"Marriage is not a right." Bishop Harry Jackson of Beltsville's New Hope Christian Church voice his own interpretation of civil rights.

We wrote before of the fact that an astonishing 70% of black Californians voted for Proposition 8, which prohibited same-sex marriage.  We also wrote before that when we extrapolate the California results and apply them to the District, a similar city ballot question would pass if one considers income, education, or race.*

Just a few weeks ago, to our surprise, the city council unanimously passed a bill to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. That very same day, the Vermont legislature stole much of the media thunder by overriding the governor’s veto and legalizing same-sex marriage in the Green Mountain State.  Nonetheless, it was a bold move for Washington, a city whose every decision can be vetoed by a Congress looking to make a statement. The issue of marriage is usually portrayed in the media as a religious-secular struggle and another side of the issue rarely discussed: race.

The relationship between race and opinion on same-sex marriage— a relationship so quietly whispered it dare not speak its name!— has come out of the closet in DC, a city that votes overwhelmingly Democrat and is also 56% black.

Several area churches (all predominantly black and some of them suburban) spent part of Tuesday protesting the city council’s recent decision and lined up outside the Wilson Building on Freedom Plaza to voice their displeasure. (See the Post’s video of the event)

Bishop Harry Jackson (pictured above) of the New Hope Christian Church— which is outside the District— recently penned his own opinion on the matter in Newsweek lamenting his own “robbery” at the city council meeting by those dastardly “equality vigilantes”!

I felt robbed and disenfranchised as I observed “equality vigilantes” setting up an unjust concept of civil rights.

Mr. Jackson seems to have his own peculiar interpretation of civil rights.  In the Post video above, he states:

Marriage is not a right.  Brothers and sisters can’t get married. People who are related can’t get married.  You can’t marry a three-year-old.  There are parameters that are for the benefit of the society about marriage.

Wrong.  In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that marriage is a basic civil right.  To deny a civil right on account of sex (that is, to disqualify a woman from marrying another woman solely because she is a woman) requires a compelling state interest.  Some states have decided there is such an interest, some have found there is not.  Nonetheless, in American jurisprudence marriage is a civil right.

Mr. Jackson, who, as the Post’s Marc Fisher has noted, has strong connections to the national conservative movement, continues, “I’d rather be politically courageous than politically correct.”  That’s a noble sentiment, for sure, but it is certainly possible to be selfishly courageous, too.

Lynne Breece, a District resident and a bystander at the event, offered some hope that not everyone shares Mr. Jackson’s views:

As a black woman, I know a lot about discrimination on both ends, and I know what it feels like.  And for us, of all people, black ministers to use the pulpit to oppress another minority and then to cloak that bigotry using the bible! This happened to black people!

Indeed, though Dr. Martin Luther King cited scripture to demand equality, Jim Crow supporters and defenders of slavery never hesitated to quote the good book either.

Councilman Marion Barry, who didn’t show up to vote on the bill, but who previously promised to vote for same-sex marriage, managed to make it to the rally and profess his new-found opposition.  Why the change of heart?  Barry provided a great gem of a quotation:

I am a politician who is moral.

Dream on!

Even with Barry’s opposition, the rest of the council and the mayor have all voiced support for eventual same-sex marriage licensing in the city.  Messrs. Barry and Jackson notwithstanding, justice and fairness shall overcome someday.

It’s often joked that finding a person of color in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog is like playing Where’s Waldo? Likewise, in a country that is only 80% white, it is always suspicious to see political movements that suffer a demographic skew.

While browsing photos of this weekend’s anti-World Bank and anti-IMF protests, we noticed a particularly Vermontish tinge to the protest crowd.  Other than the Metropolitan Police Department officers keeping order, can you spot the non-white protesters?

Not here:

Source: Michael Temchine, The Washington Post

Nor here:

Source: Michael Temchine, The Washington Post

Nor here:

Source: CNN

Pony-tail, check.  Flag desecration, check.  Birkenstocks, maybe. Diversity, nope.

Source: Alex Brandon, Associated Press

Black Bandanna: $5.  Che Guevara shirt: $36.  Criticizing the system from which you lavishly benefit: priceless.

Source: Alex Brandon, Associated Press

“I hear the Gap is having a sale!”

Source: Agence France-Presse

There he is!  Look to the right side of the photo; sail your eyes through the White Sea and there you will get your first glimpse of diversity.

Source: Agence France-Presse

Again!  Just behind ‘NO’.  Almost, missed him, didn’t you?

Source: Alex Brandon, Associated Press

In all seriousness, though, the protest crowd’s lack of diversity is typical for Washington’s protest movements. One might expect this sort of whitewashing on the Right, but from the Left it has become commonplace too.

On the Left, the typical narrative of world oppression a well-worn tale of woe: privileged white society relentlessly oppresses everyone else. Indeed, these protesters seem to aim their anger at the IMF and World Bank for being the ultimate manifestations of this struggle. Unfortunately, under the protesters’ narrative, their own lack of diversity belies their sincerity; they themselves are the privileged set—who, after all, can afford to travel to Washington on such a frivolous pretext?

In addition to demographics (i.e., entirely white, with one or two “exotic” faces), these protest movements also share the same frivolity and ephemeral imagination of an Abercrombie catalog.  Watch as privileged youth frolic on a warm spring day, all dressed in themed couture, exhibiting a casual solidarity.

And, like those models in the catalog, when the seasons change, they’ll move on to the next fashion.

The Cold War’s mutually-assured destruction has given way to a one-sided assured destruction: Russians are dying off.

Not only are birth rates far below the replacement level, but the living are drinking, smoking, poisoning, and murdering themselves to early graves.  While most rich countries have managed to reduce deaths from chronic diseases (heart attacks, cirrhosis, etc.) from already low levels, Russians have managed to increase their deaths from higher levels to yet even higher levels.  The average Russian life expectancy today is lower than that of 1950.

Low birth rates and shorter lives are leading Russia to a population decline much faster than those of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which all enjoy long life-expectancies.  Yet unlike Germany, Italy, and Japan, Russia is rich in land and resources, making it an attractive option for investors of the next century.

How does a country manage its population decline smartly?  As the age distribution places a greater portion of people into retirement, per-capita GDP may decline as there are fewer workers.  Additionally, the elderly will require greater care, thus diverting a greater portion of national wealth to their own care.  To compensate for this strain, a slowly dying nation might consider the equivalent of a reverse mortgage, selling off parts of itself to foreign powers and corporations interested in its resources.

Global warming will make Siberia a much more attractive buy over the next few decades and Russia might consider selling parts of it to pay for its increasingly elderly and debilitated population.  China seems like the natural buyer, desperate as it is for oil resources, but perhaps timber companies will place offers, too.

The more interesting question involves what to do with a nation when its citizens have gone entirely extinct, having died off naturally.  The government will have dissolved already, but what will the international community do with the “estate”?

Image source: LA Times

Much has been made of the surprise passage of California’s Proposition 8, which amended the Declaration of Rights of the state’s Constitution to state that “[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”  What hasn’t received much attention, however, is that the city council of Washington, DC, may move in the coming months to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.  In the past, the main obstacle cited is Congress; even if the city council approved a same-sex marriage bill (probably with near-unanimity), Congress, which has legislative authority to overturn any DC law, would overturn it in a heartbeat.

But since the Democrats now control Congress and the White House, the city now faces the best opportunity to introduce a marriage bill that would face the lowest chance of Federal opposition.  However, even if the measure escaped a snarling Congress, the measure would likely face stiff opposition from a large bloc of city residents.  If the civil rights measure is put to popular vote in Washington, DC, voters may in fact reject it.

Since there are no public opinion polls of District residents gauging opposition to same-sex marriage in the city, it is hard to predict how a ballot question would fare.  However, if we extrapolate November’s exit-poll results on Proposition 8 from California, the civil rights landscape in DC looks a little bleak.

In the best scenario, a DC vote would reflect the results among California’s urban voters.  Forty-five percent of California’s urban voters opposed Proposition 8.  Since all DC voters qualify as urban voters, if the proportions voting for and against held the same, a ban would lose.

(All the following data are drawn from CNN’s exit-poll of California and extrapolated based on each cohort’s share of the DC electorate as provided by MSNBC’s exit-poll of DC)

If we extrapolate from other measures, the outlook isn’t as good.  Based on income group, the results show a ban would just squeak by.  Interestingly, among all income groups, only those making less than $30,000 and those making more than $150,000 opposed Proposition 8 by a majority.  The vast middle supported it.  Now if we multiple each group’s support and opposition in California by each income group’s respective proportion of the DC electorate, a same-sex marriage ban would pass in DC by a slight majority.

