Well, that’s a big lovely anarchic piece of my generation’s childhood gone.
Just putting them out there for reference and discussion.
While there was a substantial drop in the pregnancy rate for 15–17-year-olds and 18–19-year-olds between 2008 and 2010, pregnancies among 18–19-year-olds constituted the majority (69%) of teen pregnancies. During this same time period, increasing proportions of 18–19-year-olds reported having ever had sex, yet fewer of them became pregnant. The likely reason is improved contraceptive use and use of more effective methods.
If teens are more likely to have sex, that’s a reversal of the recent trends reported by a paper in Pediatrics:
The statistical significance of this relationship survives controlling for mean income (more religious states tend to have lower mean income), and, of course controlling for abortion rates (if states with higher religiosity have lower abortion rates then higher teen birth birth rates would not necessarily be a surprise).
I’d also highly recommend this post from Slate Star Codex on abortion and contraception usage.
Script of cartoon:
Panel 1: An Uncle Sam sort of figure, wearing a top hat with stars and stripes and a floral Hawaiian shirt, is talking to a cigar-chomping businessman.
Uncle Sam has his hand on a sign sticking out of the dirt. The sign says “NEVER AGAIN!”
UNCLE SAM: 146 workers died in the Triangle Factory fire! We can NEVER let that happen again!
BUSINESSMAN: If you institute safety regulations for my factories, I’ll be forced to raise prices! You play a few cents extra per shirt!
Panel 2
Close-up of Uncle Sam, who is looking very anxious about this dilemma.
UNCLE SAM: A few cents? That’s HORRIBLE! But hundreds of factory workers dying is ALSO horrible! What a DILEMMA!
Panel 3
BUSINESSMAN: I know! I’ll build totally unregulated factories in other countries! So shirts will stay cheap, but we won’t have any more big factory tragedies in the USA!
Panel 4
UNCLE SAM: Hooray! EVERYBODY wins!
BUSINESSMAN: That’s capitalism for ya.
We can see that the “NEVER AGAIN!” sign now has a piece of paper taped under it; the paper says “Where we have to see it.”
The belly button is a reminder to all of us that we relied on another human being to keep and protect us while we prepared for our birth. This mother’s child is living solely through the nutrients and oxygen supplied though their umbilical cord and will someday soon have a lifetime reminder of their mother’s sacrifice.
Provide your child with a symbol of your love and commitment. Provide them with a birth and a belly button.
How true is this?!
Next time you want to argue that a woman has the right to kill her baby, look at YOUR belly button, the visual reminder that YOU were once helpless and totally dependent on someone else. And then go thank your mother for not killing you.
I look at my navel, and I’m very grateful that my mother gave birth to me and (along with my father) raised me. That was kind and generous of them.
But because I love my mother, I would NEVER begrudge her the ability to make her own choice. I hope that even though abortion was illegal in New York when I was born, my mother had the education and resources to get a safe abortion if she wanted one. She deserves that, and I would prefer that my birth was a choice freely made. The idea that people who don’t even know my mom and couldn’t care less if she lived or die should make that decision for her by force is repulsive to me.
If my mother had aborted me, I wouldn’t have minded. How could I? I wouldn’t even had known.
If Mom had aborted me, probably it would have been to control her timing of when to give birth (which is why most women who get abortions have abortions). Another baby would have been born to her, at a more convenient time for her. And that baby would have become someone weird and miraculous and unique, and just as deserving of life as I am. The world would lack wonderful me, but it would have my wonderful sibling instead.
And you know what? She’d have a belly button,too.
Several couples were married immediately following the ruling that struck down Oregon’s prohibition of same-sex marriage. Portland Mayor Charlie Hales performed the ceremony for Bert Boehm (left) and Richard Glenn. Beth Nakamura/ The Oregonian
Earlier today – ten years and a day after Goodridge legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts – Oregon District Judge Michael McShane overturned (pdf link) Oregon’s gay marriage ban, ruling that it denies same-sex couples their Constitutionally guaranteed equal protection of the law. This is the 17th court win for marriage equality in a row since the Supreme Court’s Windsor decision. In this case, there will be no appeal (the Oregon government doesn’t want to appeal, and NOM’s late request to intervene has been rejected), and happy couples are already getting licenses just a few miles from where I type.
