Merry Christmas from a nonbeliever

T'was-the-day-before Wrangle

... and all through the blogosphere, not a creature was stirring. So here's the roundup from the best of the Texas Progressive Alliance from last week.

Off the Kuff discusses where the redistricting and voter ID lawsuits stand with the Supreme Court.

BossKitty at TruthHugger enjoyed a fiery sunrise on Apocalypse Morning. But the Sunday morning talk shows laid the cat's ears back in anger; she has a few NRA Whack-A-Mole Questions.
 
WCNews at Eye on Williamson says that Rick Perry and the wingnuts' latest privatization scheme to be exposed is just the latest instance of the scam that's always been there for everyone to see.

The legal and moral justification for homophobia, as expressed by Father and Son Scalia, is relayed by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know that the odious Aaron Peña is an official sellout and Rick Perry is no longer universally loved by the Tea Party.

With Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina set to become the fifth Black post-reconstruction U.S. Senator, Neil at Texas Liberal posted photos and links about Mr. Scott and the four who came before him.

The legal and moral justification for homophobia

As related to us by the Scalias, Antonin and his son Paul. First, the father...

Now that the Supreme Court will be weighing in on the issue of same-sex marriage, the Justices’ biases on the basic principles of sexual orientation are under scrutiny — none perhaps moreso than Justice Antonin Scalia. Recently, he defended his comparison between homosexuality and murder, arguing simply that either can be morally condemned. He obtusely couldn’t understand why the gay Princeton student who asked the question wasn’t convinced by his response.

More on this exchange.

The quotations from Scalia opinions that so dismayed  Princeton freshman Duncan Hosie all referred to homosexual conduct. For example, in a 1996 case the majority of the court held that voters in Colorado had exhibited “animus” toward gays by making it impossible for the state or municipalities to pass laws protecting them from discrimination. Scalia responded: “I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible — murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals — and could exhibit even 'animus' toward such conduct."   In his dissent Scalia did refer to “homosexuals” (he assiduously avoided the word “gay” except in quoted material), but he used that term interchangeably with “those who engage in homosexual conduct.”

And what of the notion of "sexual orientation"? Scalia did acknowledge in his Colorado opinion that such a thing might exist. For example, he wrote that it was permissible for states to criminalize homosexual conduct  (as it was in 1996) "surely it is rational to deny special favor and protection to those with a self avowed tendency or desire to engage in the conduct. In the next sentence he suggests that "'homosexual-orientation' is an acceptable stand-in for homosexual conduct."

And now the son.

Insights into Scalia’s understanding of homosexuality (or lack thereof) can perhaps be found through his son, Rev. Paul Scalia, a Catholic priest in Arlington, Virginia. The younger Scalia has worked with the Church’s Courage ministry, which promotes “chastity” for gay Catholics using principles from ex-gay therapy. He has also spoken openly on the topic, and though he’s proven quite capable of reiterating the Church’s anti-gay teachings, a 2005 article reveals just how distorted the family’s view on homosexuality may be.

You need to go on over there, or you can click this link. Once you have taken in as much of that as you can stomach, continue here.

Contrast  the Scalias’ approach to this passage in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in the 2003 case of Lawrence vs. Texas, which overturned a Texas law against same-sex sodomy. Kennedy wrote:  “The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.” Some gay activists blanched at Kennedy’s use of the term “homosexual lifestyle,” but applauded his larger point: that what was at issue was the lives of gays and lesbians, not isolated sexual acts.

Scalia dissented in that case, too, arguing that Texas’ sodomy law “seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are 'immoral and unacceptable' — the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity."

The conventional interpretation of  Scalia’s opinions in gay-rights cases is that he doesn’t like gays; but maybe the more accurate gloss is that he doesn’t believe they exist -- except when they are engaging in (or thinking about) "immoral and unacceptable" sexual acts.

And then finish at the original with this.

For the Scalias, moral condemnation of homosexuality is just assumed, and the consequences of that judgment are par for the course. The consequences of family rejection for LGBT youth have been thoroughly documented, but for these men, rejecting “homosexual inclination” takes priority. Rev. Scalia relies on genetic uncertainty to conclude that homosexuality is not a “fixed, inborn orientation,” even though science does not doubt that is exactly how sexual orientation presents, regardless of its causes. He seeks to reject people for something that is wholly part of who they are and how they will lead their lives, ignoring that such an approach unquestioningly deprives them of life’s most basic sources of happiness and support: a loving partner and the opportunity to raise a family.

