"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.

We have noticed that the ads on the New York Times website have become increasingly intrusive on the home page.  Look at this imperial ad by Apple:

One must scroll so far to find the opinion section!

We were about to curse the Gray Lady but then remembered that we read it for free.  Such is the life of a freeloader.

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.

Though George W. Bush often defined terrorism incorrectly as taking up arms against the United States or its interests, a more accurate definition would be the actual or threatened  destruction of people or property as a means of political intimidation.  States can commit terrorism against opposition parties just as stateless Islamists can bomb hotels.  Either way, the use of violence for political intimidation is terrorism.

The definition came to mind to today when reading about fifteen people who smashed and vandalized two banks in Logan Circle early Saturday morning.  They weren’t there to steal money, but, as the anti-IMF and anti-World Bank graffiti they left in their wake suggests, they had a beef against the capitalist system.  It’s no coincidence that these acts of violence coincided with the annual meeting of the World Bank and IMF, a perennial target of anarchist and anti-capitalist theatrics.

Since this violent destruction of property was motivated by a hatred of the relationship between capitalism and the world’s political systems, this violence, which the Post reported as mere “vandalism” qualifies as terrorism.  The Post won’t classify this violence as terrorism and the city’s police aren’t likely to either.  But had a similar crime been committed not by young, white Marxists, but by middle-aged Muslim extremists, the media and police would have likely classified this violence as terrorism.

This is a shameful double standard we ought to eliminate.  Radical Muslims aren’t the only people who can commit terrorism.

Just when you thought citing the bible for political purposes was solely the province of the Right, our quick perusal today of Leviticus turned up these verses:

And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.

But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (19:33-4)

If there’s a so-called “Defense” of Marriage Act, based largely on prejudices inspired from odd passages from Leviticus, shouldn’t there also be an accompanying amnesty statute for illegal immigrants?

“George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

So said Kanye West in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when hundreds of poor, mostly black, residents of New Orleans were stranded in the Superdome and atop flood houses in the Big Easy.

No matter, with the election of Barack Obama, surely the Federal government now attends to the best interests of disadvantaged minority populations, right?  Not always.

In 2004 Congress passed the District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act, providing vouchers of up to $7,500 for low-income children in the District to attend private schools. Since the District’s public schools are among the worst in the nation and considering that poor parents love their children, too, it’s no surprise that parents jumped on the opportunity with such enthusiasm that the program developed a waiting list. A recent U.S. Department of Education study found that children in the program scored about the same in math and slightly more in reading.  Nonetheless, voucher parents were much more satisfied with their chosen schools than public school parents were with their schools.*

The voucher program operated with the strong support of the mayor, the District’s “state” superintendent, and the low-income parents of the voucher recipients (90% black, 9% Latino), who finally got the chance to give their children what their neighbors Mr. & Mrs. Obama give to their children: a quality private education.  The parents were happy and the kids’ performance improved modestly.  In an era when the Treasury hands out hundreds of billions of dollars to shoddy banks and failed carmakers, certainly the voucher program’s modest success was worth the paltry $15 million annual cost.

Not so fast!  Enter the teachers’ unions and their partner-in-disparity, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s non-voting Delegate to the House of Representatives.  She made clear her opposition to the program, telling the Post, “…the Democratic Congress is not about to extend this program.”

With Democratic majorities in both houses and at the behest of the teachers’ unions, Congress, fresh from passing $410 billion budget bill, callously failed to renew the voucher program.

If we ran our elections the way we run many of our public schools, there would be civil rights investigations and lawsuits to match.  Instead, when public-sector mediocrity denies poor children their right to a decent education, thereby reducing their future life opportunities, the Right doesn’t much bother with an issue it never noticed anyway and the Left willfully averts its eyes toward its well-heeled funders.  If voting patterns still hold true, the beneficiaries of these programs would vote overwhelmingly Democrat anyway; the G.O.P. has nothing to gain, the Democrats have nothing to lose.  Sadly, the children have much to lose.

