Marry in Massachusetts

As a boomer, I grew up knowing Americans were supposed to be the good guys. Oh, yeah, and that we cherished our liberties, models for the world. So, how is it that got to the point that we actively torture people and take the most basic freedoms from our citizens?

At the seminar/panel on torture last weekend, several speakers dealt with just those questions. The answers were not satisfying, but not hopeless either.

An overview of the session is here. A post on the central role of psychologists working with interrogators is here. The two panelists who dealt most with the now-what aspects were:

• Eric Fair, a former contract interrogator who has gone public with what he did, how it works, and what we should do about it. (Shown below right.)
  
• Leonard Rubenstein, a lawyer who is president of Physicians for Human Rights. (Shown above right.)
  

Rubenstein has clear ideas how we got into this state. It's partly as simple as 9/11 and yet predictable from other national crisis periods.

This is like anything else, business or personal. Management is easy when things go along as planned. You find out what you're really like when things fall apart.

For torture and squashing liberties, Rubenstein noted, "Ethical standards turn out not to be much of a brake on behavior when the most is at stake." That took me back to my boomer upbringing, and even the movies with good and bad guys, and simple morals — post-WWII idealism.

In this case, Americans did not torture; totalitarian governments and armies did. Americans loved freedom and guaranteed rights to all citizens; other countries had privileged elite groups and ordinary citizens were at the mercy of those in charge. As Rubenstein put it, "Other people are entitled to use coercion, but we are not," adding, "How did that break down?"

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You find out what you're really like when things fall apart.

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Yet, the current period is not the first one where we reacted to real or perceived threats in ways that strongly rejected those American values, putting in with the bad guys. As a couple on the panel noted, this is not the first era we have disgracefully turned on our values when times were scary.

For example, in the last century, we were fresh from saving democracy in WWII, only to let our fears of communism lead to us McCarthyism, black lists, and highly questionable prosecutions of citizens. During the war, we put many thousands of American citizens, mostly of Japanese descent with some Italian-Americans and German-Americans thrown in just because we were terrified that badly. Many were incarcerated for years, stripped of all their possessions...and their futures.

Rubenstein drew a parallel to the current situation with McCarthyism, spy trials and the unfettered growth of clandestine services performing those unreasonable searches and seizures, and robbing citizens of their freedoms, including speech. The head of the FBI, our Presidents, local police and others used the perceived threats as excuses to act in the most anti-American ways.

The less explicable aspect of all this was the compliance of the alleged liberty loving citizenry. Emotional and irrational justifications abound. "If you have nothing to hide, why would you object?" "If giving up our rights can prevent another 9/11, isn't that worth it?" "Of course, they can't tell us what attacks they've saved us from, but I'm sure the torture has done that." "Extreme times call for extreme measures."

Of course back in the real world, the more we cede that historically distinguished us as Americans, the less we protect and the more we turn ourselves into the others we disdained only seven years ago. Without a fully functioning bill of rights, we are far less free than we were on September 10, 2001.

A fundamental question here remains how anyone could try to justify or excuse torture. The denials are astonishing...still. Many in the Bush Administration and military are shameless in their support for torture. Many of the public don't want to know what is happening in the prisons and black sites or they reflexively think necessary evil in war conditions. Rubenstein noted that "these breaks (in our ethics and humanity) are really quite common."

Our own President has no compunction about openly lying either. Consider one of his many denials that our brutal interrogations are even torture — "I've said to the people that we don't torture, and we don't."

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Without a fully functioning bill of rights, we are far less free than we were on September 10, 2001.

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The reply is a bit different when filtered through health professionals. The psychologists bemoan complicity among their ranks and Rubenstein referred to a few decades ago when physicians aided such efforts. "How easy it was for the medical profession to absorb the values of the larger culture," he said. "People do so because they feel they need to advance popular values."

As in earlier moral breaks, we got there in no small part due to exploitation by the Administration, military, clandestine services and others. At this particular time, we also have an Administration that is actively sacrificing our citizen's rights to expand the power of the Executive Branch.

According to Rubenstein, in the past seven years, "we're part of new world of complicity." As a nation, following the attacks on the World Trade Towers, "all of us felt a tremendous sense of obligation" and unity of purpose. The Administration jumped on that to marginalize dissent as it as it stripped us of the rights we allegedly cherish. The effort, in effect, was to elevate patriotism to be an ethical value.

Moreover, we are increasingly recognized as the rogue nation that alone among democracies does not follow the Geneva Convention. For a reflective example, consider some of the torture wording that civilized nations subscribe to:

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

Collective punishment for individual acts, corporal punishments, imprisonment in premises without daylight and, in general, any form of torture or cruelty, are forbidden.

Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, compelling a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of the hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a prisoner of war of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in this Convention.

I believe even someone as incurious as our current President can understand such direct concepts and expression. When his cabinet members sat in repeated meetings to micromanage and enable torture, could there be any doubt what we have been about?

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"Ethical standards turn out not to be much of a brake on behavior when the most is at stake."

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In the present, we have lost all standing to claim we want to bring democracy to others. We rip our guarantees of liberties and rights found in our constitution and its amendments from even our own citizens. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure? You can forget it, in the name of protection. We must ask whether this is that freedom and democracy we want to offer and want others to emulate.

Perhaps the oddest aspect of all this is that coerced intelligence is a near worthless and often negative value commodity. As a project manager I would look at the torture-extracted information as likely meaningless.
According to ex-interrogators Fair and Tony Lagouranis, and others, the vast majority, likely over 90% of those interrogated, have nothing worthwhile. They are either innocent or ignorant of terrorism.
If a name or snippet is forced out, it almost certainly is no longer timely or accurate, thus useless.
More likely, coercion will extract false information just to get the torture to stop.

In the last case, my management experience wonders what the devil we'd be doing with it. If we then apply scarce human, military and financial resources to pursuing take leads, we are worse than inefficient and stupid.

We just keep shooting up the drug of torture. We pretend every time that it will make and keep us safe. We keep shooting up a fantasy of necessity.

Yet, here in the United States and more obviously in Iraq and the rest of that region, our military, our contractors, and the citizens are no safer than they were when we started.

