Why do the gays hate the social science?

Not content with having their trial presentations demolished by Judge Vaughn Walker last week, defenders of California's Proposition 8 took to the airwaves this morning, and in the case of the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, apparently craving public humiliation:

TONY PERKINS: One judge, and a district level judge,* and an openly homosexual judge at that ...

JOHN DICKERSON: You mention this claim that he's openly homosexual. I'm not sure if that's in fact the case, but whether he is or isn't, what bearing does that have on the case?

PERKINS: Well, that according to the San Francisco Chronicle,** that he is openly homosexual, one of two federal judges ... I do think it has a bearing on the case.

He knows you think it has A bearing. He asked you what bearing.

DICKERSON: You think it's made his ruling skewed?

PERKINS: Well, I mean, you look at, he ignored a lot of the social science ...

David Boies, who tried the case, is on the split screen, barely containing his laughter at this clown: Face The Nation (8:46).

Funny thing about these self-ordained judicial conservatives. One minute they're bellyaching about judges deferring to social science evidence, the next minute they're bellyaching about having it excluded. Highly principled, they are. Just ask them.

* That is, the federal judges who preside over trials.

** As far as I'm aware, this claim originated from a report noting that Judge Walker had once attended a local bar association function with a physician, who was described as a "companion." And this translates to "openly homosexual" for the "family values" creep Tony Perkins (enough social science to support Perkins's assertion, which was probably about the quality of the junk Judge Walker struck down).

David Boies good-naturedly reminds Tony Perkins of just how these argument things work, but Perkins isn't even paying attention, lost in his "openly homosexual" fantasies. Who knew that hopeless idiocy and projecting sexual paranoia were family values. (Anyone who's ever seen Tony Perkins and his ilk perform, that's who. Hello, Jesus? You got some seriously piss-poor representatives out there.)

Beauregard's Bibliolator Boykin bounced

Monday's Republican circus is off to a flying start:

"Although General Boykin’s prior comments concerning the war on terror are unrelated to his scheduled testimony on Dean Kagan’s nomination, it is clear that these comments would be used to distract from the very important issues surrounding Ms. Kagan’s actions at Harvard Law School," said Stephen Boyd, a spokesman for ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions.

Nice try, Sessions.

Oh well, he's still got Tony Perkins and Ed Whelan.

Impeach Barbara Crabb

Rages Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council,

for violating her "sacred oath of administering justice ... under the Constitution and laws of the United States."

There isn't any requirement under the Constitution for federal judges to swear any oaths at all, sacred or otherwise.* They're subject to "good Behavior," that's about it. Following the law likely counts as good behavior, although maybe not in Tony Perkins's phantasies.

Judge Barbara Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin also said her ruling was not about prayer itself, but instead about the statute establishing the National Day of Prayer.

I think of all the reports I've seen about this decision, this is the first one to mention this rather important fact, albeit in the 11th paragraph. Even the distinguished professor of law Rick Esenberg said that it was the day of prayer which violated the Constitution.

Incorrect:

[T]he case raises the question whether the statute creating the "National Day of Prayer," 36 U.S.C. § 119, violates the establishment clause of the United States Constitution. . . . Although the [U.S. Supreme Court case] law does not always point in the same direction on matters related to the establishment clause, my review of that law requires a conclusion that 36 U.S.C. § 119 is unconstitutional.

How could Judge Crabb have been any clearer? You need to be extravagantly delusional to consider this an impeachable offense.

I've read a lot of these Establishment Clause decisions, and I can't think of one other that involves such a literally, facially direct violation of the First Amendment. Good luck getting it reversed.

Now if all the individual States banded together and proclaimed a National Day of Prayer, they'd probably be able to get away with it.

* A simple affirmation suffices. Demanding a "sacred oath" of any federal officer would itself be a plain violation of the Constitution.

GOP not intolerant enough: Perkins

Tony Perkins, who runs another one of these religious "family values" outfits, has taken to blaming moderate Republicans for Tuesday's devastating Electoral College loss to the rival Democrats.

Nevertheless, Perkins derives great solace from the fact that the relentlessly evil homosexualists were defeated in three States that had "marriage protection" initiatives on the ballot.

(Although Perkins and pals failed rather spectacularly with the Colorado "eggmendment," one of the strangest preemptive constructions of the 14th Amendment ever proffered.)

"What has made the conservative movement strong is when you have social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and foreign policy conservatives working together," Perkins said at an underground meeting of Republicans in Virginia yesterday.

Hard to say whether a foreign policy conservative is an isolationist or a warmonger, but aren't there a lot of fiscal conservatives who don't really care so much for what the gays get up to?

Perkins loves his demons, to be sure, but I get the impression that most Americans have more worthwhile objects of concern these days.

Why is James Dobson famous?

James Dobson is "making stuff up," says Barack Obama.

Not that that's news, of course, since for people like Dobson, making stuff up is a base function of the medulla oblongata. As Obama reportedly put it, "Somebody would be pretty hard-pressed to make that argument" — that he was distorting the Bible.

"Argument" is a generous courtesy on Obama's part, since Dobson didn't "argue" so much as whine noisily. I know this because the national press deems his wailings and gnashings practically lead-in material on the evening news.

