Box Turtle Bulletin

LGBT People Aren’t the Only Ones Deprived of Human Rights In Uganda

Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, has a must-read story today asking, “Is Uganda as homophobic as they say?” They begin by setting up the question this way:

It can be traced to a whirlwind of events. One year after (M.P. David) Bahati’s (Anti-Homosexuality Bill), a fledgling tabloid ran a headline that called for homosexuals to be killed. Three months after that, in January this year, one of the men pictured under the Hang them headline, David Kato, was bludgeoned to death in his home. Amin himself couldn’t have written a better script.

The reference to the Idi Amin, the bloodthirsty dictator who ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979, is a recurring one. Playwright Judith Adong invokes Amin’s name to show how the world’s views on Uganda’s human rights problems have shifted from a historical problem to a current one:

Before, when people heard that I’m from Uganda it used to be, ‘Oh, so you’re from Idi Amin’s country.’ Now it’s ‘You’re the people who want to kill homosexuals,'” she says.

Longtime LGBT advocate Val Kalende (she bravely appeared in a 2009 Daily Monitor profile at the height of the outcry surrounding the Anti-Homosexuality Bill) pulls on that thread further. Referencing Lonely Planet’s recommendation of Uganda as the world’s #1 best tourist destination, Val refocuses on the broader problems with human rights in Uganda:

Kalende believes the commenters on Lonely Planet are blowing things out of proportion. “What such people want to do is to place gay rights ahead of other human rights and they are the reason African countries are still overly homophobic. If people want Uganda to be boycotted because of homophobia then they should make the same noise when opposition leaders and journalists have their rights abused by the State.”

In this respect, Uganda is little different from the rest of the world: the gay community functions as the canary in the coalmine. How a society treats its gay community is a good predictor for how a society is capable of dealing with other groups who are either out of favor or out of power. President Yoweri Museveni’s regime has spent much of this year violently suppressing his political opponents. Against that backdrop, the world’s focused attention on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill while ignoring the broader problems with human rights strike ordinary Ugandans as elevating the gay community’s concern above everyone else’s. And naturally, if the world condemns official homophobia while ignoring the rest, it feeds the suspicion that LGBT Ugandans are seeking “special” rights and protections which ordinary Ugandans do not yet enjoy themselves.

Ugandan LGBT advocates say that this issue is just one of the barriers they face in trying to turn public opinion around on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. When ordinary Ugandans see official harassment, arbitrary police actions, rampant corruption, and widespread abuses of power as endemic features of daily life, worldwide concerns over the country’s treatment of its LGBT citizens looks wildly myopic. Worse, LGBT advcocates say that single-minded focus confirms in the minds of ordinary Ugandans that the outside world is out of touch with what’s really going on there. And when Britain threatens developmental aid cuts based on treatment of sexual minorities, but not on violent governmental crackdowns on opposition groups, it only reinforces the widespread erroneous belief that homosexuality is a foreign import. On those points, it becomes hard to argue with them.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, November 28

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Dallas Judge Gives Light Sentence In Gay Man’s Murder: 1988. It was a common sport among Dallas-area high school students throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s: to drive into the Oak Lawn gayborhood on a weekend night and spend the evening “gay bashing” — their term for it. (Full disclosure: one of my friends was stabbed in the chest and spent days in intensive care in one such attack while walking along Throckmorton St. His assailants were never found.) In one case, nine friends from North Mesquite High School drove to Oak Lawn one night in May to “pester the homosexuals.” According to the New York Times’s description of the event:

Witnesses who were in that group said the boys were standing on a street corner and shouting at passers-by, and then Tommy Lee Trimble, 34, and John Lloyd Griffin, 27, drove up and invited the boys into their car. Mr. Bednarski was said to have persuaded one more friend in his group to get in the car.After the car reached a secluded area of Reverchon Park, Mr. Bednarski is said to have ordered Mr. Trimble and Mr. Griffin to remove their clothes. On their refusal, a witness said, Mr. Bednarski drew a pistol and began firing. Mr. Trimble died immediately. Mr. Griffin died five days later.

