- This is why there are things we don’t say about race (even when they are true) | Joseph Harker | Comment is free | The Guardian Really excellent take-down of some very common racist arguments, such as the risible claim that the Rotherham rapes were allowed to take place because police are afraid of enforcing laws on minorities. (Via).
- After a few months of hiatus, A Feminist Challenging Transphobia has returned to active blogging. Huzzah!
- Alito Joins Court Majority to Protect Pregnant Workers From Discrimination (I think G&W posted about this case in comments.)
- Ex-Prosecutor Apologizes to Wrongfully Convicted Glenn Ford After 30 Years on Death Row — The Atlantic “I end with the hope that providence will have more mercy for me than I showed Glenn Ford. But, I am also sobered by the realization that I certainly am not deserving of it.”
- ‘To the man who has been taking my Wall Street Journal’ | Berkeleyside And be sure to read the followup article as well.
- Courageous Trans Teen Stands Up For Her Bathroom Rights And Finds Community Support.
- French Mailman Spends 33 Years Building Epic Palace From Pebbles Collected On His 18-Mile Mail Route | Bored Panda
- Call-Centring to Dispose of Sealions. This cracked me up.
- How to utterly ruin the game “20 Questions.” – Ozy
- How drug testing could actually reduce racial disparities in the workplace – Vox
- France Says New Roofs Must Be Covered In Plants Or Solar Panels | ThinkProgress Sounds like a potentially excellent idea, although I imagine some problems could be created by the regulations making new buildings more expensive to construct, although this could be mitigated by a tax deduction for spending on new eco-roofs.
- A conservative judge’s devastating take on why voter ID laws are evil – LA Times It’s Judge Posner, unsurprisingly. His entire dissent can be read here (pdf link).
- Unplanned pregnancies cost taxpayers $21 billion each year – The Washington Post
- How to save Star Trek: Make it the True Detective of science fiction – Vox This sounds like a wonderful idea, but I doubt they’d do it with Star Trek. I’d love to see a “anthology” sci-fi TV show, though, exploring a consistent science fiction universe from different perspectives each season.
- Closing the TV-Guest Gender Gap — The Atlantic A fascinating article about the enormous effort involved in creating a 50/50 gender split of guests on a talk show.
- A Note on Call-Out Culture – Briarpatch Magazine
- The Supreme Court is about to tackle online threats for the first time | The Verge
- “Continuous rules” and “Immediate rules” in role playing games. An interesting analysis of RPG rules by game designer Ben Lehman, who sometimes comments here at “Alas.” (Although I think “Enacted rules” would have been a better term than “Immediate rules.”)
- Sweeping ‘New Motor Voter’ bill clears Oregon Legislature on partisan vote | OregonLive.com So from now on, anyone who gets a driver’s license in Oregon will, by default, be registered to vote at the same time (or when they turn 18), unless they actively opt out. Republicans are against this, although I’m unclear on what the rationalization is this time.
- It’s 2050 And Feminism Has Finally Won
- The adult sympathies of The Breakfast Club / The Dissolve
- ‘The Birth of a Nation’: The racist movie everyone should watch – The Washington Post A good illustration of how racism in art is not just a moral flaw, but an artistic flaw.
- A $10,169 blood test is everything wrong with American health care – Vox Total market failure.
- Prison and White People « The Hooded Utilitarian How white people given unjustly long sentences are victims of anti-black racism.
- Do You Have to Be Japanese to Make Manga? (with images, tweets) · debaoki · Storify
- The Benevolent Stalker. An interesting slash terrifying post by a stalker explaining how what he does is benevolent and not like the thing those evil bad stalkers do. After getting a lot of horrified responses, he quit stalking the woman, got psychological help, and wrote two follow-up posts: A Re-Evaluation of Romance and Stalking Seminar. What I find most fascinating is the way he created an imaginary reality for himself to live in.
- Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers asks on her Facebook for people to post their Obamacare horror stories, and thousands of people (including me) responded with personal stories of how Obamacare has helped them.
- Decades of human waste have made Mount Everest a ‘fecal time bomb’ – The Washington Post
- Slender Man defendants: Trying 12-year-olds as adults is illogical and barbaric.
- Some Speculation About the Google Truth Machine – Windypundit
- Woman held in psychiatric ward after (correctly) saying Obama follows her on Twitter
- “Organisers of a national disability conference in Melbourne have come under fire after a speaker had to be carried onto the stage because it was not wheelchair accessible.” It’s even worse than that sounds.
- Is it time to stop reading books by white men? Good review essay. (This and the prior two links via Skepchick.)
- Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » “Could a Quantum Computer Have Subjective Experience?” I found this very interesting, although there were parts of it I couldn’t fully follow. When I started reading it I was confused over what the words “decoherence” and “classical” mean in this context, and I found that reading this lecture through the end of the section entitled “Story #1” clarified those terms enormously.
- Fair Process, Not Criminal Process, Is the Right Way to Address Campus Sexual Assault
I pretty much stopped reading #35 after the first paragraph:
If you start off by painting all of your opponents as “defense-minded advocates and MRAs,” you’re a) woefully uninformed about who your opponents are, and therefore unable ; and/or b) a deceptive asshole.
I’m going with B: If someone is smart enough to get into Yale law, they know full well what they’re doing.
Meh. There is good writing out there, but this won’t be it.
#4 is pretty extraordinary IMO. Not the fact that Louisiana is trying to deny the exoneree his compensation (a relatively trivial amount based on 30 years of false imprisonment), but that an ex-prosecutor made some of the comments he made in that letter. I wish he’d had that attitude while he was actually working as a prosecutor, and I wish it was a lot more common.
The argument in 22 continues to be embarrassingly bad.
Characters aren’t individual diamonds to be evaluated per some objective scale if Good Characterization. They are building blocks in a larger story. The extent to which they are “good characters” depends on how well they fill their role in the story.
Let’s do REAL artistic analysis of Birth of a Nation. It’s easy.
1. What is it trying to say? Well, it’s trying to be a nostalgic ode to a lost and defeated slave society, it’s trying to be a condemnation of the harms inflicted upon the south by northern victory, it’s trying to be a lionization of the southern manhood that protects southern women and children from the unleashed black menace that has arisen due to northern interference.
2. Does it say it well? Everyone seems to agree that it does. I’ve read African Anericans writing that it left them, albeit only until the movie ended and the spell was lifted, rooting for the Klan. Let’s answer this one “yes.”
3. Was this worth saying? Nope.
With that in mind, was the characterization of black characters as creepy racist stereotypes an artistic flaw? Well, more specifically phrased, the question reduces to “would more full and complete and non racist characterization if black characters in Birth of a Nation have helped the movie say the things from (1) more effectively? Or less?”
Less. Definitely less.
If someone wants to make the case otherwise, they need to stop comparing depth of character or memorability or any other features between the white and black characters in the movie. That’s facile. There is no objective standard against which characters can be measured and graded in that fashion. They need to discuss what the movie was trying to accomplish, and whether it’s treatment of black characters helped or hurt.
Otherwise, if you claim to be critiquing (2) but your demands would change (1), what you’re really doing is trying to answer (3), but without the courage necessary to face that head on.
G&w, I read “defense-minded advocates” as “advocates concerned about defendants or a legal defense”, not as “defensive”, which seems to be your reading. Edit: or, I mean, maybe it isn’t, but I’m not sure why you’d object to a characterization of them as concerned with the rights of defendants?
Another trans teen story. He came out at his Jewish day school, and the school organized a ceremony to welcome him. http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/74231/transgender-teen-comes-out-in-emotional-ceremony-at-tehiyah/
And some more information about Tom. http://forward.com/articles/217453/can-jewish-transgender-teens-successful-coming-out/
Patrick:
Perhaps part of the problem is the example; “Birth of a Nation,” even if it was a better piece of beautifully-filmed racist crap, would nonetheless remain racist crap.
Let’s talk about The Spirit instead, the classic comic by Will Eisner (one of the most influential comic book artists ever; the Eisner awards are named after him). For about ten years, the Spirit had a sidekick named Ebony White, a Black kid of indeterminate age who spoke in a stereotypical Black accent and was drawn to look like this.
Okay, let’s apply your “REAL” artistic analysis to Ebony White.
1. What is it trying to say? Well, we know that Eisner was trying to advance the comics form and create work of lasting value[*] by bringing new storytelling techniques into comics. And he was trying to create fun, heroic narratives. With Ebony, Eisner was attempting to give his main character a likable junior sidekick and friend, something like Robin (of “Batman and…”).
[*] Eisner was so sure he was creating work of lasting value that he was the only important comics creator of his generation who refused to give up the copyright to his creation – The Spirit’s copyright is to this day owned by Eisner’s widow.
2. Does it say it well? Overall, The Spirit was a remarkable formal achievement. But Eisner said many times that he intended Ebony to be a self-possessed and admirable character. Depicting the character with racist tropes makes it hard for contemporary readers to see any of the comics focusing on Ebony without wincing (and has made keeping the Spirit in print challenging for publishers). Even by the mid 1940s, the racist depiction of Ebony was criticized by black readers – and by a new assistant Eisner hired, Jules Fieffer – which is why Eisner finally wrote the character out. So no, what Eisner was trying to say with Ebony, was not said well.