The phenomenon of “coming out” only exists because a culture that shuns homosexuality has demanded gay invisibility. The concept of “gay pride” came about not as flamboyant flaunting, but to counter the expectation of “gay shame.” These unique aspects to gay identities reflect the consequences of condemnation, not an impetus for them. Moral condemnation is not inherent; in the court of law, it must be justified beyond tradition and religious belief. Unfortunately, it seems Justice Scalia is not interested in such intellectual justice.

So by my reading, homosexuality -- according to the Scalias -- is an 'urge', i.e. a choice; since it is a sin against God's law it is also a sin against man's; and no serious thinker can disagree with that. (It is worth noting that no less serious a thinker than Gore Vidal advanced a similar premise, albeit without the moral judgment.)

These religious interpretations, followed by constructing premises based upon the foundation of conservative Christian values -- dogma, in other words -- is what leads to less serious thinkers saying things like "Life is God's gift to women, and so by extension is a fertilized egg as byproduct of rape or incest."

When science is dismissed in favor of faith, the rationale for any argument collapses. But the comforting fallback for those less serious thinking folks is always some version of 'what does the Bible say'. This makes as much sense to me as watching one television news network, one which only reinforces your prevailing point of view, never engaging one in critical thinking, never prompting a question as to whether the thoughts involved might be misguided.

The very definition and practice of ignorance (and a few other things).

Sunday Funnies

"Today House Speaker John Boehner struck back with his plan to cut spending by demanding Obama come up with Boehner's plan to cut spending."

-- Stephen Colbert

"The U.S. Census Bureau says that by the year 2043 white people will be in the minority in the United States. By that time, the country will be 15 percent black, 31 percent Hispanic, and 1 percent Republican." 

-- Jay Leno

The powerful delusions of Wayne LaPierre

As I suspected, he didn't disappoint. I'm now convinced that the head of the NRA couldn't pass a mental health background check to purchase a firearm.

Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association will forever now be known as America’s maddest gunman.

 In style and substance, his performance Friday in delivering his organization’s response to the Newtown massacre revealed the obsessive, lunatic paranoia behind its worship of firearms.

A week after a gunman armed with an assault rifle murdered 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, and ever so shortly after the bells there tolled for the dead, LaPierre lashed out at everyone and everything but the weapons that were used to kill.

Still worse, in his arrogance and in his sense that terrible forces are out to get him, LaPierre was callous to the raw agony of the families of the slain. The hell with them — he made clear that he will fight to maintain the easy availability of assault weaponry of the kind that killed their kids.

He said at least four things that could easily be applied to himself and the NRA members and anybody else that agrees with him.

1. "[O]ur society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them."

2. "How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame — from a national media machine that rewards them with the wall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave."

3. "There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people."

4. "Isn't fantasizing about killing people as away to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?"

Even people who grew up with guns -- a West Texas Girl, in this case -- understand what the problem is. The polling bears this out. Americans want calm, serious regulations on firearms. Hyperventilating about the second half of the Second Amendment is stunted psychologically and thus increasingly threatening and dangerous -- a description that sadly fits the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza.

Let's disregard the ludicrousness of LaPierre's call for armed guards in schools. Unless the NRA will be funding the mandate -- or Grover Norquist concedes a tax increase -- there's no money for it; we can't even afford enough teachers as it is (we're broke, remember?). Houston ISD already has police in schools here, and a small town in North Texas has been arming its teachers for the last five years. Columbine had an armed guard; it's obvious how effective that turned out to be. Evidence also indicates that children don't feel safe as a result and the crime deterrent is negligible.

That fever dream onstage yesterday was the result of a week spent in self-imposed isolation. LaPierre blamed everything he could think of (video games, Oliver Stone movies, the media) for the carnage in Newtown -- but not the mall shooting a few days before, and not the gun deaths since. We got an unwelcome glimpse into the mind of the man who has more Congresscritters by the short hairs than Norquist. The mind of a lunatic.

The only person's guns I want taken away right this instant are Wayne LaPierre's. He's clearly unstable.

Update: LaPierre a "lobbyist for mass murderers" and "a desperate, cornered rat".