Bednarksy was found guilty of murder, but Texas law allows the defendant to decide whether the judge or jury would determine the sentence. Bednarksy’s defense lawyer sensed that the judge was sympathetic and chose him. On November 19, Judge Jack Hampton announced that he considered, among other things, that Bednarski has no prior criminal record, was attending college, and was raised n a “good home” by a father who was a police officer, before deciding on the sentence: 30 years in prison instead of a life sentence. As he expained to the Dallas Times Herald two days later: “They two guys that got killed wouldn’t have been killed if they hadn’t been cruising the street picking up teenage boys. I don’t care for queers cruising the streets picking up teenage boys. I’ve got a teenage boy.”

Those remarks touched off a furror in the gay community. Paul Varnell of the Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force summed up the reaction and said, “It appears that we do have one law for heterosexuals and one law for homosexuals.” John Wile Prioce, the outspoken African-American activist and County Commissioner, said, “The only difference between the Ku Klux Kllan and Judge Hampton is that one wears a white robe and the other a black robe.” Hampton, who had been first elected judge in 1981 and would be up for re-election in 1990, remained unconcerned. “Just spell my name right. Nobody will remember by 1990 anyway.” He was right. He was re-elected in 1990, but lost his seat finally in 1992.

If you know of something that belongs on the Agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, November 27

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: New Orleans, LA (Black Pride); Cologne, Germany (International Bear Pride).

Also Today: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; Miami White Party, Miami, FL.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Pennsylvania Outlaws Sodomy: 1700. The Pennsylvania assembly passed a new sodomy law to replace the old one which had been abrogated in 1693. The new law read:

…whoever shall be legally convicted of sodomy or bestiality, shall suffer imprisonment during life, and be whipped at the discretion of the magistrates, once every three months during the first year after conviction. And if he be a married man, he shall also suffer castration, and the injured wife shall hae a divorce if required.

In keeping with the pacifist nature of the Quakers who dominated the political structures in Pennsylvania, the colony’s law against sodomy was quite lenient: it was the only colonial law which didn’t call for the death penalty. That relative pacifism however didn’t extend to those of African descent. Another law, “An Act for the Trial of Negroes,” added this:

…”if any negro or negroes within this government shall commit a rape or ravishment upon any white woman or maid, or shall commit murder, buggery or burglary, they shall be …. punished by death.”

[From Jonathan Ned Katz’s Gay/Lesbian Almanac, pages 122-123.]

Harvey Milk Assassinated: 1978. Harvey Milk finally succeeded in winning political office as a gay man for two reasons. One, he refused to hide who he was; and two, he made it his mission to build alliances with groups that other gay activists thought were impossible to reach. Among those alliances, initially, was with the most conservative member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Dan White. There couldn’t have been two politicians from more opposite ends of the political spectrum. White, a former cop, was a conservative Catholic representing a blue-collar neighborhood, while Milk, a gay Jew from New York, represented the growing gay districts surrounding the Castro. Milk and White made several media appearances in which they spoke warmly of each other, and Milk began telling friends that he thought White was “educable.” That began to change however when Milk changed his mind about White’s opposition to a proposed psychiatric treatment center in White’s district. Harvey initially supported White, which would have given White the 6-5 majority he needed to block the facility. But as Harvey learned more about the center, he discovered that San Francisco children would be sent instead far away to a state hospital where they would be cut off from their families. He concluded that “they’ve got to be next to somebody’s house,” and switched his vote.

The loss stunned White, and for several months he refused to speak to Milk or his aides. He also tried to retaliated by switching his vote on Harvey’s gay rights bill, but the bill passed anyway 10-1. White became increasingly disillusioned with politics, and abruptly resigned on November 10, 1978. He quickly regretted his decision, and asked Mayor George Moscone to re-appoint him as Supervisor. Instead of complying with the request immediately, Moscone said he would think it over and announce his decision on November 27.

The night before the scheduled announcement, White learned through a reporter that he would not get the reappointment. The next morning White went to City Hall with his loaded .38 Smith & Wesson. He went to Moscone’s office and asked for a meeting. Moscone agreed and invited him into the mayor’s office. There, White shot Moscone twice in the abdomen and twice in the head. He then went down the hall to Milk’s office. When Milk got up out of his seat to greet White, White shot him three times in the chest, once in the back, and twice more in the head.

