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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (423314)	7/5/2003 3:41:09 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769670

Scalia....out on the limb of unreality..... I can't understand how the Gays in the Log Cabin group can EVER support this party.....talk about hypocrites Grand Old Gay Bashers by Harold Meyerson Antonin Scalia is raging against the coming of the light. Scalia's dissent from last week's epochal Supreme Court decision striking down Texas's anti-sodomy statute confirms Ayatollah Antonin's standing as the intellectual leader of the forces arrayed against equality and modernity in the United States. In establishing the deep historical roots of anti-gay sentiment in America, for instance, Scalia took pains to note the 20 prosecutions and four executions for consensual gay sex conducted in colonial times. He noted, approvingly, that even today, "many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools or as boarders in their home." Actually, back in 1978, a California electorate far more conservative than today's massively repudiated an initiative seeking to ban gays from teaching school, but this inconvenient fact -- and other evidence of a massive shift in public sentiment on gay rights -- doesn't have quite the legal majesty of those four colonial executions. (Scalia is uncharacteristically short on detail here. Were they hangings or burnings?) Scalia's justifications for discriminatory conduct sound terribly familiar. Change "homosexual" to "Negro" and Scalia is at one with the authors of Plessy v. Ferguson's mandate for "separate but equal" schools, and the judges who upheld anti-miscegenation statutes. Indeed, of the 13 states whose anti-sodomy statutes were struck down last Thursday, 10 were once slave states of the South. In what has always been the main event in American history -- the battle to expand the definition of "men" in Jefferson's mighty line on who's created equal -- these are the states that have had to be dragged along kicking and screaming. More immediately, 12 of the 13 states with sodomy laws on the books were states that George W. Bush carried in the 2000 election, and the 13th -- Florida -- was the one that Scalia and company handed to him. The culture wars over legal equality for gays -- save on the question of gay marriage -- are pretty much settled within the Democratic Party. It's the Republicans who are split on the question of equal rights for gays. And in this battle, Scalia has no shortage of allies -- the recent and current Republican congressional leadership first and foremost. From Dick Armey, who referred to gay Democratic Rep. Barney Frank as "Barney Fag," to Rick Santorum, who equated consensual gay sex to "man-on-dog" fornication, to Tom DeLay, who's declared that the United States is and ought to remain a "Christian nation," to Trent Lott, who pined for segregation, the recent and current leaders of the Republican Party in Congress have compiled an impressive record of industrial-strength prejudice. So where's the outrage? Lott, to be sure, had to step down, but for the rest, it looks as if gay-bashing is not only accepted in the highest Republican circles but actually a prerequisite for leadership. Just this Sunday, Bill Frist took to the airwaves to tout a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Frist looked mighty uncomfortable in the part; his statements were almost incoherent, and he conveyed the sense that he was speaking less from personal passion than from partisan duty. Of course, plenty of Republicans welcomed last week's decision (beginning, I suspect, with Vice President Cheney). Plenty of Republicans are appalled when the United States votes in international bodies with Saudi Arabia and a handful of fundamentalist states against women's rights, reproductive freedoms and contraception distribution programs. Plenty of Republicans sicken at the hatreds expressed by their legislative leaders. But plenty or not, try to find a national Republican who speaks out for equality of sexual orientation or condemns the expressions of bias. It's way past time for a prominent Republican to give a Sister Souljah speech. In a period when the United States finds itself threatened by an international network of religious intolerants fuming at modernity and equality, you'd think some GOP notables might step up to condemn the like-minded intolerants in their own ranks -- indeed, atop them. Is there no decent Republican with the guts to note that his party could do better than be led by a rats' nest of bigots? CC

To: Skywatcher who wrote (423314)	7/5/2003 4:24:24 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Respond to of 769670

Now, this appears to be a well-thought out and written article. Very interesting. I did not know the following about the use of the words 'privacy', 'liberty', and 'security': "Beyond that, there's good reason to believe - as the majority of the Supreme Court did in the Griswold case, the Texas sodomy case, and at least a dozen others - that the Founders and Framers did write a right to privacy into the Constitution. However, living in the 18th Century, they never would have actually used the word "privacy" out loud or in writing. A search, for example, of all 16,000 of Thomas Jefferson's letters and writings produces not a single use of the word "privacy." Nor does Adams use the word in his writings, so far as I can find. The reason is simple: "privacy" in 1776 was a code word for toilet functions. A person would say, "I need a moment of privacy" as a way of excusing themselves to go use the "privy" or outhouse. The chamberpots around the house, into which people relieved themselves during the evening and which were emptied in the morning, were referred to as "the privates," a phrase also used to describe genitals. Privacy, in short, was a word that wasn't generally used in political discourse or polite company during an era when women were expected to cover their arms and legs and discussion of bedroom behavior was unthinkable. It wasn't until 1898 that Thomas Crapper began marketing the flush toilet and discussion of toilet functions became relatively acceptable. Prior to then, saying somebody had a "right to privacy" would have meant "a right to excrete." This was, of course, a right that was taken for granted and thus the Framers felt no need to specify it in the Constitution. Instead, the word of the day was "security," and in many ways it meant what we today mean when we say "privacy." Consider, for example, the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...." Similarly, "liberty" was also understood, in one of its dimensions, to mean something close to what today we'd call "privacy." The Fifth Amendment talks about how "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property..." and the Fourteenth Amendment adds that "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property...." And, of course, the Declaration of Independence itself proclaims that all "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." "

To: Skywatcher who wrote (423314)	7/5/2003 8:00:48 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