Judge McShane’s opinion contains no surprises – it’s pretty similar to other decisions we’ve all read, including his dubious rational for ignoring the ways that Oregon’s gay marriage ban discriminated based on gender. (See here for more on that).
What does stand out is the conclusion of Judge McShane’s opinion, which is unusually heartfelt for a court ruling:
I am aware that a large number of Oregonians, perhaps even a majority, have religious or moral objections to expanding the definition of civil marriage (and thereby expanding the
benefits and rights that accompany marriage) to gay and lesbian families. It was these same
objections that led to the passage of Measure 36 in 2004 [banning same-sex marriage in Oregon]. Generations of Americans, my own included, were raised in a world in which homosexuality was believed to be a moral perversion, a mental disorder, or a mortal sin. I remember that one of the more popular playground games of my childhood was called “smear the queer” and it was played with great zeal and without a moment’s thought to today’s political correctness. On a darker level, that same worldview led to an environment of cruelty, violence, and self-loathing. It was but 1986 when the United States Supreme Court justified, on the basis of a”millennia of moral teaching,” the imprisonment of gay men and lesbian women who engaged in consensual sexual acts. [citations omitted] Even today I am reminded of the legacy that we have bequeathed today’s generation when my son looks dismissively at the sweater I bought him for Christmas and, with a roll of his eyes, says “dad … that is so gay.”It is not surprising then that many of us raised with such a world view would wish to protect our beliefs and our families by turning to the ballot box to enshrine in law those traditions we have come to value. But just as the Constitution protects the expression of these moral viewpoints, it equally protects the minority from being diminished by them.
It is at times difficult to see past the shrillness of the debate. Accusations of religious bigotry and banners reading “God Hates Fags” make for a messy democracy and, at times, test the First Amendment resolve of both sides. At the core of the Equal Protection Clause, however, there exists a foundational belief that certain rights should be shielded from the barking crowds; that certain rights are subject to ownership by all and not the stake hold of popular trend or shifting majorities.
My decision will not be the final word on this subject, but on this issue of marriage I am struck more by our similarities than our differences. I believe that if we can look for a moment past gender and sexuality, we can see in these plaintiffs nothing more or less than our own families. Families who we would expect our Constitution to protect, if not exalt, in equal measure. With discernment we see not shadows lurking in closets or the stereotypes of what was once believed; rather, we see families committed to the common purpose of love, devotion, and service to the greater community.
Where will this all lead? I know that many suggest we are going down a slippery slope that will have no moral boundaries. To those who truly harbor such fears, I can only say this: Let us look less to the sky to see what might fall; rather, let us look to each other … and rise.
At the time of the Windsor decision, I thought that the fight for same-sex marriage was about to enter a slow period – that the low-hanging fruit had all been picked other than Oregon and a couple of other states, and after that things would go slow and maybe take decades. I’ve seldom been so pleased to be wrong.
And this year’s Nebula for short story goes to…
Rachel Swirksy!!!
Rachel Swirksy!!!
RACHEL SWIRSKY!!!
I’m thrilled to announce that our own Mandolin has won this year’s Nebula award for short story, for her heartbreaking story “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love.”
That’s not Mandolin’s award in the photo – it’s Robert Sawyer’s 1995 trophy for The Terminal Experiment. But I wanted to post a photo of what a Nebula Trophy looks like because I think they are the single most beautiful trophy that anyone could win. The trophy, which is handmade, is a transparent Lucite block embedded with glitter and polished rocks set to resemble planets and a spiral galaxy; and, like unhappy families, no two Nebula trophies are identical.
This is Mandolin’s second Nebula win. She previously won a Nebula in 2011 for her novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window.“
(To listen to the best bit, I’d recommend advancing to the 17 minute mark.)
