"A strange sentence in this New York Times article about Democrats apologizing."

A blog post from my son John looks at this strange sentence in the NYT:

As recently as 2006, national Democrats including former President Barack Obama expressed wariness about immigrants’ ability to assimilate into American culture and did not openly embrace gay marriage — two talking points that would probably be deeply damaging for any 2020 candidate."

See the problem?

4 weeks before the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, opponents of Walker-appointee Rebecca Bradley turn up some nasty writing she did as a college student 24 years ago.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Among the choice quotations from 1992:

"How sad that the lives of degenerate drug addicts and queers are valued more than the innocent victims of more prevalent ailments."

"Either you condone drug use, homosexuality, AIDS-producing sex, adultery and murder and are therefore a bad person, or you didn't know that he supports abortion on demand and socialism, which means you are dumb. Have I offended anyone? Good — some of you really need to wake up."

"But the homosexuals and drug addicts who do essentially kill themselves and others through their own behavior deservedly receive none of my sympathy."

"[W]hy is a student government on a Catholic campus attempting to bring legitimacy to an abnormal sexual preference?"

You know, if Bradley were Donald Trump, her popularity would surge. Maybe the voters are hungry for outrageous tough talk and the flouting of political correctness.

But Bradley has apologized. She issued a written statement assuring us that the old remarks "have nothing to do with who I am as a person or a jurist." This is, in her view, a "blatant mudslinging campaign to distract the people from the issues."

Her opponent, JoAnne Kloppenburg, rejects the apology and connects the old remarks to who Bradley is now: she's allied herself with Scott Walker and Scott Walker is "against gay rights." (Scott Walker opposed same-sex marriage, even in the era after which Barack Obama evolved into support for it.)

There's only been one poll, and it shows the candidates at 37% (Bradley) and 36% (Kloppenburg). The election is April 5th, the same day as the presidential primary, so I'd been thinking the result will be affected by what's happening in the 2 presidential races. If Hillary has it locked up on the Democratic side, maybe Democrats won't bother to come out. And yet I think there are quite a few people who would want to vote for Bernie Sanders anyway or who'd cross over to the GOP side to vote against Donald Trump. (It's an open primary.) If Trump has clinched or all but clinched the nomination, will Republicans drag themselves to the polls? I'm seeing an advantage for Kloppenburg, quite aside from this new controversy.

Anyway, here's one of Bradley's old writings. I read the whole thing and was struck by the appearance of the old Nancy Reagan slogan, "Just say no":

"America should be very proud. #LoveWins. The White House."

America should be very proud. #LoveWins
Posted by The White House on Friday, June 26, 2015

"I’m just not very good at bullshitting," Obama bullshitted to David Axelrod.

The specific subject that prompted Obama to disparage his own bullshitting skills was same sex marriage, which — to get elected in 2008 — Obama claimed to oppose based on religion.

Axelrod writes that he knew Obama was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even as Obama publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages. Axelrod also admits to counseling Obama to conceal that position for political reasons. “Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’ ” Axelrod writes [in "Believer: My Forty Years in Politics"].

What Obama said was: "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman... Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix." I knew at the time he was lying, didn't you? I don't need an Axelrod book to say so. When Obama made that statement — at the Saddleback Presidential Forum, August 16, 2008 — I was live-blogging:

7:25: Define marriage. It's "the union of a man and a woman," and for him as a Christian, it's "sacred" and "God's in the mix." How about a constitutional amendment saying that? No. The tradition has been to leave this to state law. He admits that there is a concern about same-sex marriage, which he doesn't support, but he likes civil unions. He seems a little robotic intoning this position. I'm sure in his heart he supports full rights for gay people, but obviously, at this point, he can't say it.

And here's something I blogged right after the election in November 2008 (when some people were saying it wasn't fair that Obama's bullshit was used in robo-calls to prompt Californians to vote for Prop 8, which put the ban on gay marriage into the California constitution):

So Obama was instrumental in getting Prop 8 passed. What do you think of that? Some Obama supporters say it wasn't fair to use Obama like that. After all, Obama also said Prop 8 was "divisive and discriminatory." But that's absurd. Obama had to know that his words would be used by opponents of same-sex marriage. He himself is an opponent of same-sex marriage... except to the extent that he isn't, and I certainly think in his heart he's not, but that in his head he knew he had to say he was to get elected.

I don't blame him for this dishonesty. I think it's like the dishonesty of professing a belief in God if you don't have it. You're not going to get elected without that dishonesty, so we can just forget about all the good people who don't lie about such things. They're not going to make it to the presidency. Not in the near future anyway. But you can't have it both ways. You're responsible for the position you avow, and the Prop 8 proponents did nothing wrong using his voice like that. 

Rush Limbaugh calls my name... and calls out Obama for woman-kissing and other possible sexism.

Here's the transcript of a segment of today's show, where there was discussion of 2 related incidents: 1. The "don't touch my girlfriend" scene in Chicago where Obama, demonstrating how to vote, ordered a woman to kiss him, and 2. Obama's description of an ebola-related appearance at Emory University hospital: "I shook hands with, hugged, and kissed, not the doctors, but a couple of the nurses at Emory because of the valiant work that they did in treating one of the patients."

A woman had called in about that ebola incident, and — as Rush put it:

"[W]hat she thought was that since he made a big deal out of not kissing the doctors, that he wanted to make everybody aware that he wasn't gay. And her point was, what's wrong with being gay? 

My point would be that he used the stereotype that doctors are male and nurses are female. But, yeah, on top of that, what's wrong — within his world view — with men kissing men?

Well, he is married. If he was gay, that would be a problem....

Wait! If he's distinguishing kissing males and females, he's specifying that kissing is sexual, and kissing the women should be a problem for a man married to a woman. If it's not sexual, he should kiss both sexes indiscriminately (which would work to deny the sexuality of kissing unless he's bisexual).

... so he's going out of his way to say he's not gay. That's her interpretation. 

If that's correct, then Obama made a homophobia faux pas.  Rush connects that incident to the "don't touch my girlfriend" scene that I wrote about — here — yesterday. Rush describes what happened and says that some people think the scene was scripted. His theory — which is nothing like mine — is that it was supposed to make Obama seem attractive and supportive to women, to counteract Tina Brown's recent statement: "I don't think [Obama] makes [women] feel safe." Whether the Chicago incident was scripted or not, I didn't read it as a demonstration of making women feel safe. I thought it was an intrusion on the woman. But Rush proceeds to quote me:

Like Ann Althouse on her blog said, "Wait a second, I thought men weren't supposed to --" You know, you have to get consent to do this now on every college campus. You can't just kiss a woman without her permission, and you can't approach her and put your arm around without her permission, without her consent. Obama just forced his way on that woman. And she looked like she wanted it, by the way. She looked like she didn't mind, honored to be given a hug and a smooch by the president, cocksman A. 

In my book, it doesn't matter how she acted. He didn't know in advance how she would feel. Even if she loved it, he assumed he was welcome to impose on her body. And her reaction doesn't convince me that she loved it. She was on camera, overwhelmed by the most powerful man in the world, and forced to think quickly about what might be in her interest. How was rejecting him or acting offended even an option?

Rush continues:

So that happens, and everybody's laughing and Obama walks out around her and he's looking like he's pulled off some major score here. Talks about this guy, why would a brother want to embarrass me like this and so forth. So people are wondering if the whole thing was scripted since it followed, by one day, Tina Brown saying that Obama makes women feel unsafe.

Clearly this woman was not feeling unsafe. She's laughing. She's all excited. 

I don't think that's clear. She was put on the spot... by the President of the United States. She might be laughing out of sheer emotional overload, confusion, and the weirdness of it all. Are you allowed to fight off the advances of The Leader? Droit du seigneur?? Is there some core of personal autonomy and rectitude that I can voice right now? The safe bet is to let it all roll over you. Pretend you're into it. Safe bet. Women want to be safe. Tina says. Safety is one way to play the game of life. But the other players should not assume that your silence means consent. If they do, they don't really care about women. Yes mean yes. Silence does not mean yes. Silence may mean: I am subordinated.

Rush finishing the segment, trying — I think — to pick up on what I'd said:

But it's very clear that she did not sign a consent form before he embraced her. It wasn't an embrace. He put his arm around her shoulder. But there was no consent form. She didn't sign a consent form before he embraced her and kissed her. And that's illegal in many places in America now and on college campi. Just did it.

"Several major gay rights groups withdrew support Tuesday for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would bolster gay and transgender rights in the workplace..."

"... saying they fear that broad religious exemptions included in the current bill might compel private companies to begin citing objections similar to those that prevailed in a U.S. Supreme Court case last week."

Rea Carey, [National Gay and Lesbian Task Force]'s executive director, said in an interview that “If a private company can take its own religious beliefs and say you can't have access to certain health care, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to an interpretation that a private company could have religious beliefs that LGBT people are not equal or somehow go against their beliefs and therefore fire them. We disagree with that trend. The implications of Hobby Lobby are becoming clear. We do not take this move lightly.... We've been pushing for this bill for 20 years."...

A new, separate push to rewrite ENDA may serve as a useful political tool for gay rights organizations that have used previous election cycles to pressure Democrats to take up legislation important to their concerns. The threat of withholding campaign donations during the 2010 campaign cycle helped push Obama and congressional Democrats to push for repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. And Obama's decision to announce his support for same-sex marriage before his reelection in 2012 also was seen as a nod to the gay community, a reliable and leading source of campaign donations to Democratic candidates....

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), a lead sponsor of ENDA and the Senate’s first openly lesbian member, said Tuesday that she was reviewing the decision of groups to withdraw support for the bill. She noted that the bill’s religious exemption language had been tweaked last year to secure more support from Democrats and Republicans, “and there was clearly discomfort expressed at that point” by gay rights groups concerned that the changes might make it easier for employers to seek religious exemptions.

Well, this is great news for people who want to see politics get more vigorously contentious on the social issues, but it's very unpleasant for people in the middle — like me — who care about both gay rights and religious freedom.

After the Supreme Court issued its Hobby Lobby opinion, I blogged about the difference between a religious exemption from covering contraceptives for employees and a religious exemption from a ban on employment discrimination. That's about how the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) might apply, and Congress has the power to exclude ENDA from RFRA. Senator Baldwin is talking about an exemption (in addition to RFRA) that is written into ENDA itself. You can read the ENDA exemption here. I don't read that as applying to businesses like Hobby Lobby, but it shows congressional intent to accommodate religion, so it would be hard to read that as excluding the applicability of RFRA.

So I can see why the gay rights groups want explicit language saying RFRA does not apply, unless they want to show some empathy for the religious needs of those who feel compelled to discriminate against gay people. Why would they?! (Answer: To help the Democratic Party.) Clearly, some of them have chosen to take a stand and make this conflict an issue right now. I think it's good that there are special interest groups like this that are not simply fully allied with the political interests of Democrats (or Republicans). That's healthy. And painful.

"How the President Got to ‘I Do’ on Same-Sex Marriage."

A big NYT Magazine article by Jan Becker. Excerpt:

Despite the president’s stated opposition, even his top advisers didn’t believe that he truly opposed allowing gay couples to marry. “He has never been comfortable with his position,” David Axelrod, then one of his closest aides, told me....

“The politics of authenticity — not just the politics, but his own sense of authenticity — required that he finally step forward,” Axelrod said. “And the president understood that.”

Much more at the link.

ADDED: The Politics of Authenticity? Is that anything like the Politics of Meaning?

Mrs. Clinton recently criticized the way American society rewards selfishness and stigmatizes idealism, publicly embracing my call for a politics of meaning that addresses the way this society thwarts our deepest ethical, spiritual and psychological needs.

"Recently" = 1993.

"If it is unconscionable to support a company whose CEO once donated to the cause against marriage equality..."

