous example of “take from the middle-class and give to the rich” yet.

I admit: I don’t know a lot about the financial sector. I don’t know a lot about regulation. I think I understand human nature, especially a tendency—obsessive in some—towards greed. Here’s what Jim Wallis—one of the few evangelical Christian leaders I admire and trust—has to say about the Wall Street collapse (from Sojomail, “Greed in the Economy: It’s the Morality, Sinner“):

The people on top of the American economy get rich whether they make good or bad decisions, while workers and consumers are the ones who suffer from all their bad ones. Prudent investment has been replaced with reckless financial gambling in what some have called a “casino economy.” And the benefits accruing to top CEOs and financial managers, especially as compared to the declining wages of average workers, has become one of the greatest moral travesties of our time.
 
In the search for blame, some say greed and some say deregulation. Both are right. The financial collapse of Wall Street is the fiscal consequence of the economic philosophy that now governs America — that markets are always good and government is always bad. But it is also the moral consequence of greed, where private profit prevails over the concept of the common good. The American economy is often rooted in unbridled materialism, a culture that continues to extol greed, a false standard of values that puts short-term profits over societal health, and a distorted calculus that measures human worth by personal income instead of character, integrity, and generosity.

Torture: A Biblical Value? NOT!

This little fact was in USA Today a few days ago:

The poll, released Thursday, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University, found that 57% of respondents said torture can be often or sometimes justified to gain important information from suspected terrorists. Thirty-eight percent said it was never or rarely justified.

I found the poll results disturbing but hardly shocking. Nearly six out of ten “Bible-believing Christians” in this south say that torture is alright in some circumstances! Why am I not shocked? Look how the good folks of Southern churches arrived at their views:

The new poll found that 44% of white Southern evangelicals rely on life experiences and common sense to determine their views about torture. A lower percentage, 28%, said they relied on Christian teachings or beliefs.

And consider this, from the people who did the survey:

While a majority of white evangelical Christians in the South think that torture is often or sometimes justified, they are significantly more likely to oppose torture if they rely on Christian teachings or beliefs to form their views on the issue.

Notice that only 28% determined their view based on their beliefs! 44% relied on life experience and common sense! Let’s look at the 28%. I’m guessing that those 28% found torture never to be justified. In a similar way, when the survey applied the golden rule—when it was our troops that might be tortured if we used torture—they responded that torture was not justified.

Jewish Push-Polling: A Shonda!

You know what a shonda is? Push-polling Jewish voters with lies, slanders, and rumors, that’s what a shonda is! A shonda is something shameful, or in this case, beyond shameful. Here’s how the push polling works. You get a phone call for a “survey.” Then the interviewer asks if you’re Jewish. Here’s what Joelna Marcus told the Associated Press:

Joelna Marcus says she became uncomfortable when the caller asked if she was Jewish, whether she was Orthodox and how often she attends synagogue.

The caller then asked if Marcus would be influenced if she learned that Obama had donated money to the Palestine Liberation Organization. The caller also asked how she would vote if she learned that someone on the Illinois senator’s staff had close ties to Palestine.

Marcus, a 71-year-old former college professor, said she was furious.

“I said you’re not polling me. This is un-American. This is unacceptable,” said Marcus, a snowbird who lives in New Jersey and has a house in Key West. “And then this is the scary part. He [the pollster] said if you had not said that you were Jewish, you would have been disqualified.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Constitutional Originalist

I’m writing this on Constitution Day, September 17, 2008. This past Saturday, I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience; I got to hear a talk given by a sitting Supreme Court Justice. Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke at a local synagogue here in Portland. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a tiny, soft-spoken woman who is just starting to show  her  75 years. Her voice may have been quiet, but her keen, legal mind spoke with an all-too-rare power and clarity.

Justice Ginsburg began with a brief talk about Judah P. Benjamin, the man who “would have been the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice.” Judah Benjamin was appointed to the Court by President Millard Fillmore in 1852, but he declined the appointment. Ginsburg cited Judah Benjamin’s two brilliant legal careers, first in Lousiana, and later, in England (Benjamin was Secretary of State in the Confederacy, and fled the country when the South was defeated). Judah Benjamin’s accomplishments were remarkable for his day because his Jewishness was a marked liability. She contrasted Judah Benjamin’s day with our time; when two sitting justices are Jewish, Jewishness isn’t an issue.

After her talk, Justice Ginsburg Ginsburg answered questions from both a panel of experts (an attorney, a U.S. Circuit Court Justice, and a local columnist) and from the audience. One of the questions from the panel was about her interpretation of the constitution. It was in answer to this question that Justice Ginsburg smiled and declared herself a “constitutional originalist.”