3. Was this worth saying? Yes, it was. Eisner’s work was and is important, and – even ignoring his formal achievements – fun melodramas and adventure stories are worth telling because they make people feel good. A self-possessed, admirable Black character in a 1940s comic by a world-class creator would have been worth saying, and in many ways groundbreaking, if Eisner had been able to pull it off.
So what if Ebony hadn’t been an embarrassing racist caricature – what if Eisner, like his Black readers, had been able to recognize those racist tropes as racism, and had written and drawn Ebony without using those tropes? I think it’s clear that in every way, that would have improved The Spirit; it would have done a better job of serving Eisner’s intentions, and it would have made the work more lasting. The racism in Ebony White’s depiction is an artistic flaw.
I think the way you and I view art is very different. That there are no “objective standards” is besides the point; this is art, not physics, and that aesthetic standards cannot be “objective” doesn’t make them irrelevant or dishonest. And while “did the work accomplish its intentions” is one way of viewing and judging art, you seem to think it’s the ONLY valid way, and if so I think you’re mistaken about that.
You may not realize that in the minds of many feminists–and, frankly, many members of the public–“rape defense attorneys” are pretty low on the social tolerance scale. Based on some conversations I’ve had with feminists a surprising # of folks place them almost in the same category as the accused. (ETA: Don’t forget that a lot of people conflate “accused” and “rapist.” A good test for that is to look and see whether they conflate “accuser” and “victim.” And, whaddya know…)
Also, even if you ignore that, a ton of those concerned folks aren’t actually “defense” people per se; they’re civil rights lovers who include defense in a general trend. (I have never defended an accused rapist in my life, and don’t plan to start. I don’t even do defense law.) Guess those folks are…. MRAs? Um, no.
Again: This is the sort of thing which is easily forgivable in the context of a conversation, or by someone who doesn’t understand these distinctions. but a Yale law student who puts it in the first paragraph of her carefully-edited post? no excuses there.
I just took it to imply a contrast between people pushing for these different rules, who tend to be focused on the accuser, and people worried about due process and the rights of the accused/defendant–as you say, as part of a general trend, not necessarily because they defend accused rapists themselves. To be frank, I think it requires an extremely uncharitable reading to interpret this as being negative towards the “defense-minded” people the author mentions.
Three things to this: 1) As I said above, I didn’t specifically mean lawyers actively defending rapists. But even if I was, that negative opinion may be the case in a casual discussion, but–as you say–this is a well-thought-out article, and the intended audience might be assumed to be nonfeminist and/or more level-headed than these casual arguments often get.
2) when I’ve seen feminists be angry at rape defense attorneys, it wasn’t that they were defending rapists, it was how they were defending them–eg arguing the victim had sex with other people, therefore would have wanted to have sex with this person. I’m not saying there aren’t feminists who dislike such attorneys as a class, but every time I personally have seen that anger expressed it’s because of specific behavior. Now, you may say that such arguments are the lawyers doing their due diligence, and I might not argue with you, but it’s still not the case that those feminists are just making an argument by association.
3) You know how you get annoyed when people say you must disagree because you don’t know all the facts they know, and if you just knew those facts you’d agree with them?
This. Especially since the author also specifically mentions her admiration for “defense minded” Nancy Gertner.
G&W, you really seem to be bending over backwards to take offense.
Ampersand- I’m not saying that racism can never result in artistic flaws.
I am, however, saying that racism, sexism, whatever, aren’t inherently artistic flaws.
This issue bothers me because a lot of the time people making this mistake are being sneaky. They lack the courage to say that they think certain works of art shouldn’t exist. So they dissemble, and claim that they really are just trying to critique the works quality, to point out ways it could be better. But when you unpack what they mean, “better” means “something else.”
racism, sexism, whatever, aren’t inherently artistic flaws
Are they *never* artistic flaws? Or do you mean that they are sometimes artistic flaws, and sometimes not?
Regarding “The Birth of a Nation,” I found this recent article on The A.V. Club (an iteration of their ‘For Our Consideration’ column), and the ensuing discussion in the comments, really interesting: At 100 years old, Birth Of A Nation remains a troubling contradiction. I have no academic or amateur film analysis or history background though, so I suppose one’s mileage may vary!
“inherently.”
I’m trying to draw a distinction between “you shouldn’t have made a story about that,” versus “your story is poorly crafted.” “Racism” is sometimes a “you shouldn’t have made a story about that” kind of issue. At other times it is a “your story is poorly crafted” issue, or both.
I agree with all of this (although I’d say “in my opinion you shouldn’t have made this story,” to avoid people accusing me of wanting the government to shut down artists or whatever). (ETA: I’m not saying YOU would make that accusation, Patrick. Just people in general.)
I’d say that “Birth of a Nation” is an example of “both.” There are ways in which Griffith’s racism led him to (imo) poor craftmanship; but even if the craft had been perfect throughout, it still would have been a horribly racist work.
Do you think it’s possible (in the discussion at Thing of Things) you jumped the gun too quickly on the (paraphrased) “you only say that because you’re afraid to say what you really mean” argument? My reflexive response to that sort of argument is: you don’t know what other people are secretly thinking.
Not particularly.
I don’t “know” what other people are thinking. But I can make educated assumptions.
…kind of like you’re doing when you draw inferences from the nature of a work to the beliefs of the artist…
In only one of those cases are you assuming bad faith on the part of the person you’re arguing with. But whatever.
kind of like you’re doing when you draw inferences from the nature of a work to the beliefs of the artist…
Do you think this is never possible? Sometimes it’s much more of a stretch (John Scalzi has written with amusement about people who assumed Old Man’s War meant he was secretly a pro-military libertarian), but often it’s not, particularly if the work is polemical.
I think it’s very possible. You can get it wrong, of course.
Regarding 1:
“such as the risible claim that the Rotherham rapes were allowed to take place because police are afraid of enforcing laws on minorities.”
There was certainly SOME kind of enforcement issue, as the authorities failed to act on multiple complaints. I won’t claim that it’s established that the issue was that police are afraid of enforcing laws against Muslims or “East Asians”. But I sure want to know what the issue was.
Regarding #’s 12 and 19:
Judge Posner’s arguments in opposing the Wisconsin law make some good points. He’s quite correct in many of the flaws he points out. However, some of them at least could be fixed administratively. For example, he notes that DMV offices close at 5:00 PM, making it difficult for many people to get to them and get their documentation. That could be fixed by simply holding them open until, say, 7:00 or 8:00 PM one or two nights a week. In fact, a lot of people who need to go to the DMV for a lot of other reasons would find that very helpful – but then it’s well known that a focus on customer needs and convenience is not generally a hallmark of government. Such a law could easily require this.
Other issues I find less persuasive. For example, he states:
I don’t see that this should be an issue. If someone wants to vote, having to plan and act even a month or so in advance the first time you live in a particular location does not seem to rise to the level of being unduly restrictive of your rights. Now, if it took 3 or 4 months to get the government to respond to requests for documentation, that would be an issue. But somewhere in between I think this argument fails.
Now, with regards to Oregon:
First, if you look at the requirements to get an Oregon drivers’ license, you’ll note that you do not need to be a U.S. citizen to get one, you just need to be a legal resident of the U.S. So unless there’s a provision in the law to prevent a non-citizen from being automatically registered to vote – and I don’t see where there is such – then to my mind this legislation is fatally flawed.
Then there’s this:
No provision at law prevents transfer of any data to anyone. It makes it a crime to do so, but it doesn’t actually prevent it – in fact, if the release was in error it’s probably not even a crime. And once it’s out, it’s out. The only way to keep the Board of Elections from making your information public is to not let them have it in the first place. Consider that we just heard today that the Australian immigration authorities just accidentally released passport and other information for President Obama and other world leaders. If that can happen, don’t tell me that a law will prevent other information from getting out.
The general ignorance regarding data security is appalling. So is the attitude among many politicians that “We can stop things from happening by passing a law against it.” It’s one reason why I oppose gun registration. “Oh, we’ll keep the information secure, and government officials won’t misuse it.” Bullshit and bullshit. The only way that the information will be secure and safe against government misuse is if the government doesn’t have it in the first place.
When I needed a copy of my birth certificate, it took about 8 weeks to get it from NY. When I applied for it, I was told that it would take 6 to 12 weeks.
Voter registration is my bat signal, so…
RonF- respectfully, you have no clue.
First, the Oregon law sets up a system to 1) share info, and 2) register those who qualify. The bill specifically states that “The person shall be registered to vote if the county clerk determines the person is qualified to vote… Etc. “This is probably redundant text as other areas of Oregon law already cover this. I suspect that those promoting the bill were so worried about it being mis characterized by anti voter conservatives that they put this text in an additional time. Sadly, this seems not to have helped.