On November 27, 1978, tens of thousands of stunned mourners gathered in the Castro for an impromptu candlelight march to City Hall. The sea of candles stretched ten city blocks long. At the steps of city hall, Joan Baez led the crowd in singing “Amazing Grace” and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sang a hymn by Felix Mendelssohn.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
John Aravosis: 1963. An attorney, Democratic political consultant, gay activist and blogger, Aravosis is the founder of Americablog. His first major success as a gay activist was when he defended U.S. sailor Timothy R. McVeigh (not to be confused with the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh), who was being kicked out of the Navy after he was outed when America Online released the identity behind McVeigh’s email account without a court order or warrent. McVeigh was days from being ousted when Aravosis took McVeigh’s case and embarked on a massive publicity campaign that caught the attention of ABC News, Time and Newsweek. McVeigh ended up winning his case against the military and was able to receive an honorable discharge along with a reportedly large settlement from AOL. Aravosis founded AmericaBlog in 2004. AmericaBlog first received widespread media attention in 2005 after it outed “Jeff Gannon” (real name: Jeff Guckert), a member of the White House press corps who had a reputation for fielding softball questions during news conferences.

If you know of something that belongs on the Agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, November 26

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: New Delhi, India; New Orleans, LA (Black Pride); Cologne, Germany (International Bear Pride).

Also This Weekend: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; Miami White Party, Miami, FL.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Simon Tseko Nkoli: 1957. Born in Soweto, Nkoli became a youth activist against apartheid with the Congress of South African Students and with the United Democratic Front. He also became a gay rights activist when he joined the mainly white Gay Association of South African in 1983 and later formed the Saturday Group, the first black gay group in Africa. Nkoli’s anti-apartheid activism led to his arrest in 1984, when he faced the death penalty for treason with twenty-one others who became collectively known as the Delmas 22. While prisoner, he came out as gay. Fearing that the state would use his homosexuality against the entire group, the others of the Delmas 22 demanded a separate trial. But in the end he won them over and they stood trial together because, as they all realized, they were in the same struggle together. As Nkoli later wrote in the anthology, Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa, “If you are black in South Africa, the inhuman laws of apartheid closet you. If you are gay in South Africa, the homophobic customs and laws of this society closet you. If you are black and gay in South Africa, well, then it really is all the same closet, the same wardrobe. Inside is darkness and oppression. Outside is freedom. It is as simple as that.”

By coming out as gay while a prisoner against apartheid, he is credited with helping to change the attitude of the African National Congress toward gay rights. Patrick “Terror” Lekota, who later became chairman of the ANC, remarked, “all of us acknowledged that [Nkoli’s coming out] was an important learning experience . . . His presence made it possible for more information to be discussed, and it broadened our vision, helping us to see that society is composed of so many people whose orientations are not the same, and that one must be able to live with it.” And so, when it came to writing the Constitution, “how could we say that men and women like Simon, who had put their shoulders to the wheel to end apartheid, how could we say that they should now be discriminated against?”

After his acquittal and release from prison in 1988, he founded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW), which organized South Africa’s first Gay Pride march in 1990. He also was among the first African gay men to come out publicly as HIV-positive and founded Positive African Men in Johannesburg. He was among the first gay activists to meet with President Nelson Mandela in 1994, and he campaigned successfully for anti-discrimination measures on the Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution. Nkoli lived long enough to see South African repeal its sodomy law in 1998, shortly before he died on November 30.

If you know of something that belongs on the Agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.

Australia: it’s time

Equality is a global struggle. This speaks to all of us.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, November 25

THE AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: New Delhi, India; New Orleans, LA (Black Pride); Cologne, Germany (International Bear Pride).

Also This Weekend: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; Miami White Party, Miami, FL.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Judge Rules Utah Teacher’s Rights Were Violated: 1998. Wendy Weaver, who taught psychology and physical education at the high school in Spanish Fork, Utah, became embroiled in controversy when her ex-husband, Gary Weaver, told the district in 1997 that she was a lesbian. Rumors quickly began to swirl around Spanish Fork High School, and that summer students began asking her if she was gay. She answered truthfully, and a few of the girls dropped out of the girl’s volleyball team that she was coaching. On July 14, the school district removed her as volleyball coach and banned her mentioning her “lifestyle” or partner to students, parents or staff. If she mentioned a word about her sexuality to anyone, she would be fired. A letter to that effect was placed in her employee record.