Torture doesn't work. The information we get is suspect at best and generally worthless. Moreover, brutalizing others is a failure of freedom, of democracy and of American values.

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"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever."

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I confess to doubts about Fair. He was just too high profile. In fact, when I went looking for him the net and in libraries for his and torture, he was ubiquitous. I didn't even get citations of fellow ex-interrogator Lagouranis. I was ignorant, despite reading hundreds of pages on the topic.

Not only did I think Fair was the only one tell his story openly, but I thought he might be a publicity hound, albeit for a solid cause. Much to my surprise when I squirreled up with him in the same room where we hold our religious-education meetings (I'm youth liaison to the committee), I found a reluctant crusader.

I said he must speak once or twice a week on torture and interrogation. He replied that he and his family (wife and six-month-old son) have received physical threats. A minority of people seem to blame him 1) for what he did and 2) for revealing that American is about the business of torture. However, the vast majority of the comments he has received in the past year after going public has been very positive.

Fair may be on his way to becoming a Presbyterian minister, but he is like a UU in many ways. He is a social activist and he notes the ambiguity of issues when most people want simple-minded descriptions and judgment. For example, "I assure you if you come to this issue knowing exactly what it is that you think with firm convictions whether in support of my position or opposed, you have not grasped the complexity of this issue."

He said he willing went to Iraq and became an interrogator "as a well-intentioned supporter of the use of tactics." Yet, his experiences there have turned him into "an unbending opponent of all forms of coercion."

He entered understanding how the fear of terrorist attacks here and the intensity of the conflict there drove those involved as well as U.S. citizens domestically. He came to see how such pressure "serves to justify the erosion of the very values for which so many of us have fought."

He has some pretty grim tales of his own experiences. Specifically for the use of sleep deprivation:

Sleep deprivation involved taking a prisoner of war and stripping away what little sense of hope he or she may have left. The prisoner has no way of knowing when or if he will ever sleep again. Life suddenly has no future. A day never ends, which is to say there is never a tomorrow. One does not go to sleep. One does not wake up. Time essentially stands still, and a man who can see no future can be stripped of hope.

Once a man is stripped of hope, his mind can torture him more than any stress position, any police working dog or any enhanced tactic ever can...(stripped of clothes, forced to stand in the cold) which only increased his sense of despair.

I had crossed the line. The experience shook me to the core. I was overtaken not only by a sense of moral outrage, but by an intoxicating feeling of power. I controlled this man’s entire life his body, his emotions, his mind, and his spirit. His entire life rested in my hands and I could manipulate it however I saw fit.

Fair's tale reinforces what the health professionals say of how interrogators slip into such abuses. Moreover, Fair still thinks highly of the military, but poorly of those who do not control such environments. As he puts it:

Discipline is an army’s greatest attribute. Soldiers with clear directives based on firm and uncompromising chain of command will wield violence in a controlled manner in order to accomplish the most heroic of tasks. But take those same soldiers, deprive them of clear directives, remove discipline and then toss them in the complex world of human conflict, to say nothing of the chaos of Abu Ghraib, and they will wield that same violence in the most irresponsible of ways, to the shame of the very cause they swore to defend.

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"We must not send (our forces) into the chaos of war armed with ambiguity."

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Fair states that the current Administration has "an obligation to reserve aggressive techniques for the most frightening of scenarios. But it is this very lack of courageous leadership that leaves open a door that should have been closed long ago. We claim a moral high ground based only on convenience. "

Many of us, including me, like to point to the White House for resolution. With his UU-style sense of questioning, Fair is more comprehensive —"In the United States, the chain of command does not end at the feet of a uniformed general nor does it end at the feet of the President of the United States. It ends squarely at the feet of the American people. We must not send (our forces) into the chaos of war armed with ambiguity. "

The consensus of the panel was clearly that we are overdue for stopping and decrying torture. Rubenstein perhaps summed up the view of the health professionals with the simple but strong, "The best way to end complicity in torture is to end torture."

He added that we must "focus on prevention. We can't insist that people become heroes." It may take the next Administration, headed by a more moral and honest President. His call though is for specific rules, a bright line that excludes cruelty, coercion and torture.

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Tags: massmarrier, torture, APA, psychologists, Eric Fair, Brookline, American Psyche, Iraq, Rubenstein/a>

Let there be wrinkling and wringing of neckties...

...and so it was at the seminar/panel on torture last weekend.

Lost to most of us in the coverage of enhanced interrogation techniques and euphemisms for inhuman and inhumane torture by the United States is the role of mental-health professionals, primarily psychologists. Aren't those the good guys, who help people out of emotional distress or on their way to personal fulfillment?

One of my closest, long-term friends is a psychologist. I use him as a model for his profession. He is godfather to one of my boys. I solemnized his marriage. We have socialized for over 40 years. From my experience knowing many shrinks, I think most are a lot like him. He's not the torturing kind.

Yet buried in the basket of horror stories from our black sites, Iraq prisons and GITMO is the insidious truth that some psychologists have gone to the dark side. Psychologists are and have long been far too deeply involved in our interrogation and torture development and practice. In fact, their applied expertise in developing techniques are already part of our clandestine services and military lore. In that sense, it's too late to rein in existing work in these efforts. However, the American Psychological Association (APA) and others can align them with the rest of the health professions by forbidding all future employment and contributions in illegal and immoral acts.

The APA is the only health or mental health association that has not forbidden its members from participating in torture. They recently were forced into a statement that they absolutely condemn torture. However, they have some crackpot loophole about how important it is for shrinks to be handy in case interrogated folk need their services. Basically it remains the psychologists' call.

That was a shocker to us naive sorts at the seminar. Most of the 150 or so in the audience and on the panel were mental-health professionals. They have followed and engaged in this fight for a long time. They know what's been happening and how wrong it is.

Apparently, it's no exaggeration to say that psychologists build the tools of torture. They have researched the how, how much, how long and other aspects of maximizing the pain and humiliation we use in our nefarious operations. Saying they should be ashamed of themselves doesn't begin to cover the situation.

Background reading: A series of key academic articles on the role of psychologists in modern interrogation is here.