Second, the DMV is already the government. Not sure where you’re going with that one. The idea that the DMV shouldn’t send info to the Clerk because it might get misused is about the dumbest argument imaginable. Both are the government. If you’re registered to vote and you have a license, both already have significant information on you. The additional exposure created by this transfer is laughable.
Using the current methods by which the insurance companies I work with rate secured data exposure, I don’t think this would even increase your premium. (The comparison I am making is between X voters registered via normal means, versus X voters registered via this bills process. More registered voters would make a difference in comparison to less, obviously, as the usual rating structure is based on total people with records stored. This is a new and fluid area of insurance though, so this may be subject to sudden change as experience with data security liability is gained.)
For example, in Pennsylvania (where the voter ID law was not implemented precisely because of issues like this), some remote locations had “nearest” DMV offices that were only open one day a week (and the “nearest” ones might be quite far away, in the less-dense central regions of the state). Also, of course, opening a couple of extra hours a couple of days a week–it’s mostly Republicans pushing these laws, do you think they’ll fund extra hours for DMV offices at the same time? (The supposedly free voter ID program in Pennsylvania was underfunded as it was, btw.)
If you’re talking about doing voter ID in a way that doesn’t disenfranchise people, you’re essentially talking about creating, maintaining, and funding a national ID program. That is not a minor bureaucratic or financial program, and even if we worked out how to do it, it wouldn’t be done in the next couple of years.
Ok. The data security just clicked for me. I get what the conservatives are saying.
In the status quo, if your 16 year old daughter gets a drivers license, the DMV has her data but the clerk doesn’t. If you as an adult have a license and are registered to vote, both entities have your data.
With this law, the clerk might get access to your daughters data as part of the mass data transfer. The clerk wouldn’t normally get that data until your daughter turned 18 and registered to vote.
That’s also a REALLY terrible argument against this law. Seriously- this is close to parody. If you’re that worried about your kids data security, don’t get them a license. The license itself is by far the bigger concern anyway, since it’s accessible by more people on a day to day basis.
The difference is that DMV information is not publicly available. But apparently the voter registration lists are. The additional exposure to the government is laughable. The additional exposure to the public is not.
Again – that’s a good point. They should. And they should for a lot of reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with voter ID. In such a case as to where they would refuse to do so in order to restrict the ability of people to get IDs, the argument is valid.
…is THAT what this is about?
The information in question is “name, address, age.” This is the same information that they already publish if you are registered to vote. And is in the phone book.
If this is a serious issue, I expect you to go out RIGHT NOW, NO SERIOUSLY I MEAN YOU RIGHT NOW, and have your name struck from the voter registration rolls.
Otherwise I’m calling this for “made up controversy created by people willing to subvert public confidence in the electoral system for partisan gain.” And I can’t express on a moderated blog how I feel about the integrity or moral worth of people who do that.
It is, actually, about the data transfer if you actually look at the Republicans talking points on the subject. It’s not about the fact that voter rolls are published. And the data transfer is a non issue. Plus the data, on the whole and in full, is searchable by PIs already, so…
Any updates from Robert, Ampersand? I just sent him my third promised donation for his year (?) of incarceration, and was wondering if you’d heard from him lately. I asked around Christmas but didn’t get a response.
An example of anti-feminist cartooning: The combination of desperate loneliness and simmering hate is breathtaking. Content warning: Misogyny that goes to 11.
“And is in the phone book.”
Do you realize how many people – especially people below the age of, say, 35 – don’t have land lines and are not in the phone book?
“If this is a serious issue, I expect you to go out RIGHT NOW, NO SERIOUSLY I MEAN YOU RIGHT NOW, and have your name struck from the voter registration rolls.”
It’s not a serious issue to me. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a serious issue to someone else, and that they shouldn’t have the choice. Heck, you’d be surprised how many people I’ve met who don’t vote because they don’t want to take a chance on getting called up for jury duty.
Amp – it took me a couple of seconds to realize that the robot’s last speech balloon was not misprinted but was deliberately obscured – and what actually had BEEN obscured. It’s no lie that there ARE guys out there that have that attitude. Of course, I’ve met women who have had that attitude towards men, too.
Elusis – I just posted a new update from Robert. Good timing!
RonF- they do have that choice. You get a letter asking if you want to opt out.
Manufactured. Outrage. Designed. To. Undermine. Confidence. In. American. Democracy.
No forgiveness for this.
I greatly enjoyed 27 hilariously bad maps that explain nothing. (I started laughing out loud at map #3, “How far away is Ohio”, and didn’t stop giggling until the end.)
No, I wouldn’t. And fuck them. You don’t wanna fulfill your responsibilities as a citizen? Fine. Just don’t expect to be able to exercise all of your privileges as a citizen.
But Patrick is absolutely right, here. If he isn’t and it’s not manufactured outrage, those folks are just being silly heads.
Jake:
Hm. So your ability to exercise your privileges as a citizen should be a function of your willingness to fulfill your responsibilities as a citizen, eh?
Love the cartoon.
Discrimination as etiquette: How public reaction to Trevor Noah’s tweets, and Indiana’s Religious Freedom law, establish the bounds of contemporary acceptable behavior.
An example of anti-feminist cartooning: The combination of desperate loneliness and simmering hate is breathtaking. Content warning: Misogyny that goes to 11.
Ampersand, are you sure that guy is for real? His family name is “fuck her” in suburb French (foutre elle) I do not pretend to be able to tell a troll from an agent provocateur from a sincere believer… not that there is any difference in how those three should be treated.
And if his family really is Futrell, either misogyny runs in his family, or I’m impressed by the universe’s sense of humor.
Nobody: That’s a great link, thanks.
Pesho: I think it’s a pen name, AND I think he’s for real (in the sense of, I think the cartoon was sincerely meant). But I’m not 100% sure.
Fellow liberals: Don’t harass the bigots, please.
Pesho & Amp,
Dave Futrelle isn’t the guy who wrote the comic. He’s the guy who runs We Hunted The Mammoth which documents what’s happening in the filthiest sewers of the MRA community.. He found this comic at The Blue Pill on reddit. Since he doesn’t know where the original came from, it’s certainly possible that this is satire. It’s really hard to tell when you see what he regularly finds.
Oh, whoops, I assumed from what Pesho wrote that Futrelle was a name of the cartoonist. Thanks for the correction.
Boy Scouts in New York hire openly gay Eagle Scout in spite of national rules – The Washington Post
By the way, I really like the drawing on the post about the letter from Robert–very evocative.
Somewhat related to another thread: Does anyone else get the feeling that a lot of people are using a lot of different definitions of “punching” in the phrase “punching up vs. punching down”?
Bound to happen, Amp. We all saw this coming. The Philadelphia Council was defying National and instead of simply pulling it’s charter (Councils are chartered by National just as units are chartered by Councils) it tried to split the baby with “You can be gay until you’re 18, then you’re out.” That wasn’t going to fly and everyone knew it. The more cynical among us figured that the people who came up with the rule knew it too and was lying to everyone. I do know that the person who came from National to ostensibly get our opinions on what the BSA’s course of action should be prior to the rule change had already made up his mind on the issue and was not shy in telling us.
A tumblr post rather similar to the one that compared the faces of Elsa, Anna, and Rapunzel, pointing out a broader pattern in male vs female faces in Disney flicks. I’m not sold on the idea that there’s huge variation in the male faces, but it’s still broader than the variation in the female faces. Very interesting.
It was very like “don’t ask don’t tell.” A stupid, unworkable rule that was only put out in the first place because people didn’t seem ready for the truth.
Is this a bad thing? Being stupid and unworkable are certainly bad things (in rules) but sometimes it’s the best you can do. We should all be relieved when we get to quit being stupid and having things not work, though. Good for New York.
Our local BSA Council is a very small one, the nation’s smallest, actually, just the one town. The website says, “We are an inclusive, diverse and welcoming part of the [name of town] community, open to all that support the values of preparing young people for life. ”
That’s it. They’ve been completely ignoring this no-gays thing for a lot of years, both kids and adults, on the theory that no one would have the nerve to challenge it in the SF Bay Area, in a town where maybe half the parents are lawyers. I wonder how many other Councils have been flying under the radar on this.
Susan: a BSA council that only encompasses one town? That’s amazing. That’s also incredibly small, I should think. I thought the BSA had merged all those into other councils a long time ago. They must be very well endowed and funded.
I’d be very interested in knowing what council that is, although I can understand your reluctance in tying your screen name to a particular small- or medium-sized municipality.
” I wonder how many other Councils have been flying under the radar on this.”
I’d say a lot.
Amp, I really don’t think much of that Amanda Marcotte posting. Here’s the first line of it:
But from what I’ve read, that’s not the case – as Marcotte herself could have found out if she’d done some research.
Read the whole link, it’s not long.
Interestingly enough, later on in her posting Marcotte says of the owner’s statement of why they have at least temporarily closed “Of course, there’s always a chance he’s lying. God knows that the right has fully embraced the idea that lying for the cause is acceptable behavior.” It seems to me that Marcotte is skating rather close to herself being guilty of that. Hasn’t the Rolling Stone bogus fraternity gang-rape story taught people on the left that they need to check things out?