When word got out, an overflow crowd showed up to denounce Weaver at a Nebo Board of Education meeting on November 14, 1997, with parents demanding the right to pull their children out of any class she taught. A group of parents formed Nebo Citizens for Moral and Legal Values and presented a petition signed by 2,700 parents demanding her removal. After Weaver filed suit in Federal Court alleging that her First Amendment Rights were being violated, the parents group filed a suit of their own demanding the revocation of Weaver’s teaching certification.

It all came to a head on November 25, 1998 when U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins issued a sweeping 25-page ruling finding that Weaver’s constitutional rights of free speech and equal protection were violated. The judge ordered the school district to remove its threat to fire her from their files, restore her to the girl’s volleyball coaching job, and to pay her $1,5000 in damages. He found the limits on Weaver’s speech to be overly broad. “Indeed,” wrote Judge Jenkins, ” these restrictions limit Ms. Weaver’s ability to speak on her sexuality outside of the school, as, for example, when meeting a parent of a student in the supermarket, or when speaking at dinner with a friend who may be a staff member at the school, or even when speaking with her own children, who are students in the school district.” All of this was a gross violation of Weaver’s constitutional rights. “Simple as it may sound, as a matter of fairness and evenhandedness, homosexuals should not be sanctioned or restricted for (speech) where heterosexuals are not likewise sanctioned or restricted.”

If you know of something that belongs on the Agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.

Ex-Gay Leader Says Wayne Besen Wants to Kill Him

PFOX, which they say stands for Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays, is actually an increasingly unstable and irrelevant organization composed mostly of Greg Quinlan (an ex-gay whose ex-lesbian wife divorced him in 2007) and a motley crew of embittered parents of apparently happy gays who have no interest whatsoever in entertaining the futile fiction of changing their sexual orientation. The group, which was originally founded by Richard Cohen, has become increasingly detached from reality, even by some of the more extremist anti-gay standards. Quinlan’s latest shtick is going round claiming to be abused, mistreated, and discriminated against because he’s ex-gay. Those claims took an absurd turn when, in a bid to add another jewel to his queen of persecution crown, Quinlan appeared on a local Washington, D.C. television talk show, where he said this:

(at 10:38) Truth Wins Out if you look further, including Wayne Besen. He’s asked for people, you know, somebody needs to run Greg over. He needs to be hit with a bus. Somebody should inject him with AIDS. Those are the things that Wayne Besen and Truth Wins Out says about me. That’s pretty hateful rhetoric.

Accusations of felonious behavior demands proof, and Besen rightly demands that Quinlan produces it. Besen also adds that he is exploring his legal options.

While that libel was the most egregious lie Quinlan told in the interview, it wasn’t the only one. He also accused noted researcher Dean Hamer of lying about his research which found that the Xq28 marker on the X chromosome may play a role in male sexual orientation. (Hamer’s research was replicated by two other studies, but a third one failed to replicate, leading researchers to conclude that the gene may play a role but probably isn’t’ the cause of men becoming gay.) Hamer has also spoken out against Quinlan:

“As a scientist at the National institutes of Health, the largest and best known biomedical research institution in the world, my research has been extensively peer-reviewed, replicated, and published  in respected journals. It’s ironic to be labelled a “liar” by an ideologue who consistently distorts and misreports scientific findings. While I am sympathetic with Mr. Quinlan’s discomfort and struggle with his own sexuality, that is no excuse for misleading people about how science has informed our understanding of  sexual orientation as a natural and fundamental aspect of human development.”

The Daily Agenda for Thanksgiving Day

At least that’s what we call this day in the United States. I do recall though that in 2003 when my partner and I took a vacation to Britain, we discovered that they just call this day “Thursday.” Our Thanksgiving dinner was Thai food in Ely. This year we are celebrating Thanksgiving in Abilene, Texas, where my partner and I will be doing the cooking at my in-laws’ home. Wherever you are and with whomever you are spending the holiday, we hope you have a very pleasant one. Happy Thanksgiving, and pass the mac ‘n’ cheese and pad thai.

If you know of something that belongs on the Agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.