In noting the disparities in the quality of public education in America, Rev. Al Sharpton, in a rare moment of clarity, stated why public education continues to fail millions of Americans:

The people standing in the schoolhouse doorway now are people we thought were our friends, liberals wearing suits not bibb overalls, principals and teachers who want to uphold the status quo — condescending bigots who perpetuate a system we know is profoundly unequal.

Conservatives typically don’t make public education their issue, except when it comes to biology (evolution), health (sex), and school prayer.  Liberals typically advocate the use of government power to equalize social opportunity and even equalize social outcomes.  Even though one would normally expect the Left to advocate policies that best benefit marginalized populations, the Democratic party still knows that both money and ballots talk: the nation’s two big teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, support Democratic candidates with massive investments, volunteers, and votes.  When the interests of the unions conflict with the interests of disadvantaged children of color, the former constituency holds the trump card.

Tellingly, Ms. Norton also told the Post several months ago, “We have to protect the children, who are the truly innocent victims here.”  Indeed they are.

We never thought we’d agree so ardently with Joseph Stiglitz, but he appears to be among the few voices on the Left willing to call out President Obama on the flimsier elements of his economic plans.

We have noted before (to deaf ears, alas!) that the Obama Administration is no stranger to Wall Street.  Not only did Wall Street types donate twice as much to his campaign than to McCain’s, but Mr. Obama then hired Larry Summers as his chief economic adviser.  Before returning to Washington, Mr. Summers, as we noted earlier, “earned” a princely $5.2 million advising the hedge fund D. E. Shaw one day a week for the past two years.  (Talk about lavish executive pay!)

Anyway, Stiglitz, too, has pointed out the blatant conflict of interest in the administration:

“America has had a revolving door. People go from Wall Street to Treasury and back to Wall Street,” he said. “Even if there is no quid pro quo, that is not the issue. The issue is the mindset.”

Stiglitz is also critical of the administration’s stimulus package, since only a fraction of it is destined to be spent in 2009.

Just when you thought every journalist had already published a piece lamenting the decline of the newspapers, Maureen Dowd, the shrillest voice at the Gray Lady, prints her own J’accuse blaming Google.

We always enjoy watching the ink-fueled spats that ensue when one member of the Establishment (Google) subverts another member (New York Times).

If there’s one thing New York Times columnist Tom Friedman likes more than name-dropping, it’s churning out puzzling metaphors.  Two of his book titles, The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat, illustrate this pastime of his— the former book comparing financial regulatory frameworks to computer software.  We doubt how helpful it is, though, to compare one complicated abstraction to another and expect the general reader to better understand global finance, but his books sell well.

After many rhetorical misses, Friedman finally makes a hit in contrasting today’s geopolitical problem children (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea).  Using a metaphor of pulleys and levers, Friedman divides these four countries into two groups: those who promise to “pull levers”, only to find the levers breaking off the wall (Afghanistan, Pakistan), and those who grope around with much fanfare only pretending to pull levers (Iran, North Korea).

Gentrifiers in Portland exchange greetings. Perhaps they're discussing the virtue of their Priuses.

Sandra Tsing Loh wrote a excellent piece in the Atlantic snarkily speculating what this recession will do to America’s culture leaders, the Xers, she calls them (a.k.a. David Brooks’s bourgeois bohemians and Richard Florida’s creative class).  Reared in America’s upper- and upper-middle class Valhallas, these college-educated, socially conscious idealists, having never tasted the bitter foot of Maslow’s hierarchy, have heretofore devoted their lives to the maximization of self-expression.  When one is accustomed to an easy life of economic privilege, one becomes too easily inclined to view the concern for things like economic development (the creation of actual wealth) as crass—dare I say unsophisticated!— hobbies.

Having splurged on overpriced liberal-arts degrees, pricey socially conscious clothes, and fashionably “fair-trade” this-that-and-the-other, the once trendy interest in all things eclectic and environmentally sustainable is no longer financially sustainable.   The lofty eclectic idealism has, over the past few decades, morphed this left-leaning bohemianism from an identity once defined by a distaste of consumption into an identity defined by its taste in consumption.

