Harry Jackson, flustered. Opposing civil rights is such hard work.

The bad part about direct democracy is that it empowers the tyranny of the majority to overrun the rights of unpopular minorities.

We have reported before that when the D.C. city council voted to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, the lone dissenting vote was cast by Marion Barry, who claimed to stand “on the moral compass of God” and opposed the legislation also out of what he claimed to be racial solidarity. Joining him in standing in the schoolhouse door was Bishop Harry Jackson, a District resident (more on that below) who is the pastor of a Maryland church.

Unhappy that the city council passed the civil rights legislation, Jackson threatened to bring the matter to a city-wide referendum, where, as we have noted before, it just might pass.  Jackson hit a snag earlier this week, though, when the city’s Board of Elections invalidated the proposed ballot question since it would deny civil rights to LGBT people, whom the city’s Human Rights Act protects from discrimination. City law wisely prohibits ballot referenda that contradict the Human Rights Act; human rights are not, and should never be, up for a popular vote.

Mr. Jackson is challenging the board’s decision in court, hoping an “activist judge” will side with him and let him put the discriminatory civil rights question on the ballot. Complicating the matter is whether Mr. Jackson has standing as a District resident to propose the referendum. As the Washington Blade has reported, Jackson and his wife own two houses (blessed are the poor?) in Montgomery County, Maryland, and neighbors claim they reside in one of those houses, a $1.1-million mansion. The Jacksons, however, claim neither home as their principal residence according to tax records. For the purpose of voting, Mr. Jackson claims residence in unit 630 in the tony Whitman condominium building in the Mount Vernon Triangle area of DC. Tax records show that a Mr. Joseph Honaker owns this one-bedroom condo and claims it as his primary residence. If these records all hold true, it would appear that Mr. Jackson shares a one-bedroom condo with another man.

Joining Mr. Jackson in his battle against civil rights is Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, former D.C. Delegate to the House of Representatives, former city councilman, and civil rights activist (until now); Rev. Dale E. Wafer, pastor of the Harvest Church in Northeast; Melvin Dupree; Sandra B. Harris, a real estate agent with Cosmopolitan Properties in Shaw; Dr. Patricia Johnson, dean of a local Christian liberal arts college; and Bobby Perkins, Sr., pastor of World Missions for Christ Church in Shaw.  Even if Mr. Jackson is not a bona fide resident, that still doesn’t necessarily stop the ballot referendum since one of these other residents could carry the torch of discrimination.

Nobody knows how the court will rule (our guess is that they will defer to the Board of Elections,  City Council and city attorney), but it is truly shocking to see such strident opposition to civil rights in a supposedly liberal city, where over 90% of the electorate cast ballots for Barack Obama.  Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Iranians protest the recent election results.

In the 2004 documentary Control Room, an Al Jazeera producer explains that rumor and conspiracy theory often pass for journalism in the Middle East. If a water main breaks in Damascus, he explained, the papers there will find a way to blame Israel or America. Indeed, Western observers often note how casually conspiracy theories are taken as actual truth, but the recent election in Iran shows that suspicion and whispers are not solely the province of the Middle East.

The re-election of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sparked an outcry not only in Iran, but in many other countries, where the media seem quick to assume the vote was rigged. How could it be, these outlets demanded to know, that a majority of the Iranian public would re-elect an angry, right-wing demagogue, who carries little support among Iranians who live in the West an appear on CNN? The elite papers asked the same question after George W. Bush beat John Kerry in 2004. So disconnected and self-assured are these editors, that they arrogantly dismiss another inconvenient possibility: that a majority of Iranian voters actually prefer Ahmadinejad.

Too many outlets have been quick to accept the opinions of Ahmadinejad’s opponents, including Iran’s well-off, Tehran’s students, and well-to-do Iranian émigrés, who proclaim that the re-election victory was a complete fraud. If one were to listen only to these opinions, one might get a skewed view of the world. Americans living abroad overwhelmingly voted absentee for John Kerry, but the preference of jet-setting ex-pats does not a democratic majority make!

Two think-takers published their Iranian opinion poll in today’s Post proving that Ahmadinejad does command wide support throughout Iran. Furthermore, those questioned openly expressed  supposedly seditious opinions, such as the view that their government is too secretive and that the Supreme Leader should be elected. If those polled were willing to say these things to strangers on the phone, they certainly must have felt comfortable to express their presidential preferences freely.

We are not fans of Ahmadinejad, but Westerners should end their condescending disbelief and face the possibility that a majority of Iranian voters have a different view of what’s best for Iran.