Why this is is an interesting question on its own. In a more perfect world, Dobson would be wearing a sandwich board and ringing a bell on a street corner somewhere. People would pass him by, maybe give him a dollar or a cigarette or a half a bagel, but otherwise ignore his fevered gesticulations. He might even get arrested.

But Dobson apparently has "influence" over a considerable number of people including — it is rumored — the ear of the current president himself and all that entails.

Last evening CNN devoted an extended segment to Dobson's unwittingly doltish performance during which, it must be gratefully acknowledged, the laughably inept Tony Perkins was definitively flogged by Al Sharpton, Roland Martin, and Anderson Cooper in turn (even though both Perkins and Sharpton shared a round of guffaws about Cooper, who is gay, burning in Hell. Which would be funny if not for Perkins and Sharpton actually believing it).

And Perkins needed to start making more stuff up when he was shown portions of the speech featuring Obama criticizing hardliner secularists and acknowledging not only the existence of Judeo-Christian moral principles in the American system of law, but also the fact that many are appropriately enforceable. Perkins then tried to make it about Obama's personal faith, which it wasn't at all.

Dobson, who is incompetent even as a conservative radio host, a position created for incompetents, commits the same clear error.

It's obvious why Dobson dug up Obama's 2006 speech to a Christian group. Because he doesn't want his own little farce exposed. And because of Obama's emerging strategy to woo some of the Christian "values voters" over and from whom Dobson demands exclusive preserve, allegiance and, ultimately, control.

Dobson hasn't a clue what Obama was talking about and when Dobson weeps about being prevented from pushing "partial birth abortion" legislation he's flatly lying. He can push it wherever he likes.

Obama's speech was informed by political theory, not aversion to "orthodox Christian" dogma, as Tony Perkins calls his own personal, subjective version of objective morality.

What Obama is saying is that there are a number of approaches a rational political society may take in order to arrange a widely applicable system of ethics. Because it's impossible for everyone to agree on everything, Obama is initiating a dialogue to determine whether there are some things that almost everyone agrees are destructive to the polity's ethic, theft of property or child sexual assault for example.

When more subtle ethical questions arise, religion presents itself into the calculus and because religion wouldn't be religion without dogma, Dobson's dogma ultimately faces off against one of the other televangelists' dogmas.

The Bible that James Dobson is whacking is a very complicated assembly of disparate and highly derivative texts whose influence in many, many ways shaped Western civilization itself, not to mention civilizations elsewhere, still in existence or otherwise.

It accreted over centuries and various bits and pieces of it have been adhered to — or not — by hundreds of separate and distinct societies over a few thousand years.

Obama is not saying that only his interpretation of the Bible is inherently correct; it's Dobson and his ilk that are making that baseless insistence. Obama is simply pointing out that sectarian dogmatism in the false guise of absolute morality is a stumbling block to constructing the political ethic, by definition.

Dobson needs to understand that he's not going to convert all the people of America to his particular flavor of so-called Christianity. And obviously he can continue to insist on his own special divine insight.

The point is, if you are going to use the Bible as a source of ethical guidance, that's perfectly appropriate. Even I would use it. Selectively, of course, as I'm not about to give up calamari or cotton/rayon blends.

And it's also perfectly appropriate to attempt to codify that Biblical guidance in legislation and turn its enforcement over to the D.A.

But you have to support it with some argument other than, "Because I speak personally on behalf of the Almighty True God and you must Obey." Legislation formulated on such grounds are the mustard seeds of theocracy, a form of polity favored by America's enemies.

Obama's speech is simply a reminder of a few glaringly obvious historical facts of which Dobson evidently insists on remaining ignorant, which proves Obama's point precisely, hence the self-defeating, humiliatingly ironic quality of Dobson's reaction.

Rational people probably need to start ignoring anachronistic cranks like Dobson and Hagee and Swaggart and the rest or else consign them back to their bells and their sandwich boards.

While I'm suspicious of "leaders" on general principle — Al Gore's repeated invocation of the term to describe Obama during his endorsement was downright Orwellian creepy — Obama is demonstrating leadership by laying out the terms of a national discussion, as he did for the Christian group in 2006.

And it's a welcome initiative, given religious dogmatism's often fractious and deleterious effects in this society, something even the Framers of the Constitution were well acquainted with.

Incidentally, Dobson's most recent fit of the vapors did serve at least one useful purpose, apart from their usual entertainment value. It unearthed a speech of Obama's comparing the admonitions of the New Testament with the policies of the Department of Defense.

It's not something you hear from a candidate for the U.S. presidency very often and it's refreshing as hell. That sort of talk is guaranteed to inflame the Dobsonian followers of the Prince of Peace but politically moderate Christians are guaranteed to respond well.

And if they are disillusioned Republicans or otherwise undecided, then hopefully Dobson's hysterics cement the deal for Obama.

John McCain says ... well ... nothing

"Blah blah blah activist judges blah blah blah legislating from the bench," sez John McCain. And, naturally, the conservatives eat it up. "Strong stuff," Charlie Sykes calls it. So is chicken manure.