After the South Carolina House passed a bill cutting $52,000 from the College of Charleston for including Alison Bechdel’s memoir Fun Home in a campus reading program, ((Although I’ve been focusing on the $52,000 cut from the College of Charleston, because of the cartooning connection, the House bill would also cut $17,142 from the University of South Carolina Upstate because they taught Out Loud, a book about a historic pro-gay radio show in South Carolina.)) the issue moved on to the South Carolina Senate.
Despite a week spent debating the issue, Republicans were unable to pass the House’s cuts, due to a successful filibuster led by Democratic Senator Brad Hutto. ((Hutto is a First Amendment Hero this week, but as much as I admire him, I wish he’d familiarized himself with Fun Home, or, you know, actually read it. For instance, in the floor debate, he several times explained that Fun Home is “fiction,” even though it’s a non-fiction memoir.))
Instead, the Senate passed an amendment (proposed by Republican Senator Larry Grooms) with no budget cuts, but ordering the College of Charleston to spend at least $52,000 teaching the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers. ((Grooms’ amendment also directs USC Upstate to spend at least $17,142 teaching that material.)) According to Senator Grooms, public colleges in South Carolina are already required to teach these things by law. As far as I can tell, as long as the College of Charleston is spending at least $52,000 on whatever courses they already have on these subjects, the Grooms amendment doesn’t actually change anything. ((The Amendment also gives students the right to opt out of reading books in the reading program – a right they already had.)) But it gives South Carolina Republicans a face-saving way to stop arguing about “Fun Home.”
This issue isn’t done yet – as I understand it, the South Carolina House and Senate need to agree on final legislation, and it’s not certain that the Governor will sign off on it. But right now it seems likely that Senator Grooms’ “compromise” amendment – which he admits was intended as retribution for assigning Fun Home – will become law.
This may be the best outcome liberals can realistically hope for in South Carolina, but it’s still a terrible precedent. The ACLU of South Carolina puts it well:
We are disappointed in the Senate action, which undermines freedom of thought and expression as well as academic freedom in our state. While no one could oppose closer study of the Constitution and other founding documents of our democracy, today’s Senate action violates the spirit of the First Amendment.
The First Amendment guarantees that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. It rests on the principle that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society, or some part of it, finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
Protecting academic freedom should matter to all of us, not only to college professors. If South Carolina students are to become contributing citizens in the 21st century, they must have freedom to inquire, think critically, and evaluate. If they only read books that confirm or reinforce what they already believe, they cannot learn.
Students in South Carolina are already free to agree or disagree with what they read and hear in a university setting. The budget amendment approved today by the South Carolina Senate is a step backwards for higher education and academic freedom in our state.
Meanwhile, at the other college targeted by the South Carolina Republicans for teaching a book about lgb people, “the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at USC Upstate will be closed” by the school administration in what appears to be an act of retribution for sponsoring a gay-themed play.
(If you want to be entertained/appalled by listening to Fun Home discussed by a bunch of people who haven’t read it, “Brandon Fish” helpfully put a bunch of clips from the SC Senate debate on Youtube. I watched a whole bunch of videos hoping for one in which the speaker would grab the sword on the wall behind him and start dueling, but alas…)
EDITED TO ADD: Rodney Welch reports some highlights from the ludicrous debate. Sample sentence: “When Hutto defended academic freedom, Corbin lost no time throwing the Hitler card.”
I didn’t link to Freedom to Marry, Freedom to Dissent: Why We Must Have Both when it came out because I have mixed feelings about it. The statement, signed by about fifty prominent supporters of marriage equality, calls for the use of persuasion rather than going after people’s jobs. I passionately agree with the central point of the statement, but I still have some quibbles. Why is it only when billionaire Brandon Eich suffers that this list of notables signed a petition? I understand that things that happen to famous people get, by definition, more attention, but let’s face it: nothing is going to shut Brandon Eich up if he wants to speak. The real threat to freedom of speech is when people who aren’t billionaire celebrities are targeted, and it would have been nice if the statement had acknowledged any case other than Eich’s.
