[Last updated at 0839]

0839: Motrin mom update: ad agencies set to blame moms for feared creativity constraint

Andrew Sullivan writes:

These people will kill Christianity before they get to enforce by law the fantasies of their own neuroses.

LOL!

I always tell my students that the single most important amendment to the United States Constitution is No. 21 which simply states in Section No. 1 that:

The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

And that is why it is so freakin’ hard to amend our Constitution. If it weren’t, we have a tyranny of the majority yanking rights left and right.

And this is why Proposition 8 is being fought on constitutional grounds.

A reader at the Daily Dish writes:

The critical point that is put forward in every brief seeking Prop 8’s invalidation is that Prop 8 stands for more than gay marriage: it stands for the premise that any minority group can suddenly be targeted by the majority for discrimination. It essentially eviscerates the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution. This because a) the Supreme Court has held (in Perez, some 20 years before Loving) that marriage is a fundamental right and b) in the Marriage Cases, that homosexuals are a suspect class. Unless Prop 8 somehow by implication reversed either of those, Prop 8 means that any time we wanted to be mean to some minority group, we could.

So, just to help you think about this a little more clearly: Prop 8 stands for the idea that we could put on the ballot tomorrow the question of whether Catholics could marry. We could also put on the ballot the question of whether someone with HIV could vote or own property. We could put on the ballot the question of whether Mexican catholics can be discriminated against in housing or employment.

You just don’t get, do you, up in your ivory tower, that the courts are the ultimate backstop for human rights. Remind me, did desegregation come because of a referendum? No, that was Brown v. Board. Oh, and wait. How about interracial marriage? Nope, that was Perez in California and Loving v. Virginia federally. And I will wager a year’s salary that in both cases, had the question been put to a vote, it would have come out completely differently. And if it were put to voters today, I have no confidence that they would vote to sustain them.

That’s the point of the Equal Protection Clause. (Aside–do you then also disagree with Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas?) The rights of minorities aren’t subject to extinction by the majority’s fiat.

If Proposition 8 is allowed to stand, who do they come for next?

0746: Prince disses gays

The situation off the coast of Somalia has clearly gotten out of control. I don’t know if a naval squadron has ever been deployed by the United Nations, but I think now is the time to form one.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In a dramatic and unprecedented show of prowess, suspected Somali pirates seized an oil tanker deep in open seas, the U.S. military in the Middle East announced today.

The Liberian-flagged Sirius Star oil tanker was hijacked and its multinational crew of 25 kidnapped by pirates in the Arabian Sea on Saturday more than 450 nautical miles from Mombasa, Kenya, the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet said.

There aren’t many real missions left for the deep water navies of the world; sinking pirate vessels would be a good use.

As reported by National Public Radio:

Joint statement from President-elect Barack Obama and U.S. Senator John McCain, following their meeting in Chicago today:

At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time. It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family. We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.

Via she who Writes Like She Talks…

When the feck was the last time this happened?

From The Forward:

Two narratives dominated the Jewish story this year, and, naturally, are reflected in the Forward 50. Jews played an outsized role in the presidential election campaign and, by the looks of it, will continue to do so in the new Obama administration. Some of the most intriguing developments came from unexpected places: a young lobbying group that shook up the Washington establishment; a brash video that was viewed by more than 1 million on YouTube alone and introduced new words into the mainstream political lexicon.

This was also the year the kosher meat industry faced its greatest legal, consumer and ethical challenges. Led by the courageous reporting of our Nathaniel Popper, the saga of the now-bankrupt company that once was the country’s largest producer of kosher beef and poultry exposed major lapses in the U.S. justice and immigration systems, and prompted rabbis of all denominations to examine the moral dimension of a central Jewish tenet.

The importance of this story is underscored by the inclusion – a rare one – of a non-Jew as the 51st name on this list. Father Paul Ouderkirk, the priest of the Catholic church in Postville, Iowa, displayed unusual leadership and compassion by helping displaced workers and their families to survive. Indeed, at times it has seemed as if Father Ouderkirk and the good members of St. Bridget’s were among the few in this sad story willing to do the right thing.

The Forward 50 celebrates leadership, creativity, impact. It also reminds us how far we still have to go to truly repair the world.

Carol D. Leonnig writes:

In wooing federal employee votes on the eve of the election, Barack Obama wrote a series of letters to workers that offer detailed descriptions of how he intends to add muscle to specific government programs, give new power to bureaucrats and roll back some Bush administration policies.

