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Transsexuals win vs. Toys R Us
by IseFire - Wed 11/24/04 08:19 am EST

From Tom Shanahan:

The New York State Court of Appeals [on 11/23/2004] issued a ruling in favor of my three transsexual clients who sued the toy giant years ago for discrimination and won a jury verdict against Toys R Us for discrimination.

The decision is a major victory which supports the merit of our lawsuit and the argument that we have always asserted, transgendered persons are entitled to the same dignity and respect as everyone else.

The Court of Appeals by a 5-2 split agreed with the District or trial court Judge that "this was one of those unusual and infrequent instances in which attorneys fees should be awarded...to encourage the bringing of meritorious civil rights cases that would otherwise be abandoned."

The decision can be viewed on the Court of Appeals website. The Associated Press also released a story being circulated on the internet widely. You can also view the decision on my website at www.shanahanlaw.com, cases of interest page, Mc Grath v. Toys R Us....

Once the fees are awarded, we intend on sharing a portion with our clients and donating to [several] advocacy groups....

Congrats, Tom!

Please help out Juan Cole
by IseFire - Wed 11/24/04 08:00 am EST

From MyDD: By threatening to level a lawsuit, the lobbying group Middle East Media Research Organization is trying to silence indepdent blogger Juan Cole for having criticized them. (His blog is entitled, Informed Comment.) Chris Bowers over at MyDD asks, "What's next, Republicans trying to shut down the entire left-wing blogopshere through well-funded and completely unjustified lawsuits?" The answer is, yes.

Here's what you can do to help:

This technique of the SLAPP or Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation had already been pioneered by polluting industries against environmental activists, and now the pro-Likud lobby in the US has apparently decided to try it out against people like me.

I urge all readers to send messages of protest to memri@memri.org. Please be polite, and simply urge MEMRI, which has a major Web presence, to withdraw the lawsuit threat and to respect the spirit of the free sharing of ideas that makes the internet possible

It's the irrationality, stupid!
by IseFire - Mon 11/22/04 12:30 pm EST

Spain is about to legalize same-sex marriage. And Thursday night, full-fledged civil unions--marriage in all but name--received royal assent in Britain (i.e. it is now the law of the realm)! By definition, this means it passed the House of Commons. It did so, relatively easily, in part because there are now many out, gay Members of Parliament--Conservative ones, Labour ones, and Liberal Democrat ones.

More than a year ago I had a letter to the editor published in The New York Observer, in which I stated a simple fact: the only rational response to homosexuality is nonchalance. The same goes for gay marriage. Neither thing has cosmic significance. Neither causes the moon to fall to earth or rain storms to begin. Neither harms any individual in any way, shape, or form. As realities, as concepts, both homosexuality as a perfectly human, relatively rare but still universally recognized, ingrained preference and "gay" marriage as a law are ideally responded to with as much passion as one responds to the "issues" of blond hair or left-handedness.

Appropriate nonchalance. It's flooding Western Europe. It's similarly won out over idiocy among a majority of our Canadian neighbors. There's even talk of it in political circles in Brazil.

The opposite of rationality is irrationality, and those in irrationality's grip are referred to as idiots. Given that 78% of Georgians approved of the sweeping gay marriage and civil unions ban, given that a sweeping gay marriage and civil unions ban passed in Ohio by a 2-to-1 margin--in a state Kerry nearly won--the math demonstrates that uncounted thousands of pro-choice, pro-environment, anti-war, pro-stem cell research "progressives" voted for these bans in some or all of the 11 states in which bans passed.

This is a fact progressive Americans and gay Americans have to face, and it is an ugly one. Homophobia is pandemic in the Democratic Party. (See: Andrew Cuomo and his despicable, "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo" campaign, on his father's behalf, against Ed Koch.) What is more, the nascent 21st-century American progressive movement as a whole is in jeopardy of losing gay American volunteers, money, and talent as more gay Americans feel taken for granted by other progressives and, in particular, realize that the Democratic Party has actually done precious little for them--far less than the courts--and that no prominent Democratic Party leader, including Howard Dean, will champion the issue of gay marriage. These leaders instead bow to irrationality. In other words, they are, on gay marriage, idiots.

