Bookworm Room

Tweet Yesterday, I posted about the differences between gay sex (which is none of my business, so you can do what you like) and gay marriage (which is a significant state institution that cannot be treated in a libertarian way).  I was not arguing against gay marriage, per se, although I do have different ideas [...]

3 Comments »

Tweet One of my Facebook friends posted the following: The libertarian in me agrees with a lot of the post.  I’d like government to stop playing nanny to people.  It would make for smaller, cheaper, and less intrusive government, not to mention more individual freedom and personal responsibility. But, as the Sesame Street song used [...]

6 Comments »

Tweet I promise that this post will be about what Sheldon Adelson had to say in an interview with Alana Goodman of Commentary Magazine.  Before I get there, though, I need to begin with a little story of my own. Readers of my newsletter know that I had lunch last week with seven other conservative [...]

56 Comments »

Tweet Paul Scott challenged us to look at what Eric Garland, a Progressive blogger, has to say and to take it seriously as a way to win the White House.  Paul is right — we cannot make a convincing argument unless we know what our opponent in the argument believes.  Insulting Paul doesn’t make us [...]

55 Comments »

Tweet John Hinderaker caught a very funny statement from Jen Psaki, who is one of the president’s official spokesmen. She was responding to a reporter’s question regarding the fact that PBS asked the Democrats to take down an add using Big Bird (emphasis mine): We have received that request [from PBS]. We’re reviewing it. I [...]

1 Comment »

Tweet I thought I’d share with you some of the things my friends have posted on Facebook.  First, a cartoon that’s obviously meant to support the Progressive open border policy, but that just as obviously proves the opposite: I understand that you’re supposed to read the cartoon to mean that, without the Native American’s open [...]

7 Comments »

Tweet Remember when the Susan B. Komen foundation pulled out funding for Planned Parenthood, because PP provides almost no services relevant to breast cancer?  And remember how conservatives defended the decision because PP provides almost no services relevant to breast cancer?  And then remember how the Komen foundation ignored conservative approbation and caved on PP [...]

6 Comments »

Tweet MoveOn.org has created an online poster that has been getting a fair amount of play on Facebook.  The page is entitled “The #1 Reminder Every GOP Lawmaker Needs To See.”  It then quotes “American Hero” Jamie Raskin, a law professor, before successfully running for Maryland’s State Senate himself, testified before the Maryland State Senate [...]

3 Comments »

Tweet I mentioned in an earlier post the interesting fact that, on my Facebook page, it is my straight friends, not my gay friends, who are the most enthusiastic supporters of gay marriage.  This is not to say that my gay friends are slacking in their support.  They just lack the enthusiasm.  For every one [...]

17 Comments »

Tweet I’m not commenting on the merits of the decision, which I haven’t read, or on the merits of Prop. 8, which we’ve already hashed over at this blog.  I am commenting, however, on my utter lack of surprise with this ruling from the 9th Circuit, affirming the district court decision finding Prop. 8 unconstitutional.  [...]

7 Comments »

Tweet Cassie Jay is a young woman who makes unabashedly Leftist films.  Back, in 2010, she made a documentary called “Daddy I Do” that attacked abstinence-only education.  Even in liberal Marin, this movie caused a bit of a kerfuffle, as the local art cinema first agreed to show it, then backed off from that agreement, [...]

11 Comments »

Tweet In the halcyon pre-Obama days, when Prop. 8 meant that gay marriage was a hot blogging issue, I argued that religion organizations, not the state, should be allowed to define what constitutes a “marriage,” with states confined to authorizing “civil unions.”  In that context, I commented upon the religious implications of the government mandating [...]

116 Comments »

Tweet During the gay marriage debate, I mentioned to a lawyer friend of mine that gay marriage would inevitably set up a church versus state conflict if a church refused to marry a gay couple — especially the Catholic Church, which counts marriage amongst its sacraments.  My lawyer friend came back with what he thought [...]

20 Comments »

Tweet The Indiana legislature is working on a bill to ban gay marriage.  On my “real me” facebook, several of my friends characterized this as an act motivated by hate:  “Stop the hate!”  “Boy, they really hate us.”  “Could they be more hateful?”  I found this formulation interesting, perhaps because semantics has been such a [...]

126 Comments »

Tweet One of the things I’ve been watching is the trial attacking Prop. 8 in California.  As you know, in November 2008, California voters, by a solid majority, passed Prop. 8, which states affirmatively that, in California, marriage is between a man and a woman.  Two gay couples sued in federal court, alleging discriminatory intent.  [...]

13 Comments »

Tweet A Mormon in Oakland who is seeking re-appointment to a city-run board is being turned away because he supported Prop. 8.  There’s no indication that he is homophobic.  Like me, he favors civil unions for gays, which would extend to them the full panoply of legal rights available under the law.  (I also favor [...]

22 Comments »

Tweet This is a portmanteau post, filled with interesting things I read today, some of which come in neatly matched sets. Opening today’s San Francisco Moronicle, the first thing I saw was that an illegal teen’s arrest is causing a stir in San Francisco’s halls of power.  You see, San Francisco is a sanctuary city, [...]

6 Comments »

Tweet Whether you are for or against gay marriage, Robert George issues a sound warning about the dangers that flow from letting the Supreme Court get its hands on the issue: It would be disastrous for the justices to do so [rule against California's Prop. 8 and, by extension, make gay marriage the law of [...]

No Comments »

Tweet Traditionally, in arguing cases to the court, there have been a very limited number of available types of legal authority:  cases, statutes, administrative rules, and law review articles (with the last being advisory only) have pretty much made up the universe of things the court needs to consider.  In this Age of Obama, though, [...]

1 Comment »

Tweet As one of the weapons in its arsenal against Carrie Prejean, the attack media has dug up the fact that both her parents, during their obviously rancorous divorce, hurled charges at the other regarding homosexuality, and now another paper alleges that Prejean’s mother walked away from a lesbian affair.  No magazine has yet claimed [...]

10 Comments »

Tweet It’s been an incoherent day, one that never gave me the opportunity for contemplation and writing.  Instead, I’ve been bopping here and there, and dealing with one thing and another.  Nevertheless, I have been tracking the news, so I thought I’d just write up a mish-mash of thoughts about current issues and events. Gaza [...]

6 Comments »

Tweet The New York Times today has a headline story that a group of conservative Episcopalian bishops is breaking away from the mainstream church because of objections to the church’s stand on gay marriage: Conservatives disaffected from the Episcopal Church are expected to declare on Wednesday that they are founding their own rival Anglican province [...]

28 Comments »

Tweet A few months ago, the California Supreme Court overruled the will of the California voters and announced that gay marriage was a fundamental right.  The voters responded by changing the California Constitution to state that, in California, marriage is between one man and one woman.  As you know, if it were up to me, [...]

14 Comments »

Tweet It’s time to end the post mortem and get moving, the only problem being that “getting moving” is proving to be as rancorous amongst conservatives as was the political cycle itself.  One of the schisms I’m seeing in my own blog is between pro-Life and pro- (or, at least, not anti-) abortion types.  That [...]

39 Comments »

Tweet Yesterday, my dear, sweet European mother confided to me that she was pleased Obama won, because he speaks so much better than Bush.  This jived completely with a bumpersticker I just saw:  “At last, complete sentences will come from the White House” (or something like that).  I was struck again by the faith the [...]

23 Comments »