Ron, in what way did Amanda lie? Please be specific.
O’Connor did actually say she’d refuse to cater a gay wedding if asked. Her co-owner actually said “That lifestyle is something they choose. I choose to be heterosexual. They choose to be homosexual. Why should I be beat over the head to go along with something they choose?” Are you claiming that they didn’t say these things, and Amanda just made that up?
Maybe you don’t agree with Amanda that saying you’d refuse service to a gay wedding is offensive, but if so that’s a difference of opinion, not a lie.
I’ve never met or heard about a person who continues to claim they “choose” to be heterosexual once they’re actually pressed on the question of when/how they made that conscious choice. Why are there so many people who think homosexuals choose it? (To say nothing of the fact that there’s clear evidence for at least a partial genetic role in determining sexual orientation.)
She claimed that they were trying to drum up some business and attention for themselves, that their policy is “no gays”, and that their position on the matter is suddenly discovered.
1) They didn’t try to drum up business and attention for themselves. They did not reach out to contact anyone and draw attention to their views. They did not send out a press release. They did not post a sign. They did not put up comments on social media. They were sought out by a reporter who came into their business on his own initiative and questioned them. There is absolutely no evidence that their intent was to drum up business and draw attention to their establishment.
2) Their policy is not “no gays”. They don’t care who comes in to eat their pizza, and said so. They don’t ask the sexual orientation of people who come in to pick up carry-out pizza. They were specifically asked if they would refuse a very limited piece of business; if they would cater a gay wedding, which is hardly “no gays”.
3) Other reporters have stated that the inside of their pizza parlor has symbols, etc. attesting to the Christian faith of the owners. There is no basis for Marcotte’s assertion that their attitudes on gay marriage are “suddenly discovered”.
All of which makes her comment “God knows that the right has fully embraced the idea that lying for the cause is acceptable behavior.” pretty hypocritical. I also note that “the lines you should not cross” section does not include “Don’t lie.”
@RonF
Piedmont the town (and Piedmont the BSA Council) are indeed incredibly small (the town is 1.4 square miles) and incredibly well funded. The Boy Scouts tried to merge us but we successfully resisted, obviously. I don’t know if the larger Council we would have been merged into would have taken the same attitude about gay scouts. Possibly.
We are 20 minutes by mass transit from downtown San Francisco, and we are surrounded on all four sides by Oakland. Mostly single family homes; we have almost no stores or commercial space. We have our own mayor, our own fire department, and our own schools (which at this time is the whole point). Three elementary schools, one Middle School, one High School. And our own Boy Scout Council.
We do not, alas, have our own Animal Control Officer. We have to share her with Emeryville.
I mean, I don’t know if this is a rhetorical or an actual question–if you’re letting off steam or genuinely wondering–but in case it’s the second, since I’ve ended up speaking to some people who believe this sort of thing: as far as I can tell, the belief is that everyone is naturally heterosexual by inclination. You don’t have to choose that, really. What you do have to choose is staying on what they think is the right path, and engaging in a vanilla sexual relationship with a member of the opposite sex, or being seduced to the dark side and engaging in all sorts of other perversions, including homosexuality. It’s the same way some people seem to think that fuzzy handcuffs lead inevitably to death by autoerotic asphyxiation: they’re blind to an internal sense of what they do or do not want; there is only the obeying or disobeying of the rules around sexual relationships, a binary yes or no to vanilla heterosexuality. (I mean, some people are okay with homosexuality and not kink, and some people are okay with kink but not homosexuality, but I think the underlying motivation looks similar for both.)
I think this is especially true because, if your desires line up with what’s portrayed as mainstream desires, it’s a lot harder to see that those desires are a thing that’s particular to you rather than a universal experience. Some of the anti-gay folks genuinely do seem to think that temptation is all around to fall to the gay side, that even though they find it vaguely disgusting it must be possible that they could be seduced to enjoy it–after all that must be what happened to the people who do enjoy it, right? (See also: the myth about, and fear of, “recruiting”.) So they perceive their heterosexuality as something that must be defended against temptation–that’s the active choice, not the initial underlying desire.
Pointing out the innateness of sexual orientation helps, but so does straight people standing up to declare they have lots of gay friends, because it disproves the message of queerness via contamination.
When did you choose to eat meat? Or grow your hair long? Or wear trousers? Just because you can’t remember, doesn’t mean it’s not a choice.
Sexual orientation is completely fictional. Homosexuality was invented in the late 19c as an illness. Heterosexuality was invented as a counterpoint. Then when homosexuality was finally derecognised as an illness, because the whole idea was ludicrous, we were dumped with this bizarre concept that there are homosexuals and heterosexuals and sexual orientation. What’s even more bizarre is everyone’s determined to insist it’s real, even though we all know when and why it was fabricated by quacks.
The real horror is that this idea still causes suffering. Thousands of people -including loads of children – have real anxiety over wondering whether they’re gay or straight or bi and around this ‘orientation’ changing during their life – when in fact it’s all made up and they’re stressing over which imaginary box they fit into.
My impression was the opposite — in most of the things I’ve read in which people try to explain “it’s a choice” with a lot of paragraphs rather than just one sentence, they usually follow some version of, “You choose to resist the temptations.” But those non-mainstream things will only be temptations if you’re actually attracted to them — I don’t know many straight guys who would say that they’re being tempted all the time, but resisting, when they see shirtless guys on the beach or at the gym or whatever. (I can’t remember where it was, but I’ve seen at least two different articles that took the argument of, “Obviously all men will enjoy being with men better than being with women, because men know men’s bodies, and so, if you’re with a same-sex partner, that partner knows how to arouse you. So it’s a constant struggle to follow the rules and only be with women, who can’t satisfy you as well.”)
I’m having trouble parsing that response, Ruchama. To clarify, what I meant was, “if you’re straight, and all the romantic stories in media that you consume are straight, and all your friends are apparently straight, then it can be hard to recognize that straightness isn’t universal–that some people genuinely don’t experience that kind of attraction at all, and that straightness is one of many possible attraction patterns, rather than non-straightness being straightness plus something else.” I’m not sure how that ties into what you said (not trying to be snarky–I am trying to understand, but having some difficulty).
As far as this bit goes:
there’s a certain amount of theorizing without evidence that seems to happen with people who don’t think about this much, and I think some of those explanations are “why I think somebody might want to sleep with a person of my own gender, even though I’ve never wanted to” more than “this is something I’ve actually experienced.” My favorite anecdote here would be a discussion with a (pro-SSM etc though generally conservative) family member who asserted to me, without knowing I was bi, that bisexuality didn’t exist. It was just some gay people who slept with people of the opposite gender sometimes. You know, because as a straight woman she’d never want to sleep with a woman, but it made sense that lesbians might want to sleep with men, right?
Sorry. (I’m at the beginning of my eighth straight week of bronchitis, and just started my fourth round of “Let’s try even more and even stronger medicines, since everything we’ve tried so far didn’t work,” so I’m kind of fuzzy-brained right now. Teaching calculus in this state has been interesting, to say the least. I’ll try that comment again when I’m more confident in my ability to logic.)
I don’t agree.
I mean, I think the kind of rigid 2 or 3 category structure most of society acknowledges is dumb, but I don’t think that means that sexual orientation is fictional or useless as a general concept. I’d be attracted to people of all genders regardless of the terms we have for that; since the dominant terms are all couched in male-female pairings or occasionally homosexuality, it took me a while to realize I was bisexual, and once I realized I was I experienced my attractions differently, but it’s not like they hadn’t existed before–I was just rationalizing them away. So a society that has a broader acceptance of all kinds of orientations, and more flexibility with how people exercise them, would probably have changed my subjective experience. But that doesn’t erase the fact that the pool of people I’m attracted to is drawn pretty equally from the gender distribution of the people around me, and that that is not true for many of my friends.
To borrow, I guess, the terms that Ozy was using in the recent models of neurodivergence post over at Thing of Things, there’s a difference between the map and the territory. I agree that the map of orientation used in most of society has huge problems; I disagree that the territory it’s attempting to describe is featureless.
I guess I’m kind of touchy about this, because I run into a lot of not-quite-straight people who like to sigh and wish that we just didn’t have so many labels, guys, and as someone rather further away from straight and vanilla than those people tend to be, those labels have been really helpful to me in figuring out who I am and what I want. It would be nice if we could move instantly to a world where anything you want is okay as long as the other person wants it as well, but as long as we’re in this world, labels are a way for minority groups to find each other and to figure out how the majority model doesn’t work. Getting rid of them prematurely hurts the minorities more than it helps.
Oh, no apology needed–I was confused, not annoyed. :)
(I’m impressed you can teach calculus in any state, healthy or not; I always have trouble teaching math because I get it or I don’t–when students have trouble I often can’t figure out why.)