It is precisely this sort of empty-headed non-thought that is the result of the self-ignorance to which I have referred here. We have a right to marry only because, whether or not we call it “marriage” or publicly recognize it as such, the union of man and woman is an absolute requirement for human existence, the very basis of humanity and thus society. No Constitution is needed here. We have a right to seek food (but not necessarily a right to be fed) for the same reason. No Constitution is needed. We have a right to observe our surroundings (i.e. read) only inasmuch as we can accomplish it, for precisely the same reason. No Constitution is needed. Humans simply cannot exist without this activity. Ditto the right to have children. Essential human existence is directly rooted in all the things mentioned above. It is for that reason no explicit right to them is granted in the Constitution. But humanity does not depend upon a right to privacy such that a guy can insert his penis into another guy’s anus and then legally force an entire biologically heterosexual society to affirm such humanly foreign, utterly wicked behavior. (grin) We have a natural right to freely associate with that which reflects what we essentially are in nature. No one has the natural right to force anyone else to accept those who engage in humanly foreign behavior.

To: Skywatcher who wrote (423314)	7/5/2003 11:37:11 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Democrats put smart money on Howard's way Former Vermont governor takes establishment rivals by surprise with $7m presidential war chest Lawrence Donegan in San Francisco and Alex Massie in Washington Sunday July 6, 2003 The Observer He is a former governor of a New England state, a Democrat and a liberal; an Ivy League intellectual who can quote from the classics to make his political case. He is married to a doctor, surrounds himself with idealists and is seen as a maverick by his party's establishment. Meet Howard Dean - or, as his growing army of supporters like to call him, 'The Real Josiah Bartlet' - Bartlet being the fictional president from Channel 4's The West Wing. Dean, one of nine Democrats seeking nomination for the 2004 presidential election, isn't anywhere near the White House yet, but he is no longer the distant prospect once described by many observers as too left-wing to be taken seriously. With less than six months to go before the primary season opens, Dean leapt to the front of the pack seeking to challenge George W. Bush when it emerged last week he had raised $7.1 million in campaign funding in just three months - mostly thanks to volunteers and donors who have abandoned traditional campaigning techniques and opted for the internet. More than 50,000 people have signed up to Dean's campaign since the start of the year, many of them under-35s attracted by his opposition to the war in Iraq, as well as his record as Governor of Vermont, where he enacted a succession of left-wing - by American standards - policies such as giving full legal status to gay couples and increasing access to health care. Dean, who speaks with a clarity and straightforwardness rarely found in mainstream American politics, is running under the most memorable slogan of an otherwise dreary campaign: 'I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.' <font color=red>EDIT: Hear, hear!!<font color=black> 'I didn't understand the impact that line would have,' he said this week. 'I was unaware of the huge anger out there among Democrats - anger at Bush, but also against the Democrats in Washington who weren't willing to stand up to the right wing of the Republican Party.' At the centre of Dean's extraordinary recruitment effort is a website called meetup.com (a hitherto obscure meeting place on the web for people who wanted to discuss such topics as teenage vampires, body modification and paganism). Dean's supporters meet at the site once a month to arrange events, raise money and discuss how best to advance their candidate's cause. 'We first began to notice meetup.com in January,' said campaign manager Joe Trippi. 'There were 432 people registered then and we really didn't see how this was going to work across the country. Then the numbers began to grow and we thought, "Wait a minute - what would happen if the campaign embraced this?" Ever since then it's been exponential.' Political analysts have been drawing parallels between Dean's grassroots efforts and that of John McCain, who briefly challenged Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000 until Bush's multi-million-dollar campaign steamrolled the opposition. Dean insists he has greater staying power than McCain. 'We're ahead of where we thought we'd be. We thought it would be very difficult to get name recognition until the primary season began,' he said. 'We need to convince Democrats there's no need to compromise with the most radical and right-wing President of my lifetime.' In stark contrast to this optimism, the campaigns of establishment candidates such as Al Gore's 2000 running mate Joe Lieberman, and Richard Gephardt, once the most powerful Democrat in Congress, are floundering, both in terms of raising money and generating enthusiasm among party supporters. Polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two small but influential states that open the primary season, have predicted that the former Vermont governor could win the Democratic nomination in both, prompting the mainstream media to devote time and space to Dean's sudden transformation from fringe candidate to serious player, and his opponents to heighten their attacks on him. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry has raised more money than the other eight candidates and remains the favourite of the party establishment, but his camp has clearly been rattled by Dean's rise. 'He's tapped into an angry, motivated constituency who, for three months at least, have pulled out their chequebooks,' said Jim Jordan, Kerry's campaign manager. Aides to other candidates have sought to paint Dean's campaign as 'too extremist', claiming he is 'a George McGovern for the 21st century'. (McGovern ran against Nixon in 1972 and lost one of the most one-sided presidential elections in history.) Last month the Democrat Leadership Council, the Clinton power base, called the former governor 'unelectable'. 'Everyone wants a race against Dean. Everyone has looked at the research and he looks the easiest to bring down. He has positioned himself as a liberal, and liberals don't win here,' said an aide to Lieberman. 'What Democrats want more than anything else in the nominee is someone who can beat Bush.' Yet Dean's supporters insist it is wrong to describe him as an out-and-out liberal, pointing out his record in Vermont of maintaining a tight budget and the high marks he has received for his pro-hunting views from the National Rifle Association. Trippi dismissed Dean's critics as 'desperate'. 'When Kerry or any of the others attack Governor Dean, it fires our people up to get more new people involved,' he said. 'They don't understand our campaign. Part of the reason they've been kept off-balance by us is because they think they're like us, and they're not. We're different.'