Gay Americans rarely have a hard time understanding how pro-reproductive rights or civil rights affect them and any minority directly and indirectly. My guess is that a huge majority of self-identified gay voters are pro-choice. But you heard it here first: the conversations are happening proposing orchestrated mass withdrawals of membership from NARAL, NOW, the NAACP, other so-called progressive organizations, and the Democratic Party itself, until there is a wider acknowledgement that gay issues are American issues, that gay marriage is a civil rights issue. Currently, gay marriage is the issue that dare not speak its name, the issue told to go to the back of the bus.

In the end, we will all stand together or fall separately.

It's time for American progressives to put up on gay marriage or shut up about the importance of a new progressive movement--either its necessity or its supposedly inevitable success.

It's aboot time!
by IseFire - Mon 11/22/04 12:00 pm EST

Well, it's about time the Canadians start helping out American progressives! :) See it to believe it:

http://www.marryanamerican.ca/

Purple majesty, not red or blue
by IseFire - Sat 11/20/04 04:22 pm EST

Consider the 2004 state-level elections:

Democrats retook the Oregon State Senate and now control the state legislature for the first time in 10 years.
Democrats earned a tie in the Iowa Senate and made a net gain in the Iowa House.
Democrats retook the Colorado House and Senate both.
Democrats won control of the North Carolina House.
Democrats seized the Montana Senate.
Democrats captured the Vermont House.
Democrats made a net gain in Minnesota’s state legislature.
Democrats reclaimed the Washington Senate.
Republicans gained an elected majority in the Tennessee Senate for the first time since Reconstruction.
Republicans grabbed the Oklahoma House for the first time in 83 years.
Republicans reclaimed the Indiana House; the GOP in IN now controls both houses and the governorship.
Republicans utterly routed Georgia House Dems; the GOP in GA now controls both houses and the governorship.

Protect Every Child. Kerry to introduce universal child health care bill on Senate's first day.
by IseFire - Sat 11/20/04 11:56 am EST

Sign the petition. But part of this effort to push forward values that matter: Democratic values. Every America child deserves a guarantee of health care. No American child should suffer under the present system. We can and must do better.

"DHinMI" over in what I call the Kosopolis analyzes this important Democratic values initiative well:

The purpose and value in what Kerry’s doing is to advance a legislative and policy agenda. Kerry is our most prominent Democrat not named Clinton or Kennedy. Unlike Gore, for whom I have great respect, Kerry is not taking a hiatus from the public stage. So, if he’s going to be around, we have no reason to begrudge him for making use of his high profile to draw attention to health insurance and election reform. Let’s hope he works hard and gets attention for his legislative initiatives because that would draw a great and stark contrast with the Republicans.

You don’t have to like Kerry. But don’t judge him on whether these bills will pass, and don’t dismiss the value that comes from him drawing attention to important issues that we almost all think should be priorities.

[Aside] Okay, it's not politics, but...Pierolapithecus catalaunicus is cool
by IseFire - Sat 11/20/04 11:56 am EST

The display this week of the fossils of the newly-discoveredPierolapithecus catalaunicus in Els Hostalets de Figuerola, near Barcelona, are amazing. It lived 13 million years ago and so far is the most likely candidate for the last common ancestor of all apes--that means, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and humans.

Iowa's blue Bush paradox
by IseFire - Fri 11/19/04 12:30 am EST

Gov. Thomas Vilsack of Iowa, a leading contender to chair the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is getting raked over the coals out in blogchat land by supporters of another key contender, former Gov. Howard Dean. Personally, I prefer Dean. (More on that soon.) However, I want to give Vilsack some of his due, and I'd like to kill a particularly myopic anti-Vilsack meme.

I keep hearing fellow supporters of a Dean chairmanship say that Vilsack "didn't even carry his own state [for Kerry]." Governors don't carry states for presidential candidates, the presidential candidates carry them...or not. Vilsack didn't lose Iowa, Kerry did.

In fact, Vilsack did carry Iowa...for himself--as a winning governor in a seemingly red-leaning state. Vilsack did in Iowa what John Kerry couldn't. (Is that called failing Kerry or perhaps doing a better job than Kerry?)