I’m also bothered that the statement doesn’t acknowledge people who have been fired for favoring same-sex marriage. This is a bit unfair of me to criticize, because the statement drafters made the right choice – talking about ordinary people who are fired every year for being gay, or for just favoring gay rights, would have made the “Freedom to Dissent” statement seem like an attack on those who oppose SSM, rather than an elevated statement of principle. But even though it was the right thing for this statement, it still contributes to the general rule that threats to the free speech of right-wing views are widely castigated (by both the left and the right) as bullying and a threat to free speech, while those who fire people for being gay or for supporting marriage equality – which happens much more frequently – are given a pass by both sides, and barely even reported on.
I’d love to see some of the nation’s most prominent opponents of same-sex marriage – Robert George, Ryan Anderson, Maggie Gallagher, and so on – join together to write a similar statement defending the free speech of those who have lost jobs due to favoring marriage equality, or whose employers force them to sign statements opposing marriage equality. It could simply reword the “Freedom to Dissent” statement, like so:
As a viewpoint, advocacy of gay marriage is not a punishable offense. We strongly believe that support of same-sex marriage is wrong, but the consequence of holding a wrong opinion should not be the loss of a job.
But I don’t expect they ever will, nor will they ever be pressured to. This double-standard is bad for a culture of free speech; to have real freedom of speech, everyone, including people employed by right-wingers, should feel free to publicly say their political views without fear of being fired. ((I can think of exceptions to this generalization, mainly when someone’s speech significantly impacts their ability to do their job.))
Ryan Anderson and Robert George, two leading opponents of marriage equality, responded to the “Freedom To Dissent” statement:
In April, more than 50 scholars and leaders, all self-identified same-sex marriage supporters, called their allies to higher moral ground. Prompted by the bullying of Brendan Eich and his resignation as CEO of Mozilla for his 2008 donation to California’s Proposition 8 campaign, they wrote to decry the “deeply illiberal impulse” to “punish rather than to criticize or to persuade” political dissenters. Because “opposition to gay marriage” can be “expressed respectfully,” they urged, it should not be “a punishable offense.” No one should lose a job for “holding a wrong opinion.” Trying to purge the workplace or the public square of dissent is, as they see it, political “oppress[ion].”
As supporters of marriage as the union of husband and wife, we applaud the signatories’ support for a free society. In any healthy civic order, citizens will be able to disagree with each other even about important matters without intimidation and recrimination. The right to dissent will be honored and those who express dissent will be respected not bullied into submission or silence. We thank the signatories of “Freedom to Marry, Freedom to Dissent” for their defense of civility.
That’s nice, but I have to ask: When have Anderson and George ever used their powerful status and platform to call on their own allies to stop “trying to purge the workplace” of “dissent”? There have been plenty of opportunities, but as far as I can tell, neither Anderson nor George has ever publicly defended a person fired for being pro-gay, pro-gay-marriage, or gay. ((Indeed, years ago, Robert George was the nation’s leading defender of the government’s legal right to throw people in prison for having gay sex. It’s hard to see how that viewpoint combines with any substantive support of freedom.))
Robert George himself was quick to call for a boycott – what he would call “bullying” if it was coming from gay rights proponents – because he was infuriated by Eich’s boilerplate I-respect-all-people-including-gays statement. ((You can read George’s full call for a boycott on his Facebook page, or here in screencap form.))
See also:
William Saletan points out that if you read George and Anderson’s piece carefully, what they call for is not merely a culture in which we can disagree on politics without losing our jobs, but for a general right for businesses to discriminate against same-sex couples.
Balkinization: Cold Respect, Gay Rights, and Religious Toleration
Christopher Flavell, in an article about climate denialism, interviews Harvard professor Vanessa Williamson:
Williamson attributed the receptiveness of Tea Party supporters to two widespread views: First, the coastal elite looks down on people in Middle America; second, the government wants to exert ever-more control, and will use any pretext to do it.