Pat Robertson seemingly baffled by someone else’s Thanksgiving food tradition

Given Right Wing Watch‘s scare quotes around “black thing” in the video title I think I’m supposed to be offended by Pat’s confusion regarding a tradition of mac and cheese served at Thanksgiving celebrations in many black families.

My dad’s family is from Las Cruces, NM and every Thanksgiving we serve New Mexico red chile and corn tortillas with our dinner.

It’s totally a “New Mexico thing” and I’m proud of that.  Would I expect it to befuddle a person with an incredibly narrowly focused cultural and world-view like Pat Robertson?  Duh.  He’s probably still confused by women who wear pants.

Feel free to start a discussion in the comments about your own family’s cultural food traditions at Thanksgiving.

Red chile photo via the food blog Girl With Spoon

St. Petersburg Anti-Gay Bill Delayed One Week

The proposal in St. Petersburg, Russia, to ban all advocacy for LGBT rights was expected to sail through its second reading and become law today, but The Moscow News now reports that the bill has been delayed a week “to clarify all legal definitions connected to this law.”

Fire Kills 15 Transgender Indians in Delhi

A fire killed fifteen members of the hijra community in Delhi on Sunday during a gathering to observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance. According to The Hindu:

The fire blazed through a makeshift tent where a large number of hijras had gathered to honour deceased friends.

The incident created panic among community members who had gathered for the ceremony. Several others who tried to escape were also injured.

“We stand together with more than 50 seriously injured hijras, families of deceased hijras and with the hijra community as a whole in this moment of deep sorrow. From media reports it is very clear that fire safety measures and emergency evacuation facilities were not adequate in the Delhi Municipal Corporation’s community hall, where more than 1,000 members of the transgender community had gathered as part of its community congregation,” said a joint statement issued by executive director of Sangama Manohar Elavarthi and State coordinator of the forum Mahesh Patil.

India TV News has more details:

“Most of those who died were prominent gurus. When parents shut their doors to a hijra child born in the family, it is these gurus who adopt them. They are like our parents. Many in my community have been orphaned,” Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a transgender who recently participated in the fifth season of TV reality show ‘Big Boss’, said.

She said she will soon be visiting the injured admitted in the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital here. The transgender-activist had said the purpose of her participation in the reality show was to highlight the cause of her community.

Nigeria Moves Closer To Criminalizing LGBT Relationships

The Associated Press reports that Nigeria’s proposal to criminalize what they define as “marriages between persons of the same gender” has moved one step closer to becoming law. (We have the full text of the proposed bill as it was first introduced here.) The AP reports:

The anti-gay marriage legislation, which is being considered for the third time since 2006, already has sailed through two readings in Senate. A public hearing meant to gauge public opinion on the bill saw gay rights activists booed and provided with police escorts to leave the hall after presenting their arguments against the proposed measure.

“I am so confident because Nigeria is a society that is very, very godly,” said Sen. Domingo Obende, who sponsored the bill.

The bill would define same-sex marriage as follows:

“Same Gender Marriage” means the coming together of persons of the same sex with the purpose of leaving together as husband and wife or for other purposes of same sexual relationship.

The “other purposes” clause could effectively criminalize any sexual relationship of any duration, from a casual fifteen minute tryst to a lifetime commitment. The penalty would be three years imprisonment. The penalties are harsher for those who would solemnize a relationship. Anyone who “witnesses, abet and aids the solemnization of a same gender marriage contract” would be liable for up to five years imprisonment.

Homosexuality is already criminalized in Nigeria, with a penalty of fourteen years’ imprisonment upon conviction. In areas where Sharia Law are in effect, the penalty is death.

Russian Cities Weigh Laws Banning LGBT Advocacy

Two Russian regions have already passed laws prohibiting all forms of LGBT advocacy, and now the city governments of St. Petersburg and Moscow are considering similar measures.

Earlier this year, Ryazan and Arkhangelsk oblasts passed laws banning what they call “gay propaganda,” which include public speech and advocacy on behalf of gay and transgender people. The St. Petersburg proposal includes a fine of up to $1,600 for organizations engaging in “public actions aimed at propaganda of pederasty, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism among minors.” The fine for individuals would be about $100.The bill doesn’t define what constitutes “public actions,” leaving LGBT advocates concerned that the law would be yet another tool for police to use to crack down on gay pride events. The bill has a separate but identical provision banