In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation’s biggest state to tie the knot.
Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.
With the ruling, California becomes the second state to allow same-sex couples to legally wed. Massachusetts adopted the practice in 2004, and couples don’t need to be state residents to wed there.
Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Connecticut permit civil unions, while California has a domestic-partner registration law. More than a dozen other states give gay couples some legal rights.
Seven other jurisdictions around the world have legalized same-sex marriage: Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, South Africa and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec.
…the initiative to strike down their ruling has already gathered over a million signatures and is just waiting for verification from the Secretary of State before it goes on the November ballot. It’s 14 words long, identical to the wording of Prop 22 back in 2000: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This time, however, it’s a constitutional initiative, not a statutory initiative, so if it passes it will be immune to court challenges.
Prop 22 passed overwhelmingly with 63% of the vote. Has 13% of the state decided to relax since then and allow gay couples to live in peace? We’re about to find out.
“I respect the Court’s decision and as Governor, I will uphold its ruling. Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling.”
May 8th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Various news reports say there are over 200,000 dead in the cyclone and tsunami that hit Burma… now five days ago.
Other reports say over 500,000 will be dead if the thousands of bodies floating in water and lying in mud are not burnt or buried, and the injured given help, and the vulnerable given clean water.
This is after the government originally said there might be a total of 10,000 dead. Maybe not even that many, they said.
This from The Sun, U.K., by Nick Parker, Chief Foreign Correspondent at Mae Sot on the Burmese border
and James Clench
The UK has so far pledged more aid than anyone, announcing a £5million package to be channelled through the UN.
Charities Save the Children, Oxfam and the British Red Cross have also swung into action.
But most of the aid is yet to be distributed because of the secretive Burmese junta, led by ruthless General Than Shwe.
His isolationist regime is paranoid an influx of foreigners might have a political impact on a national referendum due tomorrow, set to strengthen the army’s grip still further.
Three days ago, the dictatorship’s Health Minister went on TV, in what was called a rare appearance, and he said aid was on its way to the Burmese people. Right away.
It’s not. Aid is not on its way. Five days later, world aid is not present in Burma.
General Than Shwe, dictator of Burma, has 400,000 soldiers at his behest.
And as I wrote at TMV earlier, hopefully Than Shwe would stand out of the way and allow the experienced international teams of aid workers to bring equipment and supplies, and the means to both unload it and distribute it.
It didn’t happen.
Ships from many nations are still fully loaded all over the world waiting orders to turn the wheel and steam toward Burma. Cargo planes are loaded and waiting. They are filled with medical supplies At various airports outside Burma, aid workers are sitting on their packed duffels and backpacks ready to go: parameds, post trauma specialists, doctors, engineers, health care workers, and heavy equipment, such as back hoes, trailers. All waiting.
And waiting
And waiting
Than Shwe, hugely well fed dictator of the ancient Burmese people, he who has suffered no personal loss from this disaster for he is ensconced more than 200 miles away from where the tsunami/ cyclone hit… and it is Than Shwe, who wanted to be king of everything and who wanted to control everything, it is he who has publicly failed the world soul, failed the world heart that cries out for a humane response…
Than Shwe has failed publicly and utterly by keeping aid workers out of Burma, by putting no real teeth behind his health minister’s claim that help was coming, big help was coming, right away, huge help was coming.
Than Shwe is merely keeping all aid workers on strings… without cutting the red tape.
The dictatorship’s excuse? Than Shwe and his merelings continues to parrot that they “cannot let aid workers into the country out of concern for the workers own safety.”
Than Shwe,NEWS ALERT: to aid workers, a disaster site wouldn’t be a disaster site if it weren’t unsafe.
Than Shwe’s huge lie will not hold water, not even a drop left behind by the tsunami.
If one wanted to know the difference between being an American and being a European, this article from France’s Le Figaro newspaper would be a very good place to start.
From Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to client number nine Eliot Spitzer and ‘Kristan,’ Europeans have looked at the effect that sex has on American politics with a collective shake of the head. Read the rest of this entry »
Did the Pope visit the United States in part to influence the U.S. Presidential race in favor of John McCain?
That seems to be the conclusion of a large number of mainland Europeans.
This article from France’s Journal du Dimanche au Quotidien, quoting French journalist V. Jauvert, points out, “Since April 16 - his birthday - Pope Benedict XVI has been in the United States for a rather long trip (for an old person): a week. And he didn’t go there just to blow out the candles on the cake offered by Dubya … The Pope is (subliminally) campaigning for J. McCain … the official visit of a Pope during a very tight election campaign is contrary to tradition. … this trip, beyond the spiritual and political, is a pretext to support the pro life candidate.’
Jauvert goes on to say that in 2004 before his elevation to the papacy, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to American Bishops saying, “it’s not possible to defend the right to abortion and receive communion, and that therefore, those who vote for Kerry, who take communion each Sunday, “would be guilty of formal cooperation with the devil!”
“No one should believe that the Iraq War is really that high on the Pope’s agenda. When it came time for the Holy See to endorse a candidate for the last presidential election, the then chief-inquisitor who became today’s Pope found it more important to support the candidate who opposed the legality of abortion than the one who stood against the war. This meant that Bush garnered the support of about a million votes that otherwise would have gone to Kerry. Bush is President, so to speak, due to Benedict’s grace.”
Etschmayer goes on to say, “As Benedict XVI is a Pope of restoration, when he visits the United States during an election year it symbolizes a policy that is anti-liberal and is a sign of support for the only conservative candidate: John McCain. McCain’s talk of remaining in Iraq for even 10,000 years if need be changes nothing. In the end, the fact is that this Pope by far prefers a Christian theocracy that fights bloody wars over a liberal, non-Christian democracy that avoids conflict.”
By Patrik Etschmayer
Translated By Patrik Etschmayer
April 17, 2008
Switzerland - Nachrichten - Original Article (German)
The headlines looked to be rather promising for opponents of Bush: The Pope would give Bush a few verbal slaps in the face, unambiguously criticize him and perhaps the Pontiff would even administer a real beating. But one should not be deluded: Standing on the same foundation, these are two men that think reason and reality should take a back seat to belief in a world as one wishes it to be.
This unity stood out when George W. Bush integrated a core-belief of the Pope into his speech of welcome by stressing that it is important for the nation to heed “the dictatorship of relativism.” Ultimately, this means that both Bush and the Pope stand for an absolute believe in a God that accepts a diversity of faiths only in the sense that there are people left to convert.
It’s perhaps a little ironic then, that the relativism both of these men fight so passionately against exists between themselves, as Bush is a member of a Methodist Church while the Pope is the world’s top Catholic. As far as the Protestants, the Pope has already made his opinion quite clear: When he declared that the Protestant churches were in fact not real churches at all, it triggered considerable consternation among ecumenical [inter-church] organizations.
In this light, the Pope’s criticism of George W. Bush’s Iraq policy is doubly interesting and curious. It’s probably too simplistic to use oil to explain Bush’s drive to invade Iraq. This was certainly a major motivation but there might as well have been the hope of having his “Christian” army plant a flag of victory over the stylized Islamist fanaticism of Saddam Hussein, whose rhetoric certainly contained a religious component. Recall when Bush initially spoke of a crusade, it looked simply as a clumsy choice of words. But who today uses this expression in a military context? It’s quite possible that he actually meant it in a literal sense. A man that continuously stresses doing the Lord’s work will also be drawn into war for his master.
And no one should believe that the Iraq War is really that high on the Pope’s agenda. When it came time for the Holy See to endorse a candidate for the last presidential election, the then chief-inquisitor who became today’s Pope found it more important to support the candidate who opposed the legality of abortion than the one who stood against the war. This meant that Bush garnered the support of about a million votes that otherwise would have gone to Kerry. Bush is President, so to speak, due to Benedict’s grace.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the Pope’s visit to the United States.
Why is it that Popes don’t usually visit the United States during presidential election years? Lucas Mendez writes for the BBC Brazil, “As neutral as the papal robe is, his messages can and will be used by the candidates … every time Benedict XVI opens his mouth, Democrats and Republicans will interpret and “spin it,” according to their own political ‘gospels’” Read the rest of this entry »
In one of those telling front page-back page juxtapositions, the headline news about Eliot Spitzer overwhelms a government study showing that one out of every four American teenage girls is infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
After seven years of a federal government promoting abstinence only, both stories are reminders that the gap between what Americans say in public and do in private has morphed into a chasm of hypocrisy.
As righteous Republicans enjoy the spectacle of a Democratic governor joining the ranks of Larry Craig, David Vitter et al, little attention is being paid to the alarming news about teenagers who don’t know or don’t care enough to protect themselves from infections that can lead to serious disease.
Read the rest of this entry.
The case of Eliot Spitzer - as is often the case when an American politician is charged with a lack of moral rectitude - leaves many Europeans scratching their collective heads. According to this editorial from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, ‘From a Central European perspective, the Spitzer Affair has a rather outlandish aspect to it. New York’s once dreaded “Mister Clean” is facing ruin because in most U.S. states, prostitution and visiting a prostitute is not just a matter of moral misconduct - it’s an indictable offense.’
EDITORIAL
Translated Bu Ulf Behncke
March 12, 2009
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays virtue. But Eliot Spitzer made so many bitter enemies during the course of his career that now, some even refuse to call the Governor of New York State a hypocrite: To them, Spitzer never even pretended to respect virtue.
Spitzer, who in his previous post as Attorney General was the terror of Wall Street and many major American corporations, simply imagined himself above the law.
What Spitzer was actually thinking, nobody knows. What’s clear is that this classic drama of a smug Mister Goody-Two-Shoes whose meetings with high-class hookers proved to be his undoing, will provide ample material for psychologists and future scriptwriters alike.
Since Spitzer violated the very laws that as Governor and former Attorney General he was ultimately responsible for upholding, he is left no way out other than resignation.
From a Central European perspective, the Spitzer Affair has a rather outlandish aspect to it. New York’s once dreaded “Mister Clean” is facing ruin because in most U.S. states, prostitution and visiting a prostitute is not just a matter of moral misconduct - it’s an indictable offense.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing foreign press reaction to the the downfall of Eliot Spitzer.
In the Search for Truth, book and magazine publishers are running into a few problems. Herewith two new trends in the reality business:
The continuing hoo-ha over the latest publishing fraud, the Valley girl who posed as a druggie gang member, brings up the question of where to draw the line between writers with vivid imaginations and out-and-out liars.
Truman Capote, who invented the non-fiction novel, was not always the most fact-checkable of journalists. He had a storyteller’s way with the truth. His writing and even his casual conversation abounded in astonishments, wondrous coincidences and weird juxtapositions.
But Capote was a novelist at heart, and his talent earned him some leeway as a fabulist in matters of little moment. In fact, the writing of “In Cold Blood” was, in part, a challenge he set himself to tell a journalistically pure story that would have the richness of his fiction. He knew the difference.
Today’s fake memoirists either don’t know or don’t care.
In an era of fake memoirs, Esquire now gives us a new variation on masturbatory journalism–the fictional diary.
For “a conceivable chronicle of Heath Ledger’s final days,” the editors explain, “writer Lisa Taddeo visited the actor’s neighborhood, talked to the store owners and bartenders who may have seen him during his last week, and read as many accounts and rumors about the events surrounding his death as possible. She filled in the rest with her imagination. The result is what we call reported fiction.”
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is an interfaith effort “committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Its motto: ‘Torture is a moral issue.’
Today I received the following email calling for support in protesting Bush’s intended veto of the intelligence bill. If you wish to make your voice heard—and they’ve made it quite easy—please read the following:
Earlier this month Congress passed H.R. 2082, a bill that would prohibit all U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, from subjecting detainees to waterboarding, stress positions, hypothermia, and other forms of torture. The President’s signature is all this bill needs to become law.
Unfortunately, President Bush has said he plans to veto the bill. If he does not change his mind, this important anti-torture legislation will not become law.
Please contact the White House and tell President Bush’s staff that you support H.R. 2082 (the Intelligence Authorization bill), and that you think it is essential that the anti-torture provision in the bill becomes law. You can use a sample email that we have prepared to contact the President, or you can call the White House at 202-456-1111. Click here for the sample email. Please feel free to personalize the email.
Even if you think it won’t do any good, taking a stand will definitely make you feel heard. And it’s so easy. A couple of clicks is all it takes (and you’ll get back a message instantly from the White House thanking for you input and telling you not to count on hearing back.)
February 11th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
My daughter in Australia has drawn my attention to a death that seems to have gone virtually unnoticed in this world. And I was moved to tears… Read the full obituary here…
“This financial-corporate elite is my base. They are few in number, but have all the money in the world. This is why I remain unconcerned that tonight my approval rating stands at only 34 percent. … From this rostrum I can assure that I harbor no grudges against that evil mob of ingrates that disapproves of my administration.”