“There’s a general perception that the government wants to expand its power,” Williamson told me. “That discussion felt sincere to me.”
That sincere fear, Williamson said, has convinced Tea Party supporters that the coastal elites (a group that includes scientists) is manufacturing evidence around climate change. The aim, in their view, is to undo the American way of life — big cars, big homes, suburban sprawl — and make the heartland look more like the coasts.
This seems accurate to me; in conversation with climate deniers, they’ve often brought up those two themes. What do y’all think?
And is there any way of persuading someone with these beliefs that the scientific consensus is in fact true?
P.S. Hi Sydney!
“Sex Workers Rights Protest” by Eliya.
Some headlines:
• Chase Bank Is Shutting Down Porn Actors' Bank Accounts
• Porn stars battle stigma with sex awareness amid bank account closures
• Amazon is deleting sex workers' wish lists without warning
• The Soapbox: How PayPal & WePay Discriminate Against The Adult Industry
Although Chase Bank is dominating the news in this area lately, it’s clear that other major brick-and-mortar banks, including City Bank and Wells Fargo, also discriminate against sex workers.
This is wrong and unfair to sex workers. But it should also terrify the rest of us, because major corporations in effect form a second government in the USA, a government that can lock people out of access to essential services without any appeal or accountability. It’s hard to live if no bank will do business with you or cash your checks. And if private banks have the right to act this way, why not other private corporations – utilities, say, or internet service providers? If sex workers, why not other unpopular groups – say, polyamorists, or trans people, or socialists?
The more free corporations are to arbitrarily make decisions that constrain our lives, the less free ordinary people become. Gigantic corporations that in effect rule major aspects of our society should not be legally allowed to engage in this sort of behavior. Viewpoint neutrality should be legally required of any bank or utility serving the general public.
PJ Rey writes:
Particularly, it’s interesting that this outright discrimination against legal sex work is coming from Wall Street and Silicon Valley—both recognized hubs of libertarian ideology. Typically, leaders from both sectors staunchly defend unfettered economic activity as fundamental to an open society. In fact, they often go so far as to equate economic activity with expressions of free speech, deserving of maximum protection and minimal interference.[…]
But what libertarians too often fail to acknowledge is that discrimination is frequently expressed through and encoded into markets themselves (housing being perhaps the most notoriously discriminatory market). When one’s commitment to markets takes precedence over one’s commitment to challenging discrimination, it’s almost inevitable that fair treatment for marginalized groups falls by the wayside. It seems that sex workers have found themselves victims of a contradiction within libertarian ideology: markets, though themselves supposedly conditional on freedom and fairness, create conditions of unfreedom and unfairness.
In PJ’s comments, Iamcuriousblue (who has occasionally commented on “Alas,” although not lately, alas) pushes back a little, writing:
I think you ignore the governmental role that factors into this as well. It’s been noted that Operation Choke Point, a behind-the-scene DOJ policing initiative toward the financial industry, has guidelines that specifically list things like “escort agencies” and “pornography” business activity on the part of account holders as things that should raise red flags. (I’ll note that Mother Jones is very dismissive of concerns about OCP – I’m not so convinced of its wholly benign nature.) Combine this with the recent history of overzealous “antitrafficking” initiatives coming straight from the federal government, and you’ve really got state/private sector partnership fueling this kind of discrimination. Which would hardly be the first time we’ve seen something like this – one need only look at unjust drug laws and drug testing in the workplace for a well established example.
Am I the only one who read "Beware the narcoterrorists" and thought "beware the jabberwock"?
@beth: Thank you
@Watcher If you scroll through Barry's old cartoons on leftycartoons.com, some of the old ones are about Clinton, while some…
@Watcher: Much as I would like to have Obama or Clinton or even Dubya* back rather than the current wannabe…
I heavily criticized Obama for his drone strikes, but I do think there are legal (maybe not moral[?]) differences even…