This is something that I’ve always been pretty good at, and I don’t really know exactly what it is that makes me good at it. When I was in high school, the other kids in my math class decided that I must be psychic, because there were a whole bunch of times when the teacher was telling us the answers to some problems we’d been working on, and one kid would say, “Wait, that’s not the answer I got,” and I’d respond with something like, “Did you treat b as a variable when you took the derivative? You need to treat it as a constant,” without looking at the other kid’s answer or work, and I’d be right about what that kid had done wrong, and I couldn’t explain how I knew it any better than, “That’s the kind of mistake that Chris would make.” (It was a pretty small school, so all the kids in my math class were kids who’d been in at least two or three of my classes every year since at least seventh grade, and some of them I’d been going to school with since kindergarten, so we knew each other pretty well. I can’t usually do this with any of my students except the ones who either participate in class a whole lot or come to my office hours pretty regularly.)
Sexual orientation is completely fictional.
Oh, yeah! Just like colors are completely fictional, because who needs a word for 543+/-21 nm wavelength? After all, the spectrum is continuous, and people do not need arbitrary labels to help them think and communicate about things.
Hell, even different cultures within the same species (human) do not necessarily have words for colors that we have been programmed to distinguish, like green and blue! Clearly we should do away with color names, instead of insisting that they are somehow real. Any benefits must be imaginary.
Fourth round of bronchitis treatment (it’s in the “If this doesn’t work, then we’ll do a chest x-ray to make sure it’s not pneumonia” stage) also means that I currently have three kinds of steroids — injected, oral, and inhaled — going through my body, so I guess I’m disqualified from competitive sports for the next few months or so. Also, might not sleep for the next few months or so. Steroid jitters are kind of like super-charged caffeine jitters.
Ron, I see what you mean. Yeah, that was a pretty bad paragraph – it’s totally unfair to say the pizza parlor was trying to drum up business and attention. But her central point isn’t undermined by that, imo.
That said, it seems legitimate to me to consider a “no gay weddings” policy to be a form of “no gays” policy. (Think of “no gay weddings” as the specific item and “no gays policies” as the general category.) There is a service that they willingly provide for straight people but refuse to provide for gays; that’s a “no gays” policy.
I think that finding significance in what people don’t say is usually an unfair partisan point-scoring game. I can think of exceptions – it’s totally fair, in my view, for people to criticize the author of that Rolling Stone article for writing an apology in which she failed to apologize to the frat – but usually it’s just refusing to give people reasonable benefit of the doubt.
Amp @ 66,
I really hate to say this, but I think that RonF is basically right and that you are wrong, with regard to the Marcotte article on the pizza parlor. I happen to be gay, and I know I’m supposed to be on the opposite “side” of the pizza parlor, but I’m not persuaded that the situation is anything near as bad as Marcotte portrays it.
You said.
I looked but was unable to find a statement that they offer catering for opposite-sex weddings either. It’s not obvious that they offer that as a particular service to anyone. Do you have a particular cite that shows that they DO offer this as a service to opposite-sex couples? If they don’t do any catering, then declining to do so for same-sex weddings isn’t discrimination.
The owners said they don’t discriminate against gay customers, but might balk at catering a gay wedding. I read that as being an off-the-cuff statement rather than any sort of official “policy.” Amid all the criticism of this particular restaurant, I have not seen anyone point to any specific person who has said, “I wanted to buy pizza/cater my wedding/host my reception/etc. at Memories Pizza, but they refused my business based on my LGBT status.” Do you have any references of actual, specific discrimination?
My concern here is that it’s not obvious that Memories Pizza has materially harmed anyone. They’ve expressed a religious sentiment that I don’t share, and in fact vigorously disagree with, but like I said, I’m not seeing any specific acts of individuals being discriminated against. Again, I’m happy to be corrected on that if you have cites to the contrary. In lieu of that, it seems unfair to call them bigots.
With all due respect, Kohai, I disagree.
1) I’ve never, ever heard of a pizza place that delivers that won’t deliver to a straight wedding. I don’t think there’s any grounds at all for assuming that there’s even a realistic possibility this pizzeria wouldn’t deliver pizza to a straight wedding.
2) You didn’t say this, but I’ve seen a lot of people say “no one has pizza at a wedding.” For the record, this is not true. Very few people have pizza at a wedding reception (although that happens too, for example after some informal city hall weddings), but I’ve been to dozens of weddings which ordered pizza delivered to the church for the wedding party to eat before the wedding. (I was a wedding coordinator for over a decade).
3) I have no evidence that Memories pizza has actually refused to serve a same-sex wedding (and I don’t think I claimed they did). If I did make such a claim, then I misspoke (or, er, mistyped).
4) I don’t find your distinction about how it’s unfair to call someone bigoted because they merely expressed an intent to discriminate if the circumstance rises, but haven’t actually discriminated yet, to be persuasive.
Suppose that Charlie Brown runs a barber shop, and hangs a sign saying “No Jews Allowed” in his window. And he never actually has to turn away any Jews (perhaps the sign is effective), so there are no “specific acts of individuals being discriminated against.” Would you really say that Charlie Brown hasn’t done anything bigoted? If so, I disagree. Merely hanging the sign is something that does harm, both because Jews will read it and feel less welcome and accepted as part of the community, and because other anti-Semites, seeing CB’s sign, may themselves feel more empowered to discriminate against Jews.
The pizza thing is tricky.
On the one hand, I view the pizza parlor as making the wrong call. I think that their position is wrong, and poorly founded.
On the other hand, I am very discomfited when we invade too much by telling people what to do and passing laws mandating certain actions. Because I remain well aware that a minor swing of the pendulum would make MY actions and beliefs immoral, or illegal.
To me, the theoretical concept that a single pizza parlor would not deliver pizza to a wedding if they knew in advance that they were being asked to cater a gay wedding is bad. It’s wrong. But it is not something that the government should be involved in regulating, because it gives too much power over small things.
It is easy for me to imagine myself on the “wrong side” of this; it is easy to imagine myself being really upset. I am curious as to how the folks who support regulation are dealing with that. Do you think that you won’t end up on the wrong side? Do you trust humanity to always make the right call, and do you trust the government not to abuse its power?
Amp,
I’ll start with one of your last points first.
FWIW, I agree with you in the general case here. If someone put up a “No gays allowed sign” in the window, I would say that’s discriminatory, for basically the reasons you listed. The thing is, Memories Pizza didn’t put up a sign saying anything like that. In fact no one, including you, has yet offered evidence that the restaurant was engaging in preemptive discrimination of that type.
As RonF mentioned, a reporter went into their space and asked them questions whether they would be willing to discriminate. The owners, in an unguarded moment, made what read to me like off-hand comments. It sounds to me like you and a lot of other people are taking their off the cuff comments as equivalent to an official policy of discrimination, or as though they had issued a formal press release as to their feelings about LGBT people.
Nor do I. And I assume that if someone wanted pizza at an opposite-sex wedding, then they’d call up and say, “Hi, can we get ten pizzas for such-and-such a time and place?” And Memories Pizza would say, “Of course! The total comes to $xx.xx. Would you like disposable plates and utensils with that?”
As I’ve said, I’m not reading this as a situation where there was a formal, ongoing policy of discrimination. If you can point to a case where someone called up and said, “We need ten pizzas,” and the restaurant replied “Okay, but first, is this for a wedding? And more importantly, is this for a same-sex wedding? Because we discriminate against those,” then I’ll readily concede in your favor. But in the very interview that started this they said they had never been asked to cater a same-sex wedding, so that might be a hard point to make.
I feel like I’m belaboring this by this point, so I don’t know that I’ll push the discussion much further. Thanks for the respectful back and forth, by the way, Amp, I really enjoyed it!
Small sum up from me: I tend to connect bigotry with actions, not with feelings. I think someone can have a reflexive antipathy for same-sex couples, view it as a sin in their religion, not host any same-sex weddings at their place of worship, and still sign off on full civil equality for LGBT people. And as a queer person, that’s pretty much all I ask. And so long as someone’s actions are supportive of civil equality, I think they’re allowed to think and feel however they like without my calling them a bigot. If your definition differs, well, vive la difference!
Jackie and UVA makes me wonder:
If we’re going to use a preponderance standard w/r/t finding people guilty of sexual assault, should we also use a preponderance standard w/r/t finding people guilty of making a false accusation?
If not, should we at least acknowledge the significantly higher likelihood of falsity when someone is unable to prove a preponderance case? “Failed to reach 95% proof beyond a reasonable doubt” doesn’t really tell us much about the falsity of the accuser. “Failed to convince 2 out of 3 members of an accuser-friendly panel beyond 50% proof” tells us a lot more.
When the case starts, we don’t have “victims.” We just have “accusers.” Should we continue to apply wholly different standards to the accuser and defendant?
G&W, I don’t know that anyone has suggested a preponderance standard for finding someone guilty of sexual assault in a criminal court. Certainly, no one at “Alas” has taken that position.
What people have suggested is that preponderance is the standard that colleges should use in their internal adjudication systems, where the stakes (while real) are significantly lower than that of a criminal court. In that context, I think it would make sense to use a preponderance standard for false accusations, for plagiarism, for stealing another student’s backpack, for cheating on a test, and for any other matters handled by a college’s internal adjudication system.