Wither the free-range chicken bistro?  Now that carelessly accrued credit card debt is out of fashion, how can one survive without a steady diet of the moral superiority digested from politically-charged cuisine choices?  Will the forced economic sobriety of our current economic affairs force America’s left-leaning culturally-righteous to reexamine their once-proud disregard of economics—that crass topic!?

Bid farewell to the increasingly progressive, self-righteous, self-congratulatory, overwhelmingly white, and socially stratified Portland.  Hello, diverse, affordable, yet bland, Cleveland.  Farewell to the ritzy Rive Gauche Xanadus, hello to the staid skid-rows bereft of artisan boutiques and scarily “authentic”.

Loh writes,

This economic catastrophe is teaching the Xers that their prized self-­expression and their embrace of personal choice leads to … the collapse of capitalism. Time to inculcate not those self-satisfyingly hip and rebellious values—innovation! self-fulfillment!—cherished by the creative class (a class, after all, that includes in its ranks those buccaneering entrepreneurs who’ve led us down the primrose path), but those staid and stolid values of the bourgeoisie: industry, sobriety, moderation, self-discipline, and avoidance of debt.

Hear, hear!  Perhaps now economic development will actually get a fair hearing when policymakers are forced to consider feel-good measures as taxes on plastic bags and carbon emissions, favored by the elite self-expressionistas, but opposed by the lower- and lower-middle classes, and by nearly every family on a budget.  Fewer can afford the luxury to sacrifice economic well-being for the sake of a political statement.

Candidate Obama rightly criticized President Bush for hiding the costs of the Iraq War through supplemental appropriations bills, rather than including the costs in the normal budget.  Alas, Mr. Obama is pulling yet another page from Bush book: though Mr. Obama recently included Iraq spending costs in his latest $410 billion budget, he has quickly come back for more, proposing his own $83.4 billion supplemental to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a few international aid programs.

Though there’s nothing necessarily wrong with requesting supplemental funding, the president’s request raises two concerns.  For one, requesting this money a mere month after Congress passed his buget makes one wonder why his budget analysts didn’t foresee these new costs and just include them in the original budget.  What’s more likely is that the president just wanted to send to Congress a bill with a lower bottom line so as to appeal to moderate Democrats and GOP deficit hawks (who only now have found fiscal religion).

Secondly, it’s hypocritical for the president to critcize his predecessor for a practice that he, himself, readily adopts once in office.

In his 2007 book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, legal scholar Anthony Lewis chronicles the  history of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.  Though the amendment was ratified in 1791, it wasn’t until the 20th century, that the Supreme Court ever overturned a law as a violation of free speech.  Though the history of America’s broad speech protections is younger than we might think, these protections are products of the Enlightenment spirit— that the elevation of knowledge and rationality are the keys to human flourishing.  (French author Michel Houellebecq disagrees, but that’s another matter.)

Lewis drew the title of his book from Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissenting opinion in U.S. v. Schwimmer (1929):

[I]f there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate.

Since popular opinions need no protection in a democracy, the First Amendment’s raison d’être must be the protection of unpopular opinions— including the thought that we hate.

In previous times, including the times of Holmes, the hated thoughts included pacifism and communist sympathy.  Congress and states banned various expressions they deemed seditious, usually limiting the political debate that the more philosophical Founders had likely wanted to foster.  In more recent times, contentious speech is typically the opinions and rantings of racists and bigots convinced that society is far too tolerant of this or that group.  (How ironic that the intolerant demand tolerance of their own opinions!)

Though we have lamented speech restrictions before at the University of Maryland, in the supposedly libertine Netherlands and in holier-than-thou Canada, the slow repeal of free expression in western democracies is on the march.