The most obvious question to us outsiders is what would possibly inspire a mental-health professional to do such things, to help in such disgraceful efforts? While a few might speak in the jive terms of the Bush administration of patriotism, terrorism and protecting Americans, the panel thought otherwise. In fact at one point they nodded and spoke in agreement that money was key. Quite simply some psychologists have lucrative, long-term contracts with the military and clandestine agencies.

The professionals on the panel were:

• Stephen Soldz Ph.D., a local psychoanalyst, social activist and professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis
• Leonard Rubenstein J.D., president of Physicians for Human Rights
• David Sloan-Rossiter Ph.D., co-chair of the Curriculum Committee at Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis

Oddly enough, the officers of the APA seem okay with this. According to Soldz (shown left), six of nine of the group devising their position on torture were from military intelligence. The APA might disingenuously call them experts.

At the APA annual meeting in August, the members had before them a resolution to ban totally any involvement in interrogation and torture. Instead, the financial interests of the few created that loophole. It is the old gentleman's trick of relying on the honor of psychologists to do the right thing.

Yeah, yeah, the APA told the world, sure, we absolutely condemn torture. On the other hand, if our members think they need to be in the room or help devise methods, it's their call.

Very unfortunately, the Guantanamo interrogator sorts clasped the decision not to forbid psychologists from any participation as some sort of vindication. The chief biscuit (the pronunciation for the dark-side shrinks in the Behavioral Science Consultation Team [BSCT]), Army Col. Larry James crowed about his victory.

He is a psychologist as are the other biscuits. In a twisted article in the GITMO newspaper, he viewed this convention vote in frightening terms:

From a moral standpoint, it is always good to feel that not only do you have the support of your loved ones when you are deployed forward, but you also have the support of your professional peers around the country. It’s clear given the vote at the APA convention that there is overwhelming support for psychologists who wear the uniform all around the world in defense of this nation.

He may also be delusional, only in the nicest way, of course. Hip deep in what much of the world views as torture, he said, "The BSCT does not have any command authority over the interrogators or the guards. However, we work with them on a consulting basis where they will come to me and ask my opinion."

To him, if the biscuits don't give the orders, their hands are clean.

Back on planet Earth, Sloan-Rossiter (shown right) opened the panel by saying, "There is a powerful disconnect," in psychologists aiding brutal interrogation and flat out torture. He said simply, The APA has been complicit."

Soldz added that the APA "has never commented on psychologists' role" in these operations, and that it must. There is also a movement within the association to replace its officers who have failed to help pass an outright ban on involvement, as the peer health associations have already.

I identify in that I came out of journalism school and newspapers. I can't avoid the knowledge that many journalists have shilled for the worst of our politicians and promoted and published propaganda and outright lies. Not surprisingly, they have also done for a buck when they pretended it was ideologically motivated.

That sounds pretty parallel. On the other hand, there is no reporters' association or society that would forbid them from doing so and remove their credentials if they do. Psychologists have the edge there.

Related posts on this seminar: An overview of the seminar and views of why we permit torture.

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Tags: massmarrier, torture, APA, psychologists, Soldz, Sloan-Rossiter, Guantanamo, Brookline, American Psyche, Iraq

Michigan is the latest, but certainly won't be the last. The hurt-the-queers laws and amendments will in reality leave a lot of collateral wounds.

The short of is that the state Supreme Court ruled 5 to 2 that wording the state DOMA-style amendment prevented businesses and schools from continuing to offer benefits to same-sex partners.

Over at Leonard Link, he is right on this with his analysis. Notably, he points to the dissenting opinion that stresses that this outcome is precisely what the anti-gay-rights folk swore would not happen. They said they just wanted to make double or triple sure that no gay couples could marry in Michigan.

The problem is just what civil-rights groups have predicted from the beginning of the laws and amendments. Both gay and straight couples, including siblings watching out for each other when one is disabled or incompetent, are ground up in the anti-gay machine.

The Michigan amendment is a great example of how this type of law or amendment destroys all in its path. On the face of it, the deceptively simple wording is vindictive, but not malicious. In fact, it uses a flamethrower to light a candle.

The proposal before the voters that passed was:

A PROPOSAL TO AMEND THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO SPECIFY WHAT CAN BE RECOGNIZED AS A "MARRIAGE OR SIMILAR UNION" FOR ANY PURPOSE

The proposal would amend the state constitution to provide that "the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose."

Should this proposal be adopted? Yes or No

Of course, the broad wording and lack of clarification are what the five-judge majority ruled on this week. If something is similar to marriage at all in benefits or protections, it's out. The similar union for any purpose is the Conan the Legislator weapon. It lacks subtlety.

The ham-fisted laws and constitutional changes in various states won't stand in many places, but it will take years or decades for changes. In the wake of such horrors as civil unions in Vermont and same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, the rush to keep the gays from getting anything, much less what straights have, was clumsy.

As in several states with such amendments, voters seemed confused, particularly where there was already a one-man/one-woman definition of marriage on the books. In Michigan's case, it is unambiguous:

551.1 Marriage between individuals of same sex as invalid contract. Sec. 1.

Marriage is inherently a unique relationship between a man and a woman. As a matter of public policy, this state has a special interest in encouraging, supporting, and protecting that unique relationship in order to promote, among other goals, the stability and welfare of society and its children. A marriage contracted between individuals of the same sex is invalid in this state.

Clearly the only reason to add a boobytrapped amendment is to ensure that homosexuals don't have a chance in hell of sharing what different-gendered couples have as a matter of course and law. The people who promote such amendments and laws are the same ones setting about redefining marriage from what it has been in this country from even before it was a country, from colonial times. Marriage has been and is a civil contract.

So, the result in Michigan as it will be elsewhere is harm to all classes of such personal contracts that protect a variety of people. The vast majority would certainly consider their relationships resembling marriage, but they are harmed nonetheless. Moreover, businesses and schools can't choose what benefits to offer to attract and retain employees. They will be precluded by this ruling.

This has to settle out. It will take lawsuits, new legislation, repeal of some existing laws and amendments. Meanwhile, many suffer.

It's likely that in some states the voters will come back to their lawmakers to say, "This isn't what we meant or wanted." Repent in leisure, as the accurate cliché concludes.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Michigan, same-sex marriage, amendment, Supreme Court, LeonardLink, domestic partners, benefits

The delightfully impotent Catholic Action League of Massachusetts is in the corner sputtering again. I insist on calling it CLAM instead of CALM. The apparently sole member, C.J. Doyle, is not pacific. He is emotional and strident, insistsingon sending out rabid, alarmist electronic press releases, and failing at everything, including stopping same-sex marriage, in the legislature or courts.

This week, the Doyle guy is exercised again about the Knights of Columbus, specifically that the KofC won't throw out politicians who don't vote the way he thinks is Roman Catholic. We've heard this before and those who wet themselves over this issue do so again and again.

The Catholic World News (another rag-tag group of a few) treats Doyle's latest like real news here. Then again, they don't have much to report. Apparently the other hot current issue was a month-old Vatican directive that R.C. parishes should not provide records to Mormons seeking to posthumously baptize folk. (Be still, my heart!)

If you click over to read the KofC slam, don't overlook the rabid comments at the end.

The tale is that some winger Catholics figure that if a politician don't vote how they prefer, that's reason for expulsion from the frat. Unfortunately for them, neither the Massachusetts council nor the national organization will make their call or even vote on such a measure. They also would rather do the charity and other work of the order than decide who's been good enough for them.

According to Doyle, Joe Craven introduced a resolution at the latest Massachusetts KofC confab to direct the state deputy "to summarily suspend those members of the Knights of Columbus who are public officials, present or former, or candidates for public office, who through their votes, campaign literature, web sites or public statements openly support abortion or homosexual marriage." In case you have any doubt, that would be primarily for providing any kind of support, even oral comments, that enables women's reproductive choice (including abortion) or supporting same-sex marriage.

Of course, that's a majority of the men in the state house here and I think our entire Congressional delegation. I don't know how many are KofC members or exactly what the horror of being suspended would mean to them.

Also unfortunately for the Action League and its like-minded, the KofC rules don't really provide for this. I don't own a copy of the Laws of the Order rule book, but several rabble rousers cite the relevant sections. Craven's own assault relies on the vague justification of "giving scandal, scandalous conduct or practice unbecoming a member of this Order."

It's a pity the laws aren't specific, as in "not voting the way C. Joseph Doyle or Joseph Craven demand." Instead, at the state confab, the legal guru, Supreme Advocate Paul Devin said the resolution was "unconstitutional," laments Doyle.

It's not only Massachusetts who has this manufactured issue. In Virginia, 17 years ago, House of Delegates candidate Mike Dwyer was dogged and defamed for refusing to say he'd vote against any funds that could be used for abortions. As a KofC, he was the target of screeds calling for his ouster from the order. His attacker was another scandal guy, citing KofC laws:

• Section 162.7 of those laws provides that any member guilty of "giving scandal, scandalous conduct or practice unbecoming a member of this Order" shall be suspended or expelled.
• Section 162.9 provides that any member guilty of "speaking, writing, printing or publishing any matter or statement which shall be deemed to be detrimental to the harmony and good order of the Knights of Columbus, or tending to create discord and dissension among the members or create public scandal, or causing the same to be done" shall be suspended or expelled.
• Pursuant to Section 171, if a Knight "violates any of the provisions of the Order's laws, "it shall be the duty of any member who may have or acquire knowledge of the same to make written complaint to the Grand Knight, specifically setting forth the wrongdoings of the accused." Unpleasant though it may be to accuse a brother Knight, Section 171 imposes a duty on a Knight to file a complaint when he knows of a violation of the Order's laws. Section 171 thus leaves a Knight no alternative, if he is to avoid violating the Order's laws himself. And the obligation to file a complaint is imposed on any Knight who knows of the violation, not just the men who belong to the miscreant's local council.

According to the 1991 tale, after unending pursuit, Dwyer was suspended, but we don't know for how long or if he appealed or was reinstated. The whole effort seemed to be yelling down the well and to little effect.

Yet, those who fight this battle are relentless and focused, and plainly outraged.

The order, in contrast, is about its major tasks — "Guided by four core principles—charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism— these founding members strove to overcome the hardships of the time. Poverty. Unemployment. Even persecution."

It actually is at core a service organization, much like the animal men's groups, like the Elks, Moose and Lions. It does a pretty good business selling life insurance to members. Of course, it is Roman Catholic and has that religious outlook.

Yet, the national and state KofC groups are not about forcing conformity or even defining scandal or finding ways to oust the least faithful to doctrine among them. They'd seem to like to keep doing good deeds, bringing in the dues, and supporting each other.

For politics and public policy, "(l)ed by the Fourth Degree, the Order encourages its own members--and all people--to vote pro-life. The Knights of Columbus feels that the right to life is not a partisan issue, but rather the pre-eminent moral issue of our time."

Moreover, the national organization also publishes a policy that cites the work of the current Pope when he still ran the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Six years ago, his Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life defined for bishops, politicians the laity involved in politics how to behave. It states:

Every member of the faithful, including those engaged in political activity, should act out of a well-formed Christian conscience. It is the task of the Church's teaching office to bring the light of the Gospel message to the circumstances of our day. The role then of the Church as teacher in no way impinges upon the proper autonomy of lay Catholics in politics.

The document reminds us while there is a rightful autonomy of the political or civil sphere from that of religion and the Church, public policy cannot be separated from morality. Thus the constant and legitimate task of pastors of souls is to teach.

The Catholic tradition brings to any national debate a consistent moral framework that is anchored in the Scriptures and expressed in the teaching of the Church as well as in the everyday experience of educating the young, caring for the sick, sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, welcoming refugees and speaking for those who have no voice.

"Faithful Citizenship" points out: "As bishops, we seek to form the consciences of our people. We do not wish to instruct persons on how they should vote by endorsing or opposing candidates. … We are convinced that a consistent ethic of life should be the moral framework from which to address issues in the political arena.

"For Catholics, the defense of human life and dignity is not a narrow cause, but a way of life and a framework for action."

All of us have an obligation to be informed on the major political issues of our day and how political action and public policy reflect or are inconsistent with the basic natural moral law. Our political actions, out of which come the laws of this country, must be based on the natural moral law and the most basic of all human rights — the right to life.

Despite then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's nickname of God's Rottweiler, you won't find any of the League's flaming rhetoric there. Priests teach, while people think and act in conscience.

The last thread that the KofC self-identified purity police cling to has the order's requirement that members be and remain "practical Catholics," as in what most of us would loosely call practicing Roman Catholics. There is a long, detailed explanation on page 18 of this chaplain's handbook. Pretty much, some things such as divorce are forbidden. Those and anything else that would prevent you from taking communion and otherwise being in union with the church are a basis for ouster from the order.

That really only fits multi-marrier Rudy Giuliani and a few other R.C. politicians (and Rudy took communion when the Pope was at Yankee Stadium anyway).

Perhaps it time for Doyle and his ilk to stop huffing and bellowing enough to check in on Matthew 7:1-5 (New International):

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

In context, that's all pretty plain. Those who anoint themselves judges of who is moral enough to be a Knight don't seem to have to stature for the position.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Catholic Action League, C.J. Doyle, KofC, politicians

Surely every blogger from Roslindale, JP or West Roxbury wants to put a face with some other particular bloggers from these parts. We can do that next week.

Our first area blogger social gathering — in a bunch, in a bunch — will be Wednesday, May 14th, at Doyle's. We'll gather in the big back room around 7 p.m.

Doyle's location and a link to directions are here. I guess I'm co-host. Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub and I each consider this the other's idea. At the very least, come buy Adam a beer for all the extra hits he's given us when he cites one of our posts.

There's no entry fee or other cost, except for whatever you order to eat or drink.

Apparently, WR only has a few bloggers. So, if you are one, you absolutely must come.

For some unknown reason, JP has a lot. Those from the two other neighborhoods have to be there next week to make sure we don't dominate.

It also won't be out of place to suggest that if this one is fun, we should have the next one at the Pleasant or wherever your favorite is that has a big room.

If you've never been to Doyle's, feel free to gawk at the mayoral memorabilia, going way back. There's murals of the many politically famous gents and ladies who have bent an elbow in the joint.

Food is fairly cheap. There's quite a few drafts available. Doyle's has the longest list of single malts I've ever seen. No one ridicules you if you want coffee or tea or club soda.

Stay as long as you find it amusing. Then feel free to post about it.

Tags: harrumph, massmarrier, Boston, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, West Roxbury, Doyle’s, bloggers

In an incredible, yet thoroughly well intentioned, display of navel gazing, a dozen organizations and institutions co-sponsored a gathering to discuss torture. That is, they emphasized the disgraceful cooperation, complicity and active participation by their own.

I heard an interrogator and three health professionals describe why we do it, why the nation allows it, what the deep drawbacks are for us, and that role of psychologists from the beginning and continuing. Coming will be a post on the role of psychologists and a second one on why we torture (and how to stop it).

The panel/symposium was Torture and the American Psyche: Blurring the Boundaries Between Healers and Interrogators. I had read considerably on torture, knew that our current Administration does more than support it, and researched the ex-interrogator Eric Fair. Yet, I did not know how integral shrinks have been in this.

Psychologists and other mental-health professionals have worked with clandestine operations and the military to design the most insidiously effective torture methods they could, and trained interrogators in how to apply them. They continue to get paid for this. Alone among the health-related associations, the American Psychological Association has yet to forbid any involvement in torture.

Meeting last weekend at the First Parish in Brookline, the seminar took the form of a two-hour panel before questions and breakouts. The attendants were perhaps 150, mostly mental-health professionals, with some social activists, including a handful from that church. The panel included:

• Stephen Soldz Ph.D., a local psychoanalyst, social activist and professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis
• Leonard Rubenstein J.D., president of Physicians for Human Rights
• David Sloan-Rossiter Ph.D., co-chair of the Curriculum Committee at Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis
• Eric Fair, a former interrogator in Iraq who has been telling his story and calling for reform

Disclaimer: I have been attending First Parish in Brookline. I know members of the social-action committee there.

I took Fair aside before the program started. I had incorrectly thought he might be a publicity hound. My library and internet research turned up a seemingly endless set of citations for his speaking engagements, as well as several articles he wrote, others who interviewed him, and particularly his Washington Post op-ed, An Iraq Interrogator’s Nightmare, a year ago that turned the subject of torture to a full boil.

It did not take long to see that this young Presbyterian divinity school grad student (the Princeton Theological Seminary) was as sincere as humans can be. He deeply regrets having abused prisoners as an interrogator in Iraq. In what must be called atonement, he is doing more than heading for a life of ministry. About once a month when pressed by requests, he speaks clearly and firmly about what he did, how he continues to be haunted by it, and what we must do as a nation to stop this most anti-liberty, anti-American travesty.

As Fair told me, he had the easiest out of the interrogators. He was a contractor and no longer a soldier. He could quit and leave, which he did. The only other interrogator who has publicly discussed and declaimed his role, retireed-Spc. Tony Lagouranis, tells similar tales of torture, leading to eventual shame and then refusal to continue torture and interrogation. Lagouranis' co-authorship of a book on the subject has been yet another handle for those who criticize him 1) for telling his story and 2) for his deeds he described.

On the panel, the health professionals described the conditions, present and past, that have brought us to a place where we carry out and others condone or ignore torture. They are angry and ashamed of the APA for its cowardly and tepid dealings with it. They too see the dreadful disconnect in our urging Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations to institute democracy and freedom, as we torture and simultaneously strip our citizens of Bill of Rights protections. Who are we to proselytize what we do not live?

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Tags: massmarrier, torture, APA, psychologists, Eric Fair, Brookline, American Psyche, Iraq

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Camels.
Benjamin: Just how do you mean that, sir?

Well that was the 1967 version, mono-verbally updated. See today's Financial Times for Camel demand soars in India.

Reporting from New Delhi, Jo Johnson tips us to where the invisible hand of economics is goofing on high energy prices.

Farmers in such Indian states as Rajasthan (red on the map below) are looking to mammalian power. Notoriously fuel- inefficient tractors suddenly cost too much to run. Ruminants do as much for less.

The other side of the supply/demand equation is proving out as well. The cost of camels is climbing and livestock types are breeding new living tractors as fast as they can.

The FT reports the highlights of the economics as:

• At about 41 Indian rupee (Rs) to $1, entry-level tractors cost about Rs82,000
• "A sturdy male" camel has tripled in price in the past two years, to as much as Rs40,000
• That camel should live 60 to 80 years
• The national camel population has dropped over 50% in the past 10 years (to about 450,000)

"Two years ago, a camel cost little more than a goat, which is nothing," said Ilse Kõhler-Rollefson of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development. That NGO has a German headquarters and a branch in Rajasthan.

A fine report on a workshop on camels listed reasons for their decline. Most important was "shrinking grazing resources." Some land is in government hands for wildlife preserves. Other has been irrigated and turned into farmland.

Also there is insufficient veterinary care and medicine for breeders, "no organized markets for camel milk, wool and leather...(and) camel milk is discriminated against by the dairy cooperatives." Finally, until recently, camel breeding was considered low-status and backward. Simply, no one was encouraging breeding, caring for and feeding them.

Camel breeders are likely unintended beneficiaries of the petro cartels. As Kõhler-Rollefson notes, "It's excellent for the camel population if the price of oil continues to go up because demand for camels will also grow up."

There would be an elegance to camels supplanting machines. India, after all, is still a nation in which elephants remain integral to forestry, although there are fewer non-protected trees and many elephants are part of the tourist trade, used for rides.

So long as gas and diesel fuel stay expensive, a camel's wide-ranging herbaceous diet (including thorny plants) looks like a cheaper way to feed farm equipment.

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Tags: massmarrier, camels, farming, India, petroleum, supply and demand, Financial Times

It has not always been so. At the beginning, into the U.S. Civil War, and even 40 years ago, the Methodist Church favored progressive causes, particularly social justice.

My Methodist church left me and it has continued to wander. For example, just two days ago at its annual conference, its leaders adopted a minority policy that rejected saying even that members disagreed on homosexuality. Instead, the delegates voted (501 to 417) to stay with the old hard-line of "incompatible with Christian teaching."

Another reactionary, regressive Protestant church is not big, except it is. There are more Southern Baptists around, but Methodists claim 75 million members, mostly in this country. There are also a few influential ones, like Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and President Bush.

Stumbling from Grace

I grew up knowing that 18th Century John Wesley defined and spread Methodism in the United States and England. He was a social activist and abolitionist.

He believed in New Testament verbiage and concepts. You know, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, treating others as you want to be treated, all without any qualifications as to race, gender, class, and such. I have no doubt which side of gay rights and marriage equality he would advocate.

They're Nice Too

While the Northern and Southern versions of church officially joined in 1939, they didn't really. I became pointedly aware of that when I took a college girlfriend home to her family's small mill town in 1967. My welcoming committee far exceeded any projection.

I hadn't really thought about it. I knew her brother, a grad student in the same journalism college where I was a sophomore. If someone had asked, I would have figured to greet her parents and get on with the weekend.

Instead, it was like crows on a fence. Seated at the entrance to the living room in four chairs turned to face the font door sat her mother and three aunts, representing paternal relatives as well. They were all sturdy cotton-mill workers, more along the line of salt and pepper shakers than champagne flutes.

As soon as she introduced me, her mother's first words were, "What denomination are you?" I noted that she did not offer the choice of religion or Catholic v. Protestant, but into my teens, I was raised as a Methodist, attending church for Sunday school and services weekly, plus choir and youth fellowship. I knew that they were surely Southern Baptist, but that Methodists were probably close enough. Wrong.

I hadn't completed, "Methodist," when she shot back "Wesley or Southern?" My answer was wrong again, I should have noted that the distinction was no longer accurate, but I honestly admitted that I had not grown up in the conservative branch. Then, she just smacked her lips and said, "They're nice too." She clearly didn't mean it.

Methodists, after all, had bishops. If Episcopals were almost Catholics, Methodists were almost Episcopal. On the spectrum, they definitely were on the dangerous end.

What's My Motive?

I did not consider myself a Christian by college, other than living the ideals. Yet, I found myself in South Carolina comfortable at the campus Methodist student center. Not only was it far more inclusive than the other such houses, it also fostered active philosophical and political discussions among the range of students who sat in the living room and kitchen.

Moreover, one of the great magazines of the era, Motive, was Methodist. It officially was a monthly publication of the University Christian Movement by the Division of Higher Education of the Board of Education of the Methodist Church. After a final consolidation of Methodist factions, including incorporation of the Evangelical Church of the Brethren in 1968, the bishops decided to out and oust Motive. They declared it leftist radical, what with its anti-war, pro-feminism and gay, and anti-racist articles, poetry and art.

Yup, that literature is scary.

I have a stash of these maggies in the attic. (Artifacts that Hillary also claims to have preserved.) The art above is a typical editorial, with its jump-page conclusion pasted on. Articles and poems from noted religious sorts such as Thomas Merton and Harvey Cox appeared next to student writings and interviews with leftist Black leaders. It would have taken a very Christian attitude indeed to tolerate such social action.

Not all of the devolved Methodists want a return to the bad old days. About 200 to 300 protested the anti-gay policy decision. A 15-minute demonstration during the conference included:

Primarily dressed in black, demonstrators walked onto the legislative floor at the Fort Worth Convention Center, formed a two-lined cross around the communion table located in the center aisle and draped it in a black shroud to witness against the church's stance on homosexual practice. They entered silently, but once all demonstrators were in place, they sang, "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?"

The conference's presiding bishop, J. Lawrence McCleskey, recessed the conference. He said in a spasm of incredible circular reason that it was only because the conference was in recess that the act of witness, the protest, did not appear in the online stream of the session. (Move along. There's nothing to see here.)

Several UU ministers have told me that the most typical member of that association is a former Methodist. In as much as you can be a Christian as well as a UU in this non-credal religion, this is not surprising. The vast majority of UUs I know, and I know a lot, are social-action oriented and believe they and their churches should be about Jesus' precepts and mandates, not about punishing people who are just like them.

Why, that sounds like Motive readers!

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Tags: massmarrier, Methodism, Motive magazine, racism, John Wesley, Clinton, homophobia

My adds to the will-not-die Rev. Jeremiah Wright hoopla are:

Forget his arrogance; he has the ego and vanity of many ministers.

Non-Blacks looking for an excuse they want to dress up as a reason not to vote for Barack Obama hide behind it.

Having grown up in church and been active in the polity and politics of many of them, I have known and know many clergy. With just a little distance, we can easily see the colossal egotism that many exhibit.

Often, they use it too good effect far beyond just feeling grand themselves. They influence congregants to good behavior, people who would not take direction, much less scolding, from anyone else.

Moreover, with the lack of challenges to their statements day to day and on their preaching day, they understandably fall into such patterns. They can view themselves as speaking for their deity and perhaps as consistently correct in a confused world.

This particular preacher is toward the fringe of his profession. He has come by it honestly, with decades of speaking his truth, what he likely would call God's truth, before hundreds or thousands at a time. He is clearly positive that he's clever, and as so many ministers, that he's irrefutable.

It's not really noteworthy that so many TV talking heads, print media folk and bloggers have gnawed on this bone that they use to connect Obama's candidacy with Wright's rhetoric. All that's left in the ugly stub, an artifact that hints at unpleasant aspects of America.

We can even set aside Hillary Clinton and John McCain's long associations with bigoted preachers such as Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell. They like to say that's different because they didn't sit in the pews for decades. Well, it's also different because they praised those ministers mightily while Obama did not do so for Wright. They also have exhibited selective oversight and never once criticized their religious mentors and aides. When Obama does what they never had, they are ready with too-little-too-late.

Among the many commentaries on why voters as well as media want to gnaw on this particular bone, I favor The Chicago Sun-Times' Mark Brown's It's gut check time for white Americans. Brown is white and he's right on Wright.

The Wright affair has such resonance in this campaign because Wright has shown himself to be the kind of black person that white people don't like. He brings out our prejudices. Yes, I said "our" prejudices.

Part of it is Wright's ignorance and part of it is his arrogance and part of it is that he talks louder than white people would prefer and part of it is that he uses the sing-song cadence they associate with other black ministers they have grown to hate over the years such as Jesse Jackson.

Obama is none of those things (OK, maybe a little arrogant at times), so Wright has been brought to the forefront as a substitute punching bag.

Brown's town has the same deeply rooted race prejudice as Beantown. He knows from observation that "An opponent has trouble attacking the black candidate, so they find somebody connected to the candidate and attack them."

I have heard local self-identified liberals say it's not race at all that causes them to find these associations to discredit Obama. Yet, they let similar and worse links to Clinton and McCain slide. In a rare flash of fairness from me, some voters surely have manufactured reasons not to vote for the woman, but oh no, not because of her gender, but for something "real." Both types of excluders try unsuccessfully to disguise their emotions.

Brown is not kind to those who would feign objective concern as a way to avoid voting for the Black candidate. Writing of his own upbringing, he notes, "I know firsthand that when you get that prejudice in your system, it doesn't just go away on its own. It's stored away."

He calls simple racism on this, adding:

If somebody tells me they're against Barack Obama because he's on the wrong side of the issues...I can understand. But if they tell me they're against Obama because he went to Wright's church, I can see that for what it is.

Amen.

Jeremiah Wright in a jack in the box that keeps popping up. He'll pump up his own ego to keep the attention coming. A lot of other ministers would do the same. More important, the MSM will keep turning that crank to make sure he pops up again and again.

I think of the saintly and sinful people whom could connect me with in my life so far. Were I to run for public office, I could hope for the blinder treatment that other candidates have gotten and not the spotlight of guilt by association that the media, and even candidate Clinton, shine on Obama.

I'm with Brown on this one. I can see it for what it is.

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Tags: massmarrier, Mark Brown, Chicago Sun-Times, racism, Obama, Clinton, Democrats, Jeremiah Wright

When I was a kid, doctors could fix anything and cops were the good guys. Of course, for doctors, the most serious anything was swollen tonsils, which a needle squirting penicillin in my gluteus would fix it. For cops, my mother ran Red Cross chapters, which meant they were always around, taking first aid or water safety courses, working on fires and other disasters, or just because they were my cousins.

Πάντα ῥεῖ, as Heraclitus wrote — everything is in flux.


Of course, cops watch out for their own, a natural if immoral tendency. Judges far too often let cops get away with assault or murder that would earn the rest of us a hard fight in courts and the likelihood of jail and permanent criminal records.

How much slack should we leave for those who may put their lives on the line to protect us? Is it an infinite amount?

Last week, in extreme affronts to reason and justice, three NYC detectives who gunned down 23-year-old Sean Bell in September 2006, were acquited of all charges by Justice Arthur J. Cooperman, who said he didn't believe the prosecutors had presented enough evidence. This included Det. Michael Oliver, who reloaded his gun and fired 31 shots in the 50-shot sustained volley.

In terms of justice, his fiancé (and the two other unarmed young men shot by the cops) may see some money in her civil suit and the feds are still looking into civil-rights violations. However, the judge's assumption clearly was that cops are demigods, above the very laws they are to enforce.

Many citizens are outraged at such unconstitutional, institutionalized murder, but not astounded that this happened yet again. Mildly mitigating the murder and trial is the racial component. Bell was Black, as were two of the three detectives.

In the short-term, we're likely to hear more of this in the Presidential campaign, writes Robert Lovato in the current Black Communicator. He notes that this is another risk for Barack Obama. Still singed by his comments about the bitter social conservatives, Obama remains on the spot where we expect him to carry a civil-rights flag that the other two main candidates long ago dropped. As Lovato puts it:

Failure to use his rhetorical gifts to speak forcefully to and about real black and non-black anger about the Sean Bell verdict may re-animate doubts about commitment to that part of his base that is not white middle and working class.

Beyond Obama, all of us need to raise our voices and point at the abyss of our country’s institutional racism as was painfully and transparently reflected in the Sean Bell verdict. We might want to start by pushing Obama, Clinton and McCain-and the mainstream media- to speak honestly and continually about what the 50 bullets in Sean Bell say about justice in the 50 states of our tattered and bloodied union.

I've long ago given up on finding a fix-it-all doctor, but I do know some Boston cops who are brave and honest and honorable.

I too am looking for Obama to speaker louder, stronger and more clearly for civil rights, in the Bell instance among others. Come the battles and debates for the November vote, the call for justice will not be coming from John McCain. It needs to be more than a mumble from the Democratic nominee.

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Tags: massmarrier, Sean Bell, Lovato, racism, Obama, civil rights, Democrats, Black Commentator

Pennsylvania may be a breath of foul air for this campaign. It's brought the nastier notions of race to the fore. Hillary Clinton can't seem to stop talking about her strength in a few huge states among middle-aged white voters, as though that's all you need to know.

Of course, Hillary regularly uses the false argument that because she'd had the strongest showing in the primary in populous states, Barack couldn't win them, or the election, in November. That would have any validity at all only if he faced both her and John McCain in the big election. Barack only has to beat the Republican, not another Democrat at the same time.

Metaphorically though, Hillary's ruse has some power. If the traditional white workers in big states just can't smudge the oval for a Black man, that's a serious problem, both for Barack and for the nation.

Over at Black Commentator, Martin Kilson, Ph.D., analyzed the Pennsylvania vote.

He also produced the accompanying chart of voting-bloc breakdowns.

Kilson is a serious scholar, a retired Harvard professor, the first African American tenured there. He doesn't deal with sensationalism or alarmism.

Instead, he notes that the Clinton campaign is not afraid to use the "'toxic issue' of race" freely. "The Clinton campaign calibrated many aspects of its campaign message—the style and modality of its political appeal—with a keen eye to the demographic layout and attributes of voter blocs in Pennsylvania," he writes. Many of us may call her cynical and opportunistic, while she may simply see repeatedly using the race card as smart politics.

Kilson is willing to believe with Obama, who said after the recent voting, "There's going to be a clear contrast between the economic message of the Democrats and the Republicans...the party is going to come together after the nomination is settled." Obama expects Democrats to go for him over the disastrous Republicans.

Thousands of American GIs dead and perhaps as many American contractors; coming up on a trillion dollars pissed away; our dollar and economy in the crapper of failed economic fantasies; a bloated and growing government that eagerly strips all of us of our fundamental liberties...who wouldn't jump at a chance for another four or eight years of that!

The fact is that among those who do not want more of a Bush LITE should be those voting for Hillary in Pennsylvania and California. The on-the-one-hand of Obama and McCain is a stark contrast indeed. If we lived in a nation of the rational and reasonable, the November margin should be 98% for the Dem. It's more likely to be 55% to 45%.

Meanwhile, Kilson notes that the MSM love the story of Hillary's successful racial campaigning...and the results of high white-voter percentages. Yet, he adds that Barack's percentages in the Black communities and huge turnouts of the same type he gets from younger voters, seem to interest big media much less:

Had they paid just some attention to African-Americans' societal and civic agencies—especially in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh—they would have recognized something then clearly know nothing about. Namely, they would have recognized the serious and masterful role performed by Black clergy and churches, Black schoolteachers associations, Black academics, Black professional groups (lawyers, doctors, dentists, nurses), Black business groups (shopkeepers, barbers, hairdressers, artisans, funeral directors, banks, technologists of all sorts, etc.) in producing record-breaking Black electoral participation in the Pennsylvania primary election.

Race continues to be an issue, but Hillary seems to have overplayed this card. Her presumption that because older white women and white guys in general would rather vote for her she should be the nominee is not supportable. There is no corollary for the general-election vote. In fact, Barack's getting more votes, delegates and states backs up the argument that such simple-minded and old-fashioned political truisms are not longer true.

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Tags: massmarrier, Kilson, Pennsylvania, racism, Obama, Clinton, Democrats, Black Commentator

It apparently goes without saying — civil unions are not marriage equality. So, Vermont went without saying what to do.

After a plethora of public hearings and studying the matter for nearly a year, the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection said that the nation's oldest civil-unions did not meet the states' fairness and equality requirements. The 2000 enabling legislation needs, needs, well, they won't say.

"They all hide behind each other," said Karen Loewy, GLAD attorney and co-counsel in Goodridge at an SSM symposium in Rhode Island last month about various states' politicians. Such prescience.

The 11-member commission released its report yesterday. You can see a PDF file of it here. Do look for clear statements of why marriage is the only equalizer. Don't look for a conclusion that the legislature create equal marriage. Do look for study results that point to marriage equality as the only solution to fix the problem. Don't look for a demand or even suggestion that this occur.

As unbelievable as it seems after the study, testimony and particularly the commission's own findings, they could not bring themselves to state the obvious. Cue Loewy's comment yet again.

Instead (see page 28) for the barnyard cackling that plunges into silence and torpor with four recommendations:

• More study. Study the Massachusetts SSM experience.
• More study. Study the Vermont tax system to see if they can massage civil union provisions to replicate the ease and benefits of marriage in tax preparation and payment.
• More review. Hit the research on families and kids in various marriages to see if there is some consensus on what is best for kids.
• Fire drill on civil unions. Try to do the legislature's job on existing civil unions. Second guess what to do about existing ones instead of leaving it with lawmakers, as it is now.

That's right, boys and girls. This commission was so terrified of stating the obvious that it stopped inches short. Anyone reading the 35-page report can only conclude that there is one solution that fixes the numerous clearly stated problems with the pioneering civil-unions legislation. SSM is the solution, one answer to all the questions the commission asks.

After the eight hearings and all the study, this quivering group did not have the collective courage to finish the job.

Yet this delay will not take the pressure off to align the state's equality and anti-discrimination laws with the civil unions one. "You can absolutely expect us to be back in 2009 pushing the issue," responded Beth Robinson of the Freedom to Marry Task Force.

This report is an amazing illustration of ill-logic and cowardice. I'll pummel the pages and look for Leonard Link's analysis. I'm sure more will follow.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Vermont, same sex marriage, civil unions, marriage equality