As a random abstract principle, sure. If you take a dozen sexual assault cases that college adjudication systems have investigated, and in six cases the adjudicators found sufficient evidence to say a SA had occurred, and in six they didn’t find enough evidence to say that, then it seems fair to think that any false accusations are more likely to be found in the latter group of six. If that’s all you’re saying, I agree.
But if you’re saying that any students who accuse another student of sexual assault should have it held against them in some way if a college adjudication system doesn’t find the accused student guilty, either formally (automatically charging them with making a false accusation, for example) or informally, then I disagree. But I’m not sure that is what you’re saying, so I won’t go on about it.
Regarding
MiracleMemories Pizza, I don’t think they’ve done anything that should cause the government to get involved. I don’t think anyone here has suggested such a thing.In fact, the only case for government involvement I see here is that they look into if charges can be brought against the man who suggested burning Miracle Pizza down. I’d also be in favor of misdemeanor charges against the people who have been calling and making fake orders.
Kohai, I haven’t seen anything that suggests the Memories Pizza owners misspoke. Nor was their speaking involuntary, nor were they unaware that they were speaking to a reporter who might broadcast their statements on TV.
Unless you can show one of those things to be the case, I don’t actually see any substantial difference between hanging a sign in a shop window vs public speaking in front of reporters.
I’m not suggesting that they should be sued, or that the government should take action against them in any way. I’m just saying that it’s not wrong to think that someone is bigoted based on them voluntarily telling a news camera that if the circumstance came up, they’d discriminate against a gay wedding. (Or an interracial wedding, or a Jewish wedding, etc etc etc).
I also tend to connect bigotry with actions, not feelings. But – for the reasons I explained in my previous comment to you, with the example of a “no Jews allowed” sign in Charlie Brown’s barber shop window – when a business owner publicly declares an intent to discriminate, that is an action. not merely a feeling.
I entirely agree. We don’t disagree about this; we just disagree in that you seemingly classify making a public statement as “think and feel,” and – at least in some cases – I classify it as an action.
Thanks for the discussion, I’m enjoying it!
Amp @ 66:
Amanda Marcotte said they had a “no gays” policy. If you hadn’t read the details of what the pizzeria owner actually said, what does that mean to you when you read it? It means “We don’t serve gays.” It’s far too broad a statement to be considered anywhere close to an accurate portrayal of what they said. She either spoke out of ignorance or else she deliberately misrepresented their position so as to encourage people to bring exactly the actions against them that she spelled out later in the essay.
In the general case, I agree. But in this specific case I was referring to a contrast between that and her own behavior.
I don’t have a problem legally requiring businesses to serve all comers. The only exceptions I’d make would be literal ministerial enterprises, narrowly construed, and that fuzzy territory where the service is expressive. The latter line is tough to pin down, but I see a giant difference between requiring Kinkos to print an anti gay banner that you provide them, and requiring an artist to take a commission to design an anti gay banner.
But this was effectively a mixture of entrapment and doxxing. A Baron Sasha Cohen movie, except with self righteousness instead of humor.
In that context, it’s hard to see Marcottes article as anything other than an apologia for bullies. “You might be feeling a tinge of guilt for elevating a random local business owner to national presence and posturing about what a bastard he is. But he came out ahead in the end! Don’t think about the cynicism in what you did. Project that onto him! He probably wanted this to happen, right? He probably planned to be a national culture war figure. What a cynical jerk! Now like and share this article, and we’ll have Five Minute Hate, round 2. Remember, as long as someone picks our victims up off the ground, it’s still technically punching up.”
And this morning my Facebook feed has multiple people sharing and commenting on articles about how horrible it is that this store got all those donations. Round 2- Fight!
Let’s deal with actual disputes as they arise. Those will be some tough battles. It would be nice if we could go into them with some moral high ground.
I live in the Midwest. There are a lot of people here with very mixed feelings about homosexuality. They know their religion says it’s bad. They know their kids say it isn’t. They don’t have strong personal feelings. They just want to be good people by the lights of their community. If you put them on the spot, who knows what answer you’ll get. Usually an uncomfortable one that tries to draw some line that let’s them feel like they’re serving both moral demands. A response that is written in water at best, and will change depending on whats at the forefront of their mind.
Well, now they have one more bit of data to consider. Their church won’t notice or care if they’re more gay friendly than they technically should be, or at most will raise an eyebrow. But the other side will never forgive. This is a classic, all too common situation of people trying to be good people while remaining religious. The only way to help people do that is by making it clear that your side really is the good guys. This was counterproductive.
And you know what? I’m not going to forgive either. The callout culture faux moralists managed to force me to agree with David Brooks. You don’t forgive something like that. Ever.
It was definitely an actual question, and I guess I hadn’t thought about it quite like that. I wonder how many of the people who think that have actually talked to someone who isn’t heterosexual and asked them if they think they made a choice. Because as near as I can tell essentially no one makes a choice on their orientation, although there are obviously choices on behavior.
As it happens I can remember exactly when I chose to grow my hair long (big fight with my mom over it in high school), and when I chose to stop eating meat about eight years ago. Both of those were clear conscious choices. I can also clearly remember as a boy when I started to realize I was attracted to girls, and I can assure you there was absolutely no conscious choice there.
And I’ll point out again that there’s clear evidence for a heritable genetic basis for sexual orientation, at least to some degree. That doesn’t sound to me like a choice or something that’s “completely fictional.” I don’t have time to dig up any citations right now, but I can later if you’d like.
Three somewhat similar stories:
* Fundraiser ends for pizzeria that won’t cater gay weddings, raises $842K – LA Times
* Anti-Abortion Group’s Effort To Defund Family Planning Clinics Backfires Spectacularly | ThinkProgress
* Florida Bakery Faces Threats After Refusing To Print Anti-Gay Message On A Cake
(The minister who tried to order the cake has a really pointy hairstyle. So if you like using “needlehead” as an insult, this is your moment!)
The cake shop, Cut the Cake, has (as of this writing) raised over $13,000 on gofundme.
Seems like the first two stories are triumphs of free speech. As far as the third one goes, I no more countenance threats against a bakery for refusing to print something their perceive as against their moral values than I do threats against a pizzeria for refusing to act against their moral values.
Question – would the laws as they stand in Indiana permit the Florida bakery customer to initiate legal proceedings against the bakery?
FYI: On Sunday CBS aired its latest episode of The Good Wife, allegedly filmed months ago, that seems remarkably timely. A group of affluent social conservatives aspire to bring test cases in court, including a defense of firms that decline to serve homosexuals due to religious objections. To this end, they conduct a moot court to test out their cases, and hire one of the show’s regular (and liberal) attorneys to play the role of opposing counsel.
The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf argues that both social conservatives and homosexuals feel under siege, which reduces the empathy that members of either group are likely to feel for the other. Social conservatives see their causes belittled in popular culture and rejected in the courts. Yet more alleged hate crimes target homosexuals than target people of all faiths combined – even though homosexuals are a much smaller group of people. Consequently, each side regards the other’s concerns as paranoid.
Amp,
Looking over the original article that reported on this, it appears they made a more strident statement of refusal to serve same-sex weddings than I had originally given them credit for. I was going off my memory, and for some reason I had the impression that this was an off hand remark made to a reporter, something fairly spur of the moment. From the article, it sounds like if it’s not an official policy, then the owners would certainly like it to be one. So I’ll retract my earlier assertions about how this might not be company policy, and say that I think Amp is right if he says this is comparable to putting up a sign that says, “We serve straight weddings but not gay weddings.”
That’s indeed a clear statement of intent to discriminate, although that’s clearly not how the owners perceive themselves.
I think this may be a miscommunication. I am not referring to criminal court. Nor am I actually suggesting anything. To avoid any miscommunication I’d like to emphasize that this is a thought experiment and not a proposal.
This is what I was talking about. In theory, the “false accusation” finding and punishment by a college should be–from the perspectives of sole folks–just fine and dandy, since it isn’t government.
I’m not advocating for it, but I’m certainly putting it out there as a means of considering it. More like a thought experiment.
It isn’t an obvious answer.
High standards of proof are expected to result in a lot of “false innocents” because we will fail to convict folks who did it.
But the lower the standard gets, the more that the accuser might reasonably be expected to have skin in the game. Why shouldn’t there be an automatic false accusation issue being considered with every finding of “not guilty” under an accuser-friendly preponderance standard?
If you
a) make a rape charge
b) knowing what that entails;
c) knowing what you have to show; and
d) fail to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence,
then you could logically be considered to have made an inaccurate accusation by a preponderance of the evidence. Right?
Here, I’ll illustrate specifically:
Assume a reasonable doubt standard, which roughly equates to 95% guilt:
-With respect to the accusation, the conclusion is either “guilty, because there is a 95-100% chance that a rape occurred” or “not guilty because the probability was somewhere between 0% and 95%.”