Don't miss this simple fact: Vilsack is the first Democratic governor of Iowa in my lifetime. While many in the Democratic party are fixated on some mythical quick-fix White House victory as our next battle, but who have done little to shift the Democratic Party at the grassroots level, Vilsack managed to turn a red governorship blue years ago. What is more, he's been instrumental in doing in Iowa just the sort of thing our nation's burgeoning progressive movement needs to be doing in every state now: nurturing candidates and winning elections at the local level.

Did you know that in 2004:
*Iowa on Nov. 2nd was 1 of only 3 states to make Democratic gains in the state legislature.
*Iowa Dems now enjoy a 25-25 tie in the Iowa Senate.
*Iowa Dems in the forever-Republican House now boast a mere 2-seat minority.
*The Iowa Democratic Party is basically tied with Republicans in voter registrations. They were behind by 60,000 registrants in 2003.
*Iowa Democratic Congressman Leonard Boswell absolutely smashed Republican challenger Stan Thompson. Thompson got major GOP money and ran a nasty campaign. Didn't matter. Vilsack's Iowa Dem organization helped Boswell eat Thompson alive.

None of us should be disuaded of Vilsack for the wrong reasons. He is an amazing person with a profoundly amazing personal story, and he is a proven and successful fighter for Democrats.

Bush is left of the evangelical right? (The amNew York brain fart.)
by IseFire - Wed 11/17/04 12:00 pm EST

In the Nov. 17 issue of New York City's main free daily, amNew York, a South Carolina-based columnist wrote in her opinion piece that, "Bush is far to the left of the so-called 'moral right.'" This statement is patently absurd. (What is more, I've never heard the exact term, "moral right" before. "Moralistic Right" I've heard, and it's more appropriate, too.)

My letter to the editor:

Kathleen Parker’s analysis of conservative evangelicalism’s role in Bush’s reelection was deeply flawed. She claimed Bush is to the left of conservative evangelicals; but, she didn’t cite a single example. That’s because he isn’t. Bush stated that the “jury is still out” on evolution. He is unequivocally anti-choice. He backs the death penalty. He let the assault weapons ban expire. He has stated support for home schooling. He supports school vouchers. He favors outsourcing government services to religious charities. This is 100% in-step with America’s political movement of conservative evangelicals.  What is more, Parker missed the significance of her own numbers and didn’t define her terms. One out of every three Bush votes came from an evangelical. That’s a massive number. But, conservative evangelicals are only part of the entire Christian Right, which includes millions of conservative Roman Catholics, who believe in the exact some political agenda as evangelicals. The overall Christian Right voting block is a behemoth. Finally, Parker overlooked the fact that those who have for years been warning about the Christian Right generally have stressed their influence even more than their numbers. The Left Behind series of books is, in serialized and narrative form, conservative evangelicalism’s political manifesto. Those books have sold 60,000,000 copies. Parker misses the point: an increasing number of voters who don’t describe themselves as evangelicals are voting in-synch with the evangelical worldview, which is increasingly synonymous with conservatism in general. That is called winning Americans’ hearts and minds. Conservative Christians have been at it for 30 years, and they are succeeding significantly.

Orcinus
by IseFire - Tue 11/16/04 11:50 pm EST

Dave Neiwert's Orcinus is worth your time. Neiwert has been writing a lot about the Religious Right these days.

US down from 18th to 27th in global social progress index
by IseFire - Tue 11/16/04 01:00 pm EST

From the AP article:

The United States ranks 27th in a study of social progress worldwide due to social service budget cuts and chronic poverty plaguing major US cities, a University of Pennyslvania report found.

Jerry's Moralistic MoveOn
by IseFire - Tue 11/16/04 12:00 am EST

With liberal organizations like MoveOn.org dazed by how insufficient they proved to be ("for now," the patriots said grimly), and with the nation's nascent progressive infrastructure manned by mere rampart patrols while the exhausted garrisons sluggishly recover from the Nov. 2nd "Pyrrhic defeat" (think about it), Jerry Falwell, founder of the late, great Moral Majority, is manufacturing what he hopes will inflict the Right's coup de grace against the Left: a new national organization of religious conservatives, The Faith and Values Coalition. Its chairman is to be Tim LaHaye, the conservative Christian activist and co-author of the "Left Behind" series of novels that sold more than 60,000,000 copies. (I noted for many, many months what these books' popularity foretold--having read in 1990 their literary harbinger, Frank Peretti's Piercing the Darkness--but the Left largely dismissed LaHaye's compelling claptrap as easily as secessionists once did Uncle Tom's Cabin.)