An op-ed in the Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook section chronicles the slow disintegration of speech protections in many western countries as the concern for multicultural tolerance conflicts with the more xenophobic views on the European fringe.  The author lists some troubling cases:

• French actress Brigitte Bardot has been convicted four times in France for demeaning Muslims and gays.
• A 15-year-old Briton was arrested for holding up a sign stating, “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult”.
• An Austrian legislator narrowly avoided jail, but was fined, for accusing Mohamed of pedophilia.
• A Dutch cartoonist, as we wrote earlier, was arrested for drawing cartoons denigrating fundamentalist Muslims.
• Italian prosecutors launched an investigation into an Italian comedienne for insulting the pope.
• A British political aide was arrested for anti-Semitic rants directed at a TV in a gym.
• A xenophobic Dutch parliamentarian was denied entry into the U.K. for espousing anti-Muslim opinions deemed too dangerous.

Yes, many of these controversial views are blatantly racist, mean, and (more importantly) specious, but that doesn’t warrant their restriction.

Anthony Lewis, though on the Left, actually thinks America’s First Amendment protections might be too broad.  He believes the state is justified in squelching the incendiary recruitment speech of Islamic radicals, even if these radicals do not call for immediate lawlessness.  Their ability to persuade alienated young men inclined toward eventual violence warrants state intervention, he writes.

We disagree, however, and are curious as to whether Mr. Lewis would extend this interventionism to non-Muslims who speak to alienated groups.  Under Mr. Lewis’s reasoning, one could argue that Martin Luther King, though decidedly non-violent, should have been muzzled (well, more so than he was).  Such a speech restriction could open the door to the prosecution of anyone demanding significant socio-political change, as there are surely unrestrained elements of any otherwise legitimate movement.

Furthermore, determining what is controversial is easy, but it is indeed too easy.  If one could unleash the local prosecutor simply on the grounds that one feels “offended”, we will have to hire more prosecutors, as there are infinite opportunities to take offense, and enough delicate sensibilities to feel offended.  Don’t like that someone called same-sex marriage unnatural?  Call the prosecutor!  Don’t like that gay-right supporters call you a bigot?  Call the prosecutor!

The Left and Right will find ways to litigate and counter-litigate every provocative utterance out of the public realm.

There is plenty of despicable speech, no doubt, but any attempt to regulate it— to determine what is legitimate and what is not— could easily lead to capricious and unfair restrictions, where the well-counseled quash the obscure bloggers, where political parties sue newspapers for their opinion pages, and where courts rule that emotions trump truth.  A speech regime will cause many more problems than it fixes.

The best response to blatant nonsense is an articulate rebuttal exposing lies and reinforcing the truth.  Justice Louis Brandeis, who sat on the court with Holmes, famously wrote that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

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”?

Notice the relationship between the photo and the unrelated headline.   The headline topic, the general’s pointing, the president’s unease.  Perfect.

Larry Summers on ABC's This Week

As we have noted before, hedge funds, private equity firms, and their employees donated nearly twice as much to the Obama campaign as they did to the McCain campaign.  After the election, the new administration appointed some of its backers and friends on Wall Street to oversee TARP bailout money.  Few have given much scrutiny to this obvious conflict of interest until now.

On Friday the White House released the financial records of some of the administration’s top advisers.  As it turns out, President Obama’s chief economics adviser, Larry Summers, “earned” $5.2 million advising a New York hedge fund one day a week for the past two years.  Though the President desperately yelped to express his “outrage” at excessive AIG bonuses, he has remained conspicuously mum on the Mr. Summers’s lavish executive pay for such little work in an industry he now oversees.

Some have wondered why the administration has been so harsh on Detroit, threatening bankruptcy and executive firings, while only gently nudging Wall Street banks.  The fact that the administration has drawn so many warm suits and generous contributions from Wall Street suggests Mr. Obama holds his friends in finance to a milder standard.

When the Bush Administration let oil companies draft energy policy and let pharmaceutical lobbyists draft the Medicare drug benefit, Democrats cried foul, and rightly so.

Now Mr. Obama surrounds himself with smart bankers and economists who frequently spin around the revolving door between government and the finance sector, having made a fortune on risky bets and now seeing that the taxpayers are left to clean up the mess.