-With respect to falsity, the conclusion is either “guilty, because there was only a 0-5% chance that a rape occurred” or “not guilty, because there was at least a 5% chance that a rape occurred.
-As a result, you end up with a huge “unknown” area, between 5% and 95%, where NOTHING is concluded and NOBODY is proven guilty.
But under a preponderance standard, that all changes. If you assume “guilt” is “greater than a 50% chance that a rape occurred” and if you assume “false” is “less than 50% chance that a rape occurred,” then you don’t have any of the unknown overlap. The judgment works for both sides.
One reasonable reply is that we don’t hold accusers liable for knowing what the law is. That’s OK, but (to the extent we want to treat both sides fairly) we could get around that by explaining, early in the system, what constituted a “request for adjudication on a sexual assault accusation” and what was involved.
Another reasonable argument is that we don’t want to discourage rape reports. Which: OK. But we do want to discourage false reports, right? It’s really accurate to say “we don’t want to discourage accurate rape reports.” This is a double edged sword. And since we don’t know which accusers are telling the truth, it’s complicated.
Another reasonable argument is that we don’t want parties to have to decide these things: we want judges to judge. Under this argument, the accuser shouldn’t have to bear the risk of what was an honest misunderstanding: if they thought it was rape and it turns out they were only 49% right, is it really fair to punish them for it? I agree, of course. Though from my perspective that is really more of an argument against using the preponderance standard AT ALL, because I don’t see an ethical argument for “preponderance when judging the accused; higher standards when judging the accuser.” One could use “clear and convincing” for both sides (roughly 75%) and there would instantly be a very sizeable gap with this issue largely gone.
The odd part is that even with those arguments I still feel uncomfortable at the thought of automatically charging accusers. I’d be happiest with leaving the preponderance standard out of it, which seems like the obvious solution. But I can’t put my finger on the issues–ergo this post.
That was a woman, actually. Unless there was more than one person who suggested it.
G&W- under a preponderance of the evidence standard, you can sit both parties down. The accuser says she was so drunk she couldn’t really consent. The accused says she was alert, responsive, and into it. With zero other evidence, you can decide that the accuser is slightly more credible, and expel the accused.
Under beyond a reasonable doubt, something similar can happen, but you have to conclude that the accuser is so much more credible that there’s no reasonable possibility that she’s wrong.
I think what you’re getting at is that concluding against the accused in a reasonable doubt scenario doesn’t say much bad about the accuser. Just that it is reasonably plausible that she could be wrong. Not even that she is- just that there’s nothing in front of you to really rule that out sufficiently to justify punishing someone. But under preponderance, ruling against someone is a much stronger statement. It’s not that they’re possibly wrong- they’re probably wrong.
Which makes a loss under preponderance a lot more compatible with the conclusion that the person is willfully lying than is reasonable doubt, since the latter encompasses “probably telling the truth but we just can’t be sure” while the latter does not.
That being said… Preponderance of the evidence standards for expulsion by kangaroo courts trying to stand in for real courts is a terrible idea already. I see no reason we should compound it with additional proceedings. The idea that the same people who run around declaring that any amount of intoxication negates consent, or that you can be raped if your boyfriend moves from genital stimulation to digital penetration without specifically establishing that it was ok this time the same way it was ok the last ten times, are going to be establishing expulsion protocols for college kids that involve labeling them as rapists when we have perfectly competent criminal courts that could handle this instead? It’s already an inhuman nightmare. No need to make it worse. Unfairly victimizing a few girls for false accusations under a sketchy hearings protocol won’t fix anything. At most it could be cathartic and that isn’t justice.
Yes. I fully agree.
Well, one main reason to do so is that it would expose the problems with kangaroo preponderance courts in general, and would perhaps reduce our reliance on them.
Sure it is. If you’re in favor of due process rights – as I’ve consistently been when it comes to students accused of sexual assault – then you must be against a proceeding in which the accuser is, in effect, simultaneously on trial but without the due process rights given to someone who has been accused.
As I said, regarding a similar but even worse idea, to punish accusers when a criminal court finds someone accused of rape “not guilty”:
The other thing is that your proposal ignores the possibility of cases where the adjudicators don’t feel there’s enough evidence to say that either side’s story is supported by the preponderance of evidence.
Patrick, “kangaroo court” and “preponderance of the evidence proceeding” are not interchangeable terms. There are kangaroo courts that formally (if not substantively) use the “beyond any reasonable doubt” standard, and there are preponderance proceedings that are not kangaroo.
It’s not just the “criminal courts” we’re talking about, but the entire justice system, starting from the police a victim needs to report to. And I don’t believe that 100% of the justice system has been “perfectly competent” in handling rape accusations. Many rape victims have reported being “revictimized” by the judicial system. While it’s likely that some of those reports are unfair or unavoidable, I don’t think it’s plausible that all of them are.
The protocols should include due process protections for ALL accused students – there’s no good reason to only care about that for those students accused of sexual assault – and also for all accusing students. If a college has that, however, I don’t think there’s any good reason not to have colleges include sexual assaults in their campus justice process, especially since many other crimes – like stealing and assault – are handled by those same systems.
From link #35 – I’m not intending this quote to be an accusation of your motives, or G&W’s, I just think it adds worthwhile thoughts to this discussion:
Thanks for the correction! I guess I stereotype gym teachers as being male (it was a gym teacher, right?).
I don’t see that, so perhaps we are miscommunicating again. What would be the due process issues you would question?
Knowledge of charges: it would be simple to ensure that everyone understood how things work and that they had the opportunity to make an informed decision (at some reasonably early point, after consulting counsel) to proceed or withdraw. You could treat it like a “civil trial with competing counterclaims,” which is basically what it would be. We have those all the time; we know how to do them.
Right to counsel: I’m in favor of it generally. Here, too. Lawyers for everyone!
Right not to self-incriminate: I’m in favor of it generally. Both parties have the ability to testify regarding the facts, and to be cross-examined. Or not.
Often that is not true.
Most of the time they are dealing with a specific fact (sex) which is agreed on, and the case is entirely determined by a yes/no question (consent? Or no consent?) Under a preponderance standard, in that situation,, you can’t find for the accused without concluding that there was consent–at which point you have just concluded the accuser was wrong.
Other times, the laws provide for a middle ground, e.g. “we don’t need to reach the issue of consent, because we find the accused lacked the mens rea for rape.” Certainly in those cases, it would be possible for judges to avoid convicting anyone.
I think those are better laws. This would encourage those, as well.
Well, the ‘equality principles” summary is itself a political advocacy article, of course, authored by
In case others didn’t notice, Brodsky is also the author of link #35.
In any event, I hope you’ll forgive me for declining to accept Brodsky’s analysis. Or most other law-student-level analyses.
Even accepting all the dubious assumptions you’ve made to reach this conclusion – which I don’t – you’d still be wrong. Consider a case in which the adjudicators decide for the accuser. In that case, preponderance means that it is more likely than not, in the assessment of the adjudicators, that the accusation is true.
However, it isn’t true that if the adjudicators decide for the accused, that means they’ve concluded there was consent. Most obviously, if the adjudicators feel that – from the evidence they’ve seen – it’s just as likely that either the accused or the accuser is telling the truth, then they will not find the accused guilty, because “just as likely” doesn’t meet the level of certainty required for preponderance.
What you’re suggesting is not a preponderance standard. You’re suggesting an entirely new standard, one in which justice is assumed a priori to be zero sum, so that the court (or whatever we call it) is required to find guilt and punish a party in all cases regardless of evidence. That’s an obviously absurd thing to advocate, and not compatible with the obvious truth that there are cases where we don’t have enough evidence to say, even by a 51% standard, which if any party is guilty.
In addition, your proposal would clearly have the effect of strongly discouraging rape victims from reporting and to punish the ones that do. That alone is an overwhelming reason to reject this idea.
ETA: And note, as well, that your proposal – by creating an environment in which cautious rapists can rape freely and then get their victims thrown out of school if they dare to speak up – would certainly go against Title IX.
G&W, this comment is ad hom from top to bottom, and has literally no other content.
Amp @ 87, from the citation:
“The victim’s physical and psychological safety during the hearing process”
It seems to me that a hearing process that presumes from the beginning that the person bringing a complaint of sexual assault is in fact a victim of sexual assault is not going to do a very good job of ensuring the accused’s rights and ability to demonstrate his or her innocence. Looks like built-in bias to me.
Also, see:
But this presumes, before any evidence has been presented, testimony has been heard or finding has been made that it is a fact that there is an assailant and a victim!
I’m all for the establishment of a fair process to adjudicate such things. I don’t see one here, though.
What about the psychological safety of someone who has very possibly been falsely accused? What about balancing the accuser’s rights against the right of the accused to defend themselves? As we have seen with the Rolling Stone debacle, the true victim here may well not be the accuser, but the accused.
Ron, the individual hearings should of course presume that no one is guilty until after examination of the evidence (etc etc).
However, the system as a whole should be designed to acknowledge that there are some actual rape victims, and that the health of those victim should be one factor (not the only factor) taken into consideration when designing the system.