The org's tri-part agenda: 1) The confirmation of "pro-life, strict constructionist" U.S. Supreme Court justices and other federal judges, 2) the passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment, and 3) the election of "another socially-, fiscally-, and politically-conservative president in 2008." (Of course, Bush isn't fiscally or politically conservative, but what should Jerry care...or you? Intellectual honesty has always been an ass not an asset in America politics.)

More proof of global warming
by IseFire - Sun 11/14/04 09:39 pm EST

At this point in history, "more proof of global warming " ought to sounds as ridiculous as "more proof of gravity." Dut it doesn't, because in the United States, global warming is still "controversial." Article.

Conservative elements begin post-election incursions on all fronts, including education
by IseFire - Fri 11/12/04 08:59 pm EST

The conservative movement began testing the strength of the Bush 2nd-term "mandate" before the carcase of the Kerry campaign was cold. All along the political frontlines Republican officials, conservative judges, the Religious Right, corporate lawyers, and other elements of America's confederacy of conservative interests are launching actions against polices relating to education, health care, the environment, civil rights, voting rights, and more.

I pay attention to attacks on science education, among other targets. Our nation was founded upon Enlightenment principles, but is now dangerously influenced by religionists who do not greatly prize reason or even pragmatism in government or policy. Personally, I find religionists' attacks on our children's minds to be the most dangerous of all conservative violations.

Stories to pay attention to:
*Evolution lawyers make final pleas in GA.

*"Intelligent Design" (ID) mandated in science units in PA.

*Sex education, TX style.

*Grantsburg, WI twists science education with creationist/ "Intelligent Design" mandates.

Thomas Jefferson: "History...furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government."
by IseFire - Thu 11/11/04 08:30 am EST

It is Veterans' Day. "Eleven, eleven, eleven"--marking the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when World War I officially ended. The First World War was not a religious conflict. Religious differences fueled ethnic hatreds which somewhat influenced the Serbian campaign, but that was it. All the national powers engaged in World War I were either declining or rising empires. All of them utterly secular--Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Russia, the United States, etc.

Today one of the above powers is experiencing quasi-religious rule in which institutionalized religion--like in the Middle Ages of Europe--consciously exerts political influence and control of the State. All but one of the above powers dispensed hundreds of years ago with a politically significant priestly or religious class, sometimes violently.

From Sidney Blumenthal on Salon.com today:

The election of 2004 marks the rise of a quasi-clerical party for the first time in the United States. Ecclesiastical organization has become transformed into the sinew and muscle of the Republican Party, essential in George W. Bush's reelection. His narrow margins in the key states of Florida, Iowa and Ohio, and elsewhere, were dependent upon the direct imposition of the churches. None of this occurred suddenly or by happenstance. Nor was this development simply a pleasant surprise for Bush. For years, he has schooled himself in the machinations of the religious right, and Karl Rove has used the command center of the White House as more than its Office of Propaganda.

Bush's clerisy represents an unprecedented alliance of historically anti-Roman Catholic, nativist evangelical Protestants with the most reactionary elements of the Catholic hierarchy. Preacher, priest and politician have combined on the grounds that John F. Kennedy disputed in his famous speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on Sept. 12, 1960. Every principle articulated by Kennedy has been flouted and contradicted by Bush: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope or ... any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials."

From the White House, Rove operated a weekly conference call with selected religious leaders. Evangelical churches handed over their membership directories to the Bush campaign for voter registration drives. According to the Washington Post, "clergy members attended legal sessions explaining how they could talk about the election from the pulpit." A group associated with the Rev. Pat Robertson advised 45,000 churches on how to work for Bush. One popular preacher alone sent letters to 136,000 pastors advising them on "non-negotiable" issues -- gay marriage, stem cell research, abortion -- to mobilize the faithful. Perhaps the most influential figure of all was the Rev. James Dobson, whose radio programs are broadcast daily on more than 3,000 stations and 80 TV stations, and whose organization has affiliates in 36 states, and this year created a political action committee to advance "Christian citizenship."