It gets worse.

In California, 53% of college graduates opposed Proposition 8, whereas only 42% of those without college degrees opposed it.  Though 58% of District voters are college graduates, that is still not enough to stop a ballot measure in the city.  Based on education, a ballot measure in DC would ban same-sex marriage with a 52% majority.

Finally, race is the pink elephant in the room few want to bring up.  Traditionally, black voters, gays, and those with socially liberal views overwhelmingly vote  for Democrats.  However, on the issue of homosexuality, one Democratic constituency, blacks, holds views strong opposed to those held by other Democratic constituencies (social liberals, gays, etc.).

An astounding 70% of California’s black voters cast ballots in favor of Proposition 8 and an even more astounding 75% of black women voted in favor.  Proposition 8 only found greater support among self-identified 2004 Bush voters (80%), white evangelicals (81%), Republicans (82%), McCain voters (84%), weekly churchgoers (84%), conservatives (85%), and those who approve of the war in Iraq (85%), among others.

When we extrapolate each ethnic group’s vote in California to adjust it for each group’s proportion of the DC electorate, a same-sex marriage ban easily passes by 61% of the popular vote in the District.

Admittedly, California and DC, though both Democratic strongholds, differ in some important ways.  DC is entirely urban, whereas California is home to urbanites, a huge portion of suburbanites, and sizable rural counties.  Furthermore, unlike DC, California is more ideologically diverse and contains some very conservative areas (San Diego and Orange Counties, most notably) as well as liberal enclaves such as San Francisco, Hollywood, and Berkeley.  Washington’s singlemindedness leans decidely leftward, but in California the tilt, though still to the left, has counteracting forces that DC largely lacks.

Nonetheless, it’s premature for the city council and gay civil rights campaigners to assume that everyone shares the same view of what constitutes a civil right.  Though same-sex marriage might not raise eyebrows in upper Northwest, not all DC residents are ready to embrace a progressive view of marriage.  When the council starts to debate such a measure, don’t be surprised when you hear opponents ironically claiming civil rights for me, but not for thee.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, demographers predicted that mass startvation would ensue in the coming dcades as the world faced overpopulation.  High birthrates, particularly in poorer countires, would spark this population bomb, as it was called.

Then the world changed.  Birthrates all over the world, particularly in poorer countries, started to decline, some to rates below replacement level (2.1 children per woman, the rate at which the population stabilizes).  Several European nations have birthrates far below replacement levels and this is cause for alarm, as the New York Times reports in a lengthy article on the subject:

According to a paper by Jonathan Grant and Stijn Hoorens of the Rand Europe research group: “Demographers and economists foresee that 30 million Europeans of working age will ‘disappear’ by 2050. At the same time, retirement will be lasting decades as the number of people in their 80s and 90s increases dramatically.” The crisis, they argue, will come from a “triple whammy of increasing demand on the welfare state and health-care systems, with a decline in tax contributions from an ever-smaller work force.” That is to say, there won’t be enough workers to pay for the pensions of all those long-living retirees.

The solvancy of the modern welfare state is premised on population growth.  When the population declines, the numbers start to look grim as it takes greater per capita tax contributions to maintain benefits levels with each passing year.

Ménage à Deux

The attitudes of modernity are partly to blame, but so are gender roles.  Though it may seem that countries with higher rates of women participating in the workforce would susequently suffer from lower birth rates, this is not so.  In countries in which a greater share of housework falls to the women, the fewer children those women have:

women who do more than 75 percent of the housework and child care are less likely to want to have another child than women whose husbands or partners share the load. Put differently, Dutch fathers change more diapers, pick up more kids after soccer practice and clean up the living room more often than Italian fathers; therefore, relative to the population, there are more Dutch babies than Italian babies being born. As Mencarini said, “It’s about how much the man participates in child care.”

Furthermore, countires that have reacted with policies that presume women will want to continue their careers after childbirth tend to have higher birthrates.  Nations such as Sweden, France, and the U.K, subsidize childcare and maternity leave such that having a child does not end a mother’s career.  Even still, the United States provides fewer benefits for childbirth, yet has a birthrate of 2.1, much higher than any European nation.  The answer, some suspect, is that our labor market flexible enough to allow for mothers to return to the workforce.