"... why is it not unconscionable to support a candidate who opposed marriage equality as recently as 2008, and who was an integral part of an administration that embraced the Defense Of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton?"

Asks Andrew Sullivan, noting that Hillary Clinton only came out for marriage equality in 2013.

Was she then a bigot? On what conceivable grounds can the Democratic party support a candidate who until only a year ago was, according to the latest orthodoxy, the equivalent of a segregationist, and whose administration enacted more anti-gay laws and measures than any in American history?

As I said in "What accounts for this sudden and shocking spike in bigotry?," opposition to same-sex marriage became bigotry, for purposes of the American political culture, in the year 2013. At that point, all the politicos who'd crafted some other position in order to get through a difficult transition got the message that now was the time to say yes to gay marriage, and this was the big opportunity for every politician who had secretly supported marriage equality or who didn't mind it enough to miss out on getting in good with the sector of our society that had come to believe in the righteousness of marriage equality. 2013 was the political amnesty year, and Hillary took that amnesty. Anyone who didn't jump at that point looks very different moving forward.

Now, Sullivan opposes the hounding of Brendan Eich, so understand his question that context. And I have no idea whether Eich still opposes marriage equality. His contribution of $1,000 to the Prop 8 cause came in 2008, 5 years before what I'm calling the amnesty year. Another key difference is that Hillary didn't make contributions to the anti-marriage-equality cause. She merely staked out the same safe, practical political position that other politicians used at the time. And she was a politician, so she needed to have something to say on this topic. Eich was a businessman, so he didn't need any position. He wanted to take a position.

I do think it's a bit ridiculous that there was a year when everyone was supposed to "evolve" on the subject. Obama said he'd evolved, and so everyone was supposed to be evolved alongside him. But Obama and plenty of other politicians were already fine with same-sex marriage. All that had evolved was the interest in saying so. 

Obama and the Pope.

Questions asked by reporters about Obama's meeting with Pope Francis and the closest approximation of an answer received from Obama:

The first questioner asks 3 questions, which I'm paraphrasing: 1. Did they talk about the Obamacare and the requirement of birth control coverage? 2. Did they talk about gay rights? and 3. Did they talk about Putin? 

Obama utters about 500 nonresponsive words: He says that they spent most of the time talking about income inequality and world peace, that "the theme that stitched our conversation... was... empathy," and that he explained American immigration reform to the Pope who Obama thinks must be "very mindful of the plight of so many immigrants" because the Pope "came from Latin America."

"[Y]es, it’s a huge relief that the woman to whom Obama spoke of his own 'evolution' on marriage equality is no longer closeted...."

"And yes, this is not news to me....  and yes, I’m glad for her survival of cancer and her own evolution as a free woman."

Somebody's crying for attention.

"The conservative activist who gained fame during the 2012 election for 'unskewing' polls favorable to Barack Obama explained this weekend his newest revelation: the president is 'actually' gay."

What accounts for this sudden and shocking spike in bigotry?

"A year and a half ago, even the president of the United States opposes gay marriage.  President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed DOMA into law.  Now all of a sudden, after Obama changes his mind, the whole country supports gay marriage, and those who don't are bigots."

What accounts for this sudden and shocking spike in bigotry?

It depends on what the meaning of bigotry is. (To paraphrase that humanitarian, Bill Clinton.)



But — to quote Marbury v. Madison — as quoted in the DOMA case, United States v. Windsor, "‘[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ ” Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 566 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 7) (quoting Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803))." (I know, who quotes Marbury like that? And what the hell was Zivotofsky v. Clinton? Was there some insuperable urge to bring up Bill Clinton? The Clinton in Zivotofsky was Hillary Clinton, in her Secretary of State role, and this was the case about the State Department's refusal to list Israel as the place of birth on a U.S. passport for a person born in Jerusalem.)

So if it's the Court's duty to define the terms, and opposition to same-sex marriage is defined as nothing but bigotry, then it's the Court's decision in Windsor that accounts for the sudden and shocking spike in bigotry.

But let's be clear about a few things.