By Alejandro Nadal
Translated By Paula van de Werken
January 30, 2008
Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)
George W. Bush has delivered his eighth and final Presidential report to Congress. It was surprising to see the number of interruptions for applause during the speech. And it seemed that Bush was a decent orator, capable of stringing together ideas and completing a sentence. Without a doubt, technology can perform miracles: The teleprompter gave that impression. But, unfortunately, they still don’t provide subtitles in Spanish. So in order to fill gap, we offer this uncensored translation of his report.
Honorable Congress of the Union: This is my last report as President of this great nation. I deeply regret that I must deliver it when things are not well. The American economy remains the world’s largest, but growth has slowed. We are moving toward a recession that will have negative consequences Read the rest of this entry »
January 12th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
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I have always believed that once you accept political corruption as a universal phenomenon, you are finished. Be it Pakistan, the USA or India. I was quite disturbed to read that the US administration has allowed billions of dollars of unaccounted aid to flow into Pakistan. Now we have the World Bank chief pulling up India for the misuse of loans meant for the health projects for the poorest of the poor. What a shame!!!
Lesley Wroughton of the Reuters writes: “The World Bank said on Friday it had uncovered ’serious incidents’ of fraud and corruption in a review of five health projects in India and Bank President Robert Zoellick pledged he and the government would get to the bottom of it.
“Evidence of problems was found in a just-released Detailed Implementation Review launched by the World Bank in 2006, with the support of the Indian government. It looked at the five World Bank-supported projects, some dating back to 1997, for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
“The review’s findings are likely to further highlight concerns about corruption in World Bank-financed development projects and increase pressure on Zoellick to tackle shortcomings in the bank’s oversight of projects. Read the rest of this entry »
January 4th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
While many observers and commentators are totally absorbed in guesstimating who would be the next president of the United States of America, few are still devoting the news space to finding out whether the present incumbent in the White House would be able to achieve anything before his term in office comes to a close in January 2009.
Among the exception is The Economist: “Few presidents have a pleasant time of it in their last year in office. Their chickens come home to roost. Their political capital dries up. Their advisers start worrying where their next pay cheque will come from. The entire country is fixated on the question of who will replace them.
“Woodrow Wilson was humiliated by America’s failure to join the League of Nations and then incapacitated by a stroke. Dwight Eisenhower was haunted by Sputnik and his multiplying medical problems. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton had to deal with the fallout from Iran-Contra and Monica Lewinsky respectively.
“George Bush is likely to have a better year than Wilson (he is remarkably fit for a 61-year-old), but a worse one than most other presidents. Yet 2007 was a surprisingly good year after the debacles of 2006. The ’surge’ in Iraq proved fairly successful—and vindicated Mr Bush’s decision to back his own judgment against the collective wisdom of the Iraq Study Group.
“The White House also played a successful defensive game against the Democratic-controlled Congress, outmanoeuvring it on everything from Iraq funding to the federal budget to energy bills to wire-tapping. Mr Bush blocked the expansion of a children’s health insurance programme of which he disapproved. He is now talking about ending his presidency ‘in a sprint’…
“This is unlikely. Mr Bush has little going for him in 2008. Only one in three Americans thinks that he is doing a good job. Almost all of his closest political advisers have decamped. Congress is determined to get its revenge and block anything that he sends it. And in reality he has much less than a year to play with.”
Personally I would be more interested in knowing what President Bush would do after retirement. His two dear/closest friends did unusual things. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to change his faith after quitting office - from Protestant to Catholic. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf (although he removed his General’s uniform under pressure) decided to cling on to presidential office despite continued public protest in the country (described as “the world’s most dangerous place”).
(Illustration above courtesy The Economist/Kevin Kallaugher)
Stephen Suh at the new Cogitamus Blog asks for defenders of torture policy to tell us why we were wrong back in the 1940s when we stood strong against torture. We prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for waterboarding our guys. Even the Mississippi Supreme Court, at the height of Jim Crow, declared it beyond the pale. Why were they mistaken?
My TMV co-blogger Pete Abel thinks the era of the culture war is over as foreign policy and national security take their place as the primary political issues of the new era. I’m afraid I can’t share his optimism. Even if abortion and homophobia fade to the background as my generation takes over, they’ll merely be replaced by different areas of concern. One of the more terrifying developments of the past few years has been the significant segment of the American electorate — including a goodly portion of the presidential candidates for a major political party — unabashedly declaring themselves pro-torture. Like the debates on abortion and gay marriage, this is a moral issue that speaks to the very soul of the nation. Culture still matters when it is still a matter of debate as to whether the American culture will sanction simulated drowning, endless detention without trial, and the other gross human rights abuses that have characterized the “war on terror”. Foreign policy hasn’t changed the game, merely the frame.