So there would seem to be two models for achieving higher fertility: the neosocialist Scandinavian system and the laissez-faire American one. Aassve put it to me this way: “You might say that in order to promote fertility, your society needs to be generous or flexible. The U.S. isn’t very generous, but it is flexible. Italy is not generous in terms of social services and it’s not flexible. There is also a social stigma in countries like Italy, where it is seen as less socially accepted for women with children to work. In the U.S., that is very accepted.”

By this logic, the worst sort of system is one that partly buys into the modern world — expanding educational and employment opportunities for women — but keeps its traditional mind-set. This would seem to define the demographic crisis that Italy, Spain and Greece find themselves in — and, perhaps, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of the world.

It looks as though only the fully modern will inherit the earth.

Former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Conner takes a knock at our pay-as-you-go Social Security system in today’s Post.  O’Conner doesn’t not explicitly say it, but she does suggest that Social Security is an entitlement program designed as a massive moral hazard.  Since the system collects payroll taxes and redistributes the money immediately, the system does not save the money of each worker for his retirement.  Though to qualify to receive Social Security payments, one must have worked a certain number of quarters, promised benefits are solely limited not to what each worked has payed for himself during his working years, but is limited to tax revenue the year retiree collects benefits.  Thus, aggregate benefit expenditures are largely independent of aggregate tax revenues.  As a result, there is every incentive for each generation to promise itself lavish benefits knowing full well that the costs decades later will fall on the yet-to-be born.

This structure obligates future generations to pay for benefits packages ratified long before they were born.  Sandra Day O’Conner strikes a conservative tone in her evaluation of this situation:

Our government was founded on the principle that the legitimacy of law derives from the consent of the governed. Today’s youths and future generations have not been consulted in the writing of our current social contract. Yet they soon may face financial burdens that most voters would find intolerable.

For all the talk about adding benefits to entitlement programs, there is very little talk about the sober costs necessary to pay for such benefits.  O’Conner thinks the young ignore politics to their own financial peril:

…[A]lthough 41 percent of Americans are younger than 30, their political clout is inherently limited. Despite turning out in record numbers this year, voters ages 18 to 29 have accounted for only 13 percent of the presidential primary electorate. In the future, demographics will relegate youths to an ever-shrinking electoral minority.

O’Conner then goes on to advocate benefit cuts.  It’s clear that O’Conner’s highest post was to an unelected Supreme Court bench; every politician knows that cutting benefits to Social Security is politically unpopular.

Despite O’Conner’s warning, the problem will fix itself not because beneficiaries will feel some charity toward contributors, but rather because contributors will resent tax increases once benefits exceed revenues.  The choice will be clear at that moment and I suspect raising taxes will prove much more politically impractical than cutting benefits.  Money gets people to the polls.

…economics.

The lack of affordable housing is one of the primary drivers of gentrification as middle class people move into previously ignored, yet affordable, neighborhoods.

The New York Times ran a story about the complications of gentrification in Portland, a city known for its liberal politics. With self-proclaimed progressives moving into a once-black neighborhood, they are unwittingly pricing out (or “victimizing”, if you prefer a neo-Marxist term) the former residents who aren’t nearly as well-off as they.

One resident sums up the hypocrisy of these leftish newcomers:

“I’ve been really upset by what I perceive to be Portland’s blind spot in its progressivism,” said Khaela Maricich, a local artist and musician. “They think they live in the best city in the country, but it’s all about saving the environment and things like that. It’s not really about social issues. It’s upper-middle-class progressivism, really.”

A Prius in every driveway does not a just city make! Thus the interests of the wealthy Left trump the interests of those whom they claim to defend.

A local civic group has resorted to hosting a forum to alert the mostly white newcomers to what they’re doing to the neighborhood. From the article’s description, the forum comes off as a demeaning affair meant to parade in front of the mostly white crowd of newcomers the mostly black residents, few of whom the newcomers had spotted during their days ensconced in their elite liberal arts and law schools.

Even still, this therapeutic, self-indulgent drive to assuage white guilt does nothing to keep rents affordable for long-term residents.

Yet what has been clear from the meetings this month and last is that talking about the impact of gentrification is easier than finding ways to reduce it. For some minority residents, the notion that white Portland now says it feels their pain is cold comfort.