The letters, sent to employees at seven agencies, describe Obama’s intention to scale back on contracts to private firms doing government work, to remove censorship from scientific research, and to champion tougher industry regulation to protect workers and the environment. He made it clear that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would have an enhanced role in restoring public confidence in the housing market, shaken because of the ongoing mortgage crisis.

Using more specifics than he did on the campaign trail, Obama said he would add staff to erase the backlog of Social Security disability claims. He said he would help Transportation Security Administration officers obtain the same bargaining rights and workplace protections as other federal workers. He even expressed a desire to protect the Environmental Protection Agency’s library system, which the Bush administration tried to eliminate.

“I asked him to put it in writing, something I could use with my members, and he didn’t flinch,” said John Gage, president of the 600,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, who requested that Obama write the letters, which were distributed through the union. “The fact that he’s willing to put his name to it is a good sign.”

The letters, all but one written Oct. 20, reveal a candidate adeptly tailoring his message to a federal audience and tapping into many workers’ dismay at funding cuts and workforce downsizing in the Bush years. Many of Obama’s promises would require additional funding, something he acknowledged would be difficult to achieve under the current economic conditions.

I ask not because I disagree with either the action or the content of the letter, but rather because I want to know how is it that thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of letters were sent out and no news outlet or blog that I can quickly find published the content of the letters.

I find that amazing.

Michael Paulson writes:

The diocese of Charleston, SC is publicly rebuking the Rev. Jay Scott Newman for suggesting that Catholics who voted for Barack Obama should refrain from presenting themselves for Communion unless they go to confession first. The comments caused an enormous firestorm, and Newman then suggested that he had been misinterpreted, but his diocese, in a highly unusual step, is now saying that Newman misrepresented the church’s position, and that Obama voters do not need to go to confession before seeking Communion. The diocese has no bishop at the moment, so the statement was issued by the diocesan administrator, Monsignor Martin T. Laughlin, who said, “Father Newman”s statements do not adequately reflect the Catholic Church”s teachings. Any comments or statements to the contrary are repudiated.”

Yaron Brook speaks:

I believe Obama is the most anti-American president ever elected.

He is committed to appeasement. He is committed to the Palestinians

This thought for soul searching Republicans — the most important thing we must do is revive the idea of American exceptionalism. What is it that makes this country as great as it is? it is not being taught in the schools, spoken of in the media – we need to create an educational program. We need to give them those words, those ideas.

Via she who Writes Like She Talks…

Andrew Sullivan turned his Daily Dish over to photos and reports from around our nation on a day of protest in the wake of the passage of California’s Proposition 8.

Meanwhile Tim Russo is busy outing the Ohio bigots who sent their dollars to California to support the removal of civil rights from a American citizens.

Dear TEDizens,

We urge you to take a moment to watch a short video that went live on the web today. Beautifully filmed and edited by TEDster Jesse Dylan and his team at Form TV, it might just be the most inspiring thing you see this week.

That video, and this website mark the launch of an inspiring global endeavor to celebrate compassion and to promote a new collaboration between the world’s religions. What we’re doing, starting today, is to begin writing the Charter for Compassion that Karen Armstrong called for earlier this year when she made her TED Prize wish. And the exhilarating twist here is that the writing won’t be done behind closed doors. It will be done by you… and perhaps millions of others around the world. Because we’re using special collaborative web tools created by the geniuses at Kluster to enable this be truly a charter “created by the world for the world”.

Later this week millions of Muslims, Christians, and Jews will be sent an email inviting them to come to the site and offer their choice of words, in their own language, to help create a charter capable of inspiring the world to focus on what the great religions share, as opposed to what divides them. Already people are responding to this amazing idea with passion and excitement. The goal is to obtain all input from global participants within the next four weeks, select the best contributions with the help of a council of religious “sages”, and conduct a major launch of the finished document in 2009.

We’d love you, the TED community, who saw the birth of this idea in March, to be among the first to contribute.

The two things you can do to help now:

1. Help us write the Charter! The first writing phase begins now with the Preamble, a concise explanation of why the Charter is necessary and urgent.

2. Send out the ask to everyone in your network. We want this to be a truly global and diverse document that represents all of our voices.

A very exciting day for the TED Prize. We are honored to have you on this journey with us.

Thank you to all of you who have helped get us this far! And a special thank you to Kluster who have put so much into building this site.

Very best wishes,

Chris Anderson
TED Curator