In any event, with a nod to this comment, I move we rename “waterboarding” to the far more apt “freedom shower.” It certainly fits the self-image of its barbaric proponents.
Just saw part of his speech HERE. Now he is being congratulated by George H. W. and Barbara Bush.
Earlier this morning, I read excerpts from the speech he planned to give and concluded that Romney does not sufficiently respect the necessary separation of Church and State. MSNBC First Read comments on the excerpts.
According to Political Wire, Robert Novak says Romney’s advisers opposed giving this speech at this time.
August 10th, 2007 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
I wrote on TMV about Taslima, a poet and doctor, against whom a fatwa to behead her had been called ….for she dared to write poetry about “honor killings”; she was imprisoned for writing about women taken to the stadium and stoned to death while the mullahs present were laughing.
Read on TMV May 18, 2007: Four Arrested In Honor Killing and a New Call for Beheading Taslima Nasrin
http://themoderatevoice.com/?s=taslima
Yesterday she was attacked at a book signing of her work. To me, it is AS noteworthy, that men tried to protect her as that men tried to attack her. There are few stories about the men of the world who have unbitter and heroic hearts despite all reason to be bitter. I know that for many, this is non-news. For many women, they don’t want a man ‘intervening.’ But, for a person like myself who has had many challenges in the world, these are the kind of men, the kind of people, that I most admire. Ever. Always. Brothers by bloodline of the soul.
I often think that many of us, in these times, find we are rowing down a river of burning garbage with snipers on both shores. Many of us know we’re not crewing a ship, but a tea cup with sails made of memories of the worst and the best of what we’ve lived. And, there under one of the small rowing benches, is the Life Force protected under a worn tarp, still glowing. Our work: to carry that forward unharmed.
But, carrying such precious cargo through this perpetual dual-war zone we all seem to live in at present on many fronts, will not and can never be done without the help of those who, despite varying religions, politics, attitudes, opinions and other, are also strong-minded and soul-minded, both… Both.
Though there are some in the world who find it easier to breathe scathing smoke rather than life-giving oxygen to others, those who attempt to wither most all they touch… that there are others who are brave in ways that teach and shelter and offer life to others without being preemptory– that there are men (and women) who first-person, try to help to shelter despite blowback to themselves…these I bless.
I believe such souls in turn bless goodness in this earth… goodness that would otherwise, though precious, go unblessed and be disheartened under myriad unwarranted attacks. The world is made poorer and poorer then… more and more run by the fire starters who take strange arousal from conflagrations, and who ever try to force-feed that they are ‘right’… all at the expense of building toward others a living bridge that holds….
Taslima Nasrin writes to attempt to protect others. That some brave souls see she merits protection from those who seek to harm her mind, her creativity, her spirit and her body… this is a huge often overlooked news… a news that can be heartening to many, and this is why I brought it here.
Tracy Clark-Flory reports
Feminist author attacked in India
A mob of Muslim extremists assail writer Taslima Nasreen and call for her murder.
Aug. 10, 2007 | Taslima Nasreen, an outspoken feminist author who has railed against the treatment of women under religion, particularly Islam, showed up for her book release party yesterday in Andhra Pradesh, India. A mob of Muslim extremists also showed up to combat her depiction of Islam as oppressive to women … by throwing things at her and shouting for her death.
A crowd of 100 protesters, including a handful of Indian lawmakers, hurled a “leather case, bunches of flowers and other objects at her head and threatened her with a chair,” reports Reuters. By one account she was also slapped. Others tried to protect her from the onslaught and police eventually managed to escort her to safety; she walked away with only a bruised forehead.
As well as yet another reminder that plenty of people would like her head — quite literally. Just in March of this year an extremist Indian Muslim group offered an $11,319 reward for anyone willing to behead this “notorious woman.” This is nothing new; Nasreen has been avoiding execution since 1994 when her sacrilegious prose led to calls for her death in her birthplace of Bangladesh (which forced her to flee to Sweden and later India).
It’s no surprise, then, that Nasreen said the attack would not intimidate her into silence. Or, as she wrote in a poem:
I, come what may, will not be silenced.
Come what may, I will continue my fight for equality and justice without any compromise until my death.
![[La Tribune, Honduras]](http://worldmeets.us/images/popepedofile_latribunahn.gif)
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