“That’s been our history,” Norma Trimble, who is Native American, said during the question-and-answer session this month. “They take all you’ve got. They take your land. Now they want your stories.”

Two good articles from Post today.

The Manhattan Institute finds that immigrants in America adapt quickly. Though measuring economic, cultural, and civic integration is difficult, it’s useful to look at the index as a good way to compare different groups rather than interpreting 100 as a full integration (whatever that really should mean). Either way, the numbers tell a story that contrasts sharply with what one will find in the Parisian banlieues.

Despite this, sadly, there’s still plenty of racist hostility to blacks, as Sen. Obama’s campaigners are finding. It’s a story barely reported on the campaign trail over the past few months, but Sen. Clinton may have hinted at it when she discounted Obama’s electability. At first I thought she was referring to his liberal, if scant, voting record. Now I suspect she may have been referring to something else.

Japan’s population, which peaked three years ago, is now declining and rapidly aging. By failing to reproduce at a sufficient rate, the Japanese economy will face a declining workforce, a massive retired population and minimal economic growth. And you thought the 1990s were bad!

Since the close of World War II, genocide has been confined largely to minority groups in poor countries. What a surprise turn it will be once the disappearance (or significant reduction) of certain ethnic groups will be the consequence of wealthy societies simply dieing off in old age. Is a slow cultural suicide the genocide of the future?

Maybe not. Japan’s birthrate could reverse its death spiral just as the U.S. birthrate ticked up slightly last year. Furthermore, the Japanese government may reverse is longstanding opposition to immigration and allow more foreigners in, thus replenishing the archipelago’s numbers.

All is not lost! Maybe the world will one day see a flying, fusion-powered Toyota.

Robert Mugabe’s government has refused to admit defeat in the election three weeks ago and his government has not even bothered to release the total vote counts. While parking in front of the Zimbabwe Embassy in Washington today, I noticed one of the usual signs restricting a short strip of parking to embassy cars on weekdays. This sign restricted parking to the ‘Republic of Zimbabwe’, which I no long believe to be a true democratic republic. It is now dictator Robert Mugabe’s personal fiefdom, featuring a wrecked economy, 165,000% inflation (I kid you not), a refugee crisis, and one of Africa’s wealthiest populations reduced to penury. Equipped with some paper, a pen and some tape, I put together a revision to the sign so that it now reads

NO PARKING
7AM-6:30PM
DIPLOMATIC CARS
DICTATOR
ROBERT MUGABE’S
THUGS, GOONS
& APOLOGISTS
ONLY

Despite having robbed his people of both their livelihoods and the right to vote, Mr. Mugabe can still count on his defenders in the region. Shortly after it appeared that Mr. Mugabe stole the election, South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki, infamous for denying that HIV causes AIDS, met with Mr. Mugabe and, much to the world’s surprise, assured that Zimbabwe was not facing a crisis.

Fortunately, many South Africans, unlike Mr. Mbeki, do have a conscience.

The New York Times reports today that on Friday a ship carrying weapons and ammunition from a Chinese state-owned weapons foundry made a call into the port of Durban with goods destined for Zimbabwe’s military. News of the arrival quickly broke and the longshoremen’s union threatened to strike if forced to unload the ship.

The South African government, though, citing the absence of an official weapons ban on Zimbabwe, ruled that the shipment should be allowed to pass through South Africa. Not so fast, ruled South Africa’s High Court, after a South African activist and the Anglican archbishop petitioned for an embargo:

[Archbishop] Phillip, [human rights activist] Mr. Kearney and the lawyers argued that South Africa’s 2002 law on conventional arms included guidelines that directed the government to consider, in deciding whether to give permits for the transport of weapons, whether the government receiving the arms was committing human rights violations.

Late Friday afternoon, a judge in Durban granted their request. But on Friday evening, when the authorities drove out to the Chinese ship, An Yeu Jiang, to serve the court order, it pulled up anchor and moved off, according to a South African government official and Ms. Fritz.

What’s impressive is the reaction of South Africa’s civil society to represent the interests of human rights when its president fails to.

Even still, Mr. Mugabe is still holding onto his seat and the outcome of the election is still unknown. Will the State Department eventually eject Mr. Mugabe’s representatives in Washington? If he ends up stealing this election for sure, the State Department should consider it.