The doddering septuagenarian presidential hopeful delivered what's being described as a "major speech" yesterday, reiterating all of the code words and secret handshakes that make conservatives vibrate with anti-Bill of Rights delight.

That none of them know what any of the words and handshakes actually mean is no obstacle to reliable conservatives like Tony Perkins of the "Family" Research Council rambling on approvingly by way of his deep seated terror of homosexuals and women's rights.

It was also an opportunity for McCain to criticize his two rivals, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, for exercising their constitutionally mandated prerogative to withhold consent from the confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of Samuel Alito (all but three Democratic Senators voted "Nay" to the Reaganite careerist).

"Apparently nobody quite fits the bill except for an elite group of activist judges, lawyers and law professors who think they know wisdom when they see it — and they see it only in each other," expressed the straight talkin' McCain.

But within hours, Senator McCain had announced the formation of a "Justice Advisory Committee," comprised of, well, an elite group of lawyers and law professors* who think they know conservative activist judges when they see them — in each other. And also Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, because every committee needs its in-house lackey buffoon.

Trouble is, conservative mega-super-duper-hero Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was a law professor for 13 years, and in fact was a law professor when Ronald Reagan appointed him to the D.C. Court of Appeals in 1982. At an "elite" school: the University of Chicago.

And Robert Bork, the martyred conservative poster child who self-borked his own nomination by Reagan with his notoriously cramped reading of the First Amendment, has been an elite law school law professor since Jesus lost his sandals. Closer to home, conservatives look to yet another law professor to formulate their own views of the judiciary for them, Marquette's Rick Esenberg.

Conservatives have short memories too, because when McCain says he'll appoint judges "in the mold of Alito" (Eeew — what is that, a pizza?), they forget that a couple of other people who do their thinking for them, John Fund and Robert Novak, reported in January that McCain had described Samuel Alito as "too conservative."

It will also be convenient to forget — as many a septuagenarian would — that John McCain was one of the leaders of the so-called Gang of 14 Democrats and RINOs, which conservatives harshly criticized at the time as simply a cartel of elitist, liberal Senators dedicated to blocking George W. Bush's own federal judicial nominees.

There's a photo of McCain gang-tackling Bush on this very blog.

The Straight Talk Express, it would appear, has long since flown the coop, last seen flipping and flopping madly from here 'til November.

* But not Douglas Kmiec, I reckon.

Matthew Murray and his cult

Steve Benen at the blog Carpetbagger Report notes that the quintessentially idiotic Tony Perkins is making political hay from Sunday's shootings in Colorado. In an e-mail to his Family Research Council devotees, Perkins writes:

It is hard not to draw a line between the hostility that is being fomented in our culture from some in the secular media toward Christians and evangelicals in particular and the acts of violence that took place in Colorado yesterday.

Unfortunately for Perkins and his persecutionist blather, it's far easier and considerably more obvious to draw the connection between Matthew Murray's homicidal outburst and the Pentecostal cult he was reacting against.

Murray, using the nom de plume nghtmrchld26, was a contributor to an internet discussion board called Ex Pentecostal Forums. While the board's administrators have since removed a number of nghtmrchld26's most recent posts, dozens of them remain as of this morning, and they offer some insight into the type of creepy mind control exercised by the cult's members.

For example:

Since I was at least age 6 my mother and her church friends have always told me about how my birth was "foretold." They say that while I was still in my mother's womb a "prophet" told my mother that I was to be, quote, "a prophet to the nations" and something along the lines of the next Billy Graham/Peter Wagner.

They said that the following verses applied to me: Mat. 12:18 and Ezk. 36:26-28.

Basically, they believe that I am their "chosen one" for "the end times" and according to the Ezekiel passage they believe that I am going to go back to their church/system.

The problem right now is the fact that it appears that they are always going to pursue me throughout life (and they have said so), as I am supposedly the "chosen one." As far as I can tell they did not treat the other youth the same way.

Well, I don't want to be their "chosen one" at all. I just wish I could find some way to wake up from this nightmare.

Or this, contra those who are suggesting that Matthew Murray “hated Christians” en masse, or was an atheist follower of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens:

We can be christians, we can be spiritual and believe in God/the Cosmic Divine WITHOUT their abusive lying pentecostal charismatic Jesus People movements, groups, false prophets, churches, and programs.

Finally, Matthew Murray describes what sounds suspiciously like child abuse:

I remember getting thrown around the room and hit while getting interrogated about whether or not I had video games and DVDs.

That entire thread is instructive. And there are lots more like it.

Matthew Murray's hostility toward the particular cult in which his mother was and is apparently an active member wasn't fomented by any “secular media,” it was inspired by the cult itself. The “secular media” is right to expose and criticize it. Let's hope it does.

Obviously Matthew Murray was one deeply disturbed individual, but, according to his own experience and in his own words, it was the religious cult that exacerbated his disturbance, and not Tony Perkins's secular bogeymen. Perkins needs to look a little closer to home, if he truly is interested in conducting any family research.

And conservatives, in the meantime, are more worried about indoctrination by liberal university professors. What a joke.