Today the Cato Institute is publishing a paper I’ve written on why a federal amendment banning gay marriage is a bad idea, even if you oppose gay marriage. Of course, if you think recognizing same-sex marriages is a good idea, that’s a strong reason by itself to oppose an amendment banning them. This paper is […]
Author Archive | Dale Carpenter
NSA data mining and the false trade-off between privacy and security:
Defenders of the NSA’s known domestic surveillance programs — listening in to some international calls and collecting records of Americans’ wholly domestic phone calls — sometimes claim that we must sacrifice a little privacy/liberty in order to gain security from future terrorist attacks. That sounds reasonable and pragmatic, as long as the magnitude of the […]
Webcast of New York same-sex marriage oral argument:
Same-sex marriage has made it to New York’s highest court. The argument in Hernandez v. Robles and three other cases starts at 2:00 p.m. eastern time today. You can listen to the oral argument live at the court’s website. New York is one of a handful of states where gay-marriage litigants feel they have a […]
Rauch on a federal marriage amendment:
The Senate is expected to take up the issue of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in early June. The sublime Jon Rauch has a new column in the National Journal arguing against the amendment. The upshot, argues Rauch: the threat of judicial activism has been oversold, the states are addressing the issue […]
Gas prices are higher, and that’s a good thing:
Judge Posner has a typically provocative view of the recent spike in gas prices. He even suggests that if the price doesn’t stay high, gas should be taxed more to keep it high. From the broad national standpoint, we should welcome high gasoline prices because it is in the national interest to reduce our consumption […]
I’m switching to Qwest:
More from the USA Today story on government domestic surveillance that Orin mentioned earlier today: One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program: Qwest. According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest’s CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA’s assertion that Qwest didn’t need a court order — […]
You must say that! in Arlington County:
Hans Bader reports that in Arlington County, Virginia, we’re seeing another clash of competing “civil rights”: The Arlington County Human Rights Commission recently held a public hearing and subsequently investigated a Christian businessman on behalf of a gay-rights activist who claimed he wrongly “discriminated” based on “sexual orientation.” Tim Bono of Bono Film and Video […]
Why so few gay marriages?:
Assuming the new report I discussed earlier today is correct that relatively few gay couples are getting married where it’s allowed, why is that the case? The report itself suggests a couple of possible directions marriage rates among gay couples might go in the future: Of course our experience with same-sex marriage is in its […]
Report finds few gay marriages where it’s allowed:
Maggie Gallagher’s Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, which opposes gay marriage, has just issued a new report finding that few gay couples are getting married in jurisdictions where gay marriage is permitted. Here’s the summary of the findings from the report: The highest estimate to date of the proportion of gays and lesbians who […]
Traditionalizing pressure from gay families in S.F.:
The evidence is anecdotal so far, and very preliminary, but it appears that gay (and straight) families in San Francisco are starting to complain about the hyper-sexualized atmosphere of the Castro. Public displays of sexuality that would have gone unnoticed just a few years ago are now being contested. I’ve gathered some of the evidence […]
Executive constitutional interpretation:
There are plenty of examples of presidents who supported/signed legislation thinking that the legislation was both constitutional and otherwise good policy. There are plenty of examples of presidents who opposed/vetoed legislation, thinking that the legislation was both unconstitutional and otherwise bad policy. Andrew Jackson’s veto of the Second National Bank is an example of this: […]
“Abstinence” becomes “biblical sex only”:
Walter Olson, who runs a terrific website about litigation abuse, sends me some info and commentary about the latest salvo in the culture war from the Bush administration: According to online reports, the Bush administration in January issued regulations redefining “abstinence” in federal educational programs to mean avoidance of sex at any age whatsoever except […]
Right result under a bad precedent:
The Ninth Circuit got it wrong in Harper v. Poway Unified School Dist.. Eugene, as usual, is right about that. The Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker allows public grade schools to suppress student speech (1) when it involves “invasion of the rights of others” or (2) when it reasonably threatens “substantial disruption of or material […]
Comedy Central Censored out of Fear, not Tolerance.–
South Park Executive Producer Reveals That Comedy Central Censored the Showing of Mohammed out of Fear, not “Religious Tolerance.” Thursday, April 13, 2006. On Wednesday night, the cable network Comedy Central showed a censored episode of the animated cartoon, South Park, refusing to allow a brief depiction of the prophet Mohammed. The battles between the […]
South Park Discussion Thread.–
I am posting a separate story on VC based on my interview of South Park Executive Producer Anne Garefino. It answers some questions raised by commenters here. I may edit or add to this post from time to time, without showing changes. Feel free to comment on South Park below. I reorganized the order of […]