1. The majority opinion in Windsor did not use the word "bigotry" (or "bigot"). That word appears in Chief Justice Roberts's dissenting opinion: "At least without some more convincing evidence that the Act’s principal purpose was to codify malice, and that it furthered no legitimate government interests, I would not tar the political branches with the brush of bigotry." Justice Alito also uses the word: "Acceptance of [Windsor's] argument would cast all those who cling to traditional beliefs about the nature of marriage in the role of bigots or superstitious fools."

2.  The majority's expression is "a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group," which might sound extreme, but it appears in the case law going back to the early 70s, and it's a stock phrase used to characterize the government's interest when the Court is applying minimal scrutiny and therefore needs to say that there is no legitimate governmental interest.

3. What that "bare... desire to harm" language really means is: We don't want to have to heighten scrutiny for this discriminated-against group — they don't want responsibility for what that would mean in future cases — but we do want to be able to strike this down while staying at the minimal scrutiny level.

4. This doctrinal maneuver produces the strange impression that the Court is calling Bill Clinton and the majority of the members of the 104th Congress a bunch of bigots.

5. Now lots of traditionalists have the raw material to whine and cry about being called bigots. I doubt if that will work out very well for them, but they've been stewing in their own juice for a long time, and they're going to find it hard to stop. Unfortunately, same-sex marriage was originally presented as a conservative idea, and traditionalists could have gotten out in front of liberals on this issue if they'd listened to the original argument and predicted the future better, and now they'll have to scramble to improve their image. If they think crying about being called bigots — when, again, the majority didn't even use that word — is going to help, I just have to laugh. You took the opportunity to oppress when it was there, and now that it's gone, you want to say you are oppressed. Man up, losers. You lost. And you deserved to lose. Now, stop acting like losers. If you can. (I bet you can't!)

"Obama’s Pen May Shape Scope of Marriage Ruling."

NYT headline. The article is about what the administration might have to do after the Supreme Court issues its opinion on the Defense of Marriage Act.

"The heckler wrote: 'After years of these lonely, isolating and dehumanizing experiences...'"

"'... I’ve only recently been able to find the strength to advocate for myself and millions of others.'"

So basically she waited until laws were changed, the political battles were fought, and even TV commercials and marketing ads contain openly gay themes in people presented as normal Americans. Then, when gay marriage and family life is normalizing legally and socially, she comes out of the closet as an aggressive, rude activist.

Sounds like she waited until it was safe, and now she is jumping on the wagon after it's left the barn, trying to be loud and attract attention to her false pretense of bravery.

Top-rated comment on the WaPo column "Why I confronted the first lady."

Ellen Sturtz, the 56-year-old lesbian activist, who heckled Michelle Obama and says she was "taken aback" when Michelle "came right down in my face."

As discussed in this earlier post today, Michelle Obama said "Listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving," and now Sturtz would like us to know that "she told Obama she was happy to take the microphone to plead her case," which — she claims — "appeared to fluster the first lady."

“I said I want your husband to sign the executive order,” Sturtz said. “Her husband could sign this order tonight and protect 22 percent of the work force in this country.”

Sturtz said she paid $500 to attend the fundraiser, part of a protest cooked up by the gay rights group GetEqual, which gained notice in Obama’s first term for hectoring him during speeches and demanding more action on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

I get a whiff of sexism from the use of the word "fluster." That's a word that people have traditionally used — this is my observation — to portray a woman as incapable of standing her ground and dealing with emotional turmoil.

The (unlinkable) OED defines the transitive verb "to fluster" to mean "To flurry, confuse":

1785   A. Murphy Way to keep Him (new ed.) i. 26   Ma'am, if I was as you, I would not fluster myself about it.
1816   Scott Antiquary III. v. 112   The aged housekeeper was no less flustered and hurried in obeying the numerous..commands of her mistress.

I find it arrogant and annoying for this protester to claim to have flustered the First Lady. The First Lady was angered (and justifiably).

Michelle Obama — unlike Barack — will not be interrupted.