To use an extreme example for purposes of illustration, no system should be designed so that everyone who makes an accusation is subjected to 24 hours of harsh interrogation under a spotlight while huge men bark at them “YOU MADE THE WHOLE THING UP ADMIT IT ADMIT IT!!!” Because, among other reasons, some of the people being treated that way would end up being genuine victims, and the system should take account of that.
Also, from the same article you quoted:
The idea that this author is against the accused having rights, or shows no concerned for the well-being of the accused, is simply entirely unfair when one reads the entire article, rather than just little out-of-context snippets.
One more point, Ron.
When people argue for eliminating the campus system entirely (for rapes) and moving rapes (but no other crimes) exclusively to criminal courts, they are arguing for switching to a system in which the (alleged) rape victim (unlike the accused) has, basically, no rights and no representation (pdf link).
For that reason, when arguing against the idea of switching to criminal-courts, it is natural and normal for people to focus on the (alleged) victim’s rights, because those are the rights that people want to take away. To conclude from this that the people making this argument are against rights for the accused, or have no concerns about the rights or well-being of the accused, is unfair.
What “dubious assumptions,” precisely, are you talking about?
College rape cases often involve an acknowledgment by both parties that sexual activity occurred, and countering claims of consent/non-consent. I suspect that may be one of the most common forms of disputes.
Correct.
No. Usually it means that it is more likely than not, in the assessment of the adjudicators, that the accusation is false. Though it theoretically permits for a 50% finding, which equates to “not guilty.”
You’re talking about the “precisely 50% for both people, nothing more to see here” option. Statistically it should be incredibly rare, so in practice it would simply serve as a sort of “we don’t trust anyone” ruling. But I’d be fine with that.
Well, no. Actually, I’m not.
That IS how these standards work, you know. When civil cases are charged with dividing fault between parties and find that the plaintiff was 17% at fault that includes an implication that the defendant was 83% at fault. You don’t get “more likely” without simultaneously finding “less likely.” Only with the mythical “precisely 50%” finding does that become an issue.
If you don’t like zero sum, don’t use the preponderance standard.
Hmm. Not “regardless of evidence,” since both sides have the opportunity to present evidence.
There would be some bad outcomes, but the system could be tweaked. I suspect it would be just as fair for a false accuser as it would be for a falsely accused defendant. Maybe even more so.
Of course, if it seems totally appalling to treat people this way, I agree, and would be more than happy to eliminate the preponderance standard altogether, at least outside the actual court system.
Not. Advocating.
And judging from the arguments, also Not Obvious.
Well, sure. Such cases shouldn’t proceed to trial anyway, and that’s up to the accuser. Do you think it makes sense for someone without a shred of decent evidence to force the opposing party into a trial just so that they can gamble on a “sympathy win?” Right now, that can happen because there’s no cost.
I did acknowledge that, above. That’s a downside–worse for the false accusers, but also for the real ones.
Well, only if they make an accusation that they can’t support.
Of course, there are other solutions, like this one which I just thought of:
The accuser can choose the standard, from “preponderance” to “reasonable doubt.” They know at the outset that they get the same standard applied to them.
If they want to leverage the system to increase risk to the accused, and to increase the risk of a false conviction, then they up their own risk as well. OTOH, if they want to be safe from accusations of falsity, they can choose one of the options which is more strict than preponderance, like “clear and convincing.”
They can have a “safe zone.” They can make sure that there’s a ___% proof required for a false accusation charge. They can even choose the percentage! They just can’t deny it to the other side.
The obvious problem with that protest is that you DON’T KNOW who is a “cautious rapist” versus an “innocent accused.” And you DON’T KNOW who is a “victim” versus a “false accuser.”
The only way to know is to have a trial.
But anyway, this is a thought experiment, and Title X is just a law, which can be interpreted various ways. And its far from clear. People can’t agree on whether “advance punishment without a real trial” is right (protecting accusers, mostly women) or wrong (punishing accused who haven’t been found guilty, mostly men.) Depends on your outlook.
I don’t mind opinion pieces, of course. This conversation is one. But this is a relatively-uneducated opinion (law student) in service of advocacy. That doesn’t affect the validity of “have you thought of ___?” questions, or “it would be nice if ___” statements and if it was written as a thought experiment that would be one thing. It does affect the likely validity of broader conclusions or statements about what laws are, or what the results of changes would be.
Ampersand- I am fully aware that I will not convince you of any of this.
But I view feminist efforts at undermining confidence in the criminal justice system no differently than I view conservative efforts at undermining confidence in our voting system. Both are spurious, politically motivated, and evaporate when seriously investigated. Both rely on using anecdotes and a healthy dose of predisposition to believe on the part of the intended audience, and both undermine our civil order.
As for the rest- rather giving the game away, aren’t you? You’re all for due process… But one of the reasons you like non judicial proceedings is that they can protect students from cross examination. And your response to my claim that courts are perfectly competent is to argue that it isn’t 100%… But are non judicial non professional tribunals operating on a “more likely than not” standard 100% likely not to ever hurt anyone? No, they’re guaranteed to, that’s built into the standard.
Overall… We’re never going to agree on this because a significant part of my objection involves my belief that an intended feature of campus sexual assault hearings is to create a process more amenable to political pressure and hijacking by people I view as dangerously misguided and sometimes literally evil. When equivalent processes for cheating are discussed, there’s no alleged victim to bring questionable charges. When theft is discussed, there’s no powerful political movement pushing to define theft downward as much as possible. If there was an influential movement pushing for treating theft in unreasonable ways, I’d be really nervous about that too. But since there’s not, I’m only worried if someone gives me reason to believe there’s cause to worry.
Remember back on ’05 when conservative pundits were all writing about how the invasion of Iraq could have been great if it had been carried out the way they wanted, instead of the way Bush wanted? Well, Bush was President, not them. “On his terms” was the only option on the table. If you didn’t want his terms, against was the only choice.
Could this be done fairly? Maybe. Set up a system to enroll the accused in a branch campus or sister university or some other method that preserves, as much as possible, the value of his education and degree. Change the finding from one of “sexual assault” to something less career killing. Put actual neutral third parties in charge- arbitrators, retired judges maybe. Someone politically insulated from political fallout. Use actual sexual assault law, instead of sham rules that incorporate assumptions about human nature so absurd that no one will even defend them. Then, THEN, you can act like this is nothing more than a sort of informal No Contact order that doesn’t need all the trappings of law because it’s just not that big of a deal. Then you can claim that you need the process to equally protect both sides, not just the accused. Then the arguments you’re offering will make sense.
Likewise, voter ID laws could work if they were advanced by people who wanted to maximize voting, and were willing to do what it takes to make them fair. But they’re not. So they won’t.
A core part of the drive for campus hearings is to increase a faction’s ability to influence the process. A faction that has more power on campus than on court. A faction that is all too often nutty. Kangaroo courts are the only option up for debate. I’m against.
Presumably you see the factions otherwise- the “not misogynists” faction versus the evil victim blamers. Not surprising your conclusions differ.
I keep saying this; it keeps getting lost in the shuffle:
WE HAVE CIVIL COURTS, AND YOU CAN SUE FOR RAPE.
THEY USE THE PREPONDERANCE STANDARD.
THAT IS PERFECTLY OK, BECAUSE THE COURTS AND JUDGES ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY ARE DOING, UNLIKE THE COLLEGES.
I do not know ANYONE who is advocating that we remove rape jurisdiction from the civil courts (which already have that tort.)
Ampersand- while you are technically correct that exact 50/50s would be a loss for the accuser, the standard is 50% plus any scintilla no matter how small, and in civil court, where the standard is typical, 50/50 is often not a possible outcome. If you and I both claim ownership of a dog, the court isn’t going to conclude “50/50” because the dog has to go home with someone. Preponderance as a standard exists, in part, to operate where you don’t want to accept status quo bias. That’s why it accepts as valid any case where two people stand in front of a judge, say their piece while the judge looks them in the eye, and then someone wins based on the judges gut. This is sensible for cases involving two equals dividing money or any other civil matter. It is a due process violation when used for more meaningful rights.
RonF- it isn’t completely unusual to treat accusers as actual victims prior to completion of trial. If, of course, doing so doesn’t violate the rights of the defendant. The suspension-of-disbelief found in “innocent until proven guilty” does not require that we treat the accuser as lying until proven true. Both can exist in a sort of suspended judgment where we treat them both as telling the truth as much as we can given procedural rules.
What GiW said.
In other words – yes, Amp, I read the rest of the article. My point is that while she talks fairness, etc. towards the accused, she still calls the other person involved “the victim” instead of “the accuser” throughout her article. Why? It is simply a fundamental flaw that irretrievably biases her whole outlook no matter what else she says.
And why have the schools duplicate – rather badly, as it turns out – a civil process when the State already has a civil process in place? Perhaps the schools should just pay for the costs of the civil procedure. Examining evidence, weighing testimony and witnesses, etc. for something like sexual assault is a lot different than adjudging plagiarism. The expertise for something like this just isn’t there at the schools – it should be left to professionals.