Everyone's paying attention to the way Michelle Obama insisted that everyone pay attention to her or she's leaving. When some lady yelled about gay rights during a fundraising speech, the First Lady said "One of the things I don’t do well is this" and that the heckler could "listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving" and "You all decide. You have one choice."

The "you" is the heckler when she says "you can take the mic." But the "you" in "You all decide" and "You have one choice" is probably the whole audience. "You all" is a way to indicate the larger group, and she says that after the crowd, we're told, applauds loudly. She doesn't order the throng to throttle the heckler, but she's essentially saying you need to shut this woman up, because obviously, no one there wants Michelle Obama to walk out.

10 days earlier, Barack Obama was famously interrupted, also by a female heckler. He was talking about his military policies, and she was anti-war. Obama — amazing many people — went off script, engaged with her criticism, and even said she — or at least her "voice" — was "worth paying attention to"

Obama departed from his prepared script by responding: "Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are being held on a hunger strike. I'm willing to cut the young lady who interrupted me some slack because it's worth being passionate about. Is this who we are? Is that something our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that."...

After she was led out of the auditorium, Obama was applauded when he said: "The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.... Obviously, I do not agree with much of what she said, and obviously she wasn't listening to me in much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong."

Obama had his reasons for engaging with his protester. In fact, it could have been planned political theater. It might have made him look good, though it's also easy to mock him for it (or, more aptly, to mock the entire speech for going this way and that, evasively). There's no way the heckler made Michelle Obama look good, especially in contrast to her husband's recent performance. It's all too easy to portray her as arrogant and unconcerned about the interests of everyone who came to the event.

But let's be a little sympathetic. She began with self-deprecation: "One of the things I don’t do well is this." And I hear in that a reference to Barack: He does do these things well. You just saw him make vivid political theater out of engaging with a woman who yelled at him. I can't do that. I can't risk that. 

Even the statements she did make are getting critiqued! She attends these events, gives a dramatic reading of the lines in a competent, actorly fashion, and that's her public role. She can't ad lib policy on the topic of some random person's choice. (In this case, it was some executive order about federal contractors discriminating against gay people.) She only wanted to say: The planners of this event are responsible for keeping perfect decorum, and my appearance is conditional on their meeting this responsibility. They've already failed me, and they need to step up and get it right immediately.

On the spot, she found a way to say that in simple language that did not involve smacking down the heckler or ordering any minions around. She used the language of choice when addressing others and spoke of her own choice as if she were a simple and powerless person who could either continue to speak or stop.

Considering the alternatives, she did pretty well.

"Sorry, gays. Obama prefers Latinos to you."

"But thanks for all the contributions!"

"Obama did not tout himself as the civil rights candidate in either of his two presidential runs."

"But if gay marriage becomes commonplace throughout America by the end of his second term, something that seems entirely possible right now, that could become an important part of his legacy as president."

Writes Perry Bacon Jr., in a piece written a month ago, which I ran across as I was researching the demographics of support for gay marriage. It's often assumed that black people oppose gay marriage. There's a delusion that the GOP has an opportunity to appeal to black people by leveraging this opposition. How much would black people need to loathe gay marriage to abandon the Democratic Party over this issue?

By the way, those who don't like seeing Obama get credit for anything should hope that the Supreme Court — which has 2 pending cases on the subject — finds a constitutional right to marry a person of one's own sex, because if the issue is left to political decisionmaking, we will end up in the same place and same-sex marriage will be inscribed in Obama's legacy.

The jurisdiction questions in the same-sex marriage cases.

Explained in a layperson-friendly way by lawprofs:

Obama thinks it's "important for the court to weigh in" on gay marriage.

"My hope is that the court reaches these issues," he said, alluding to the standing problems in the 2 cases, which could keep the Court from reaching the merits.

The standing problem in the DOMA case resulted from Obama's own decision not to defend the law. I'm sure Obama — as an erstwhile lawprof — knows that the Supreme Court doesn't just "weigh in" on issues. It can only decide real adversarial disputes between parties, and his refusal to defend the federal statute is the basis of the argument that this is not a "case" within the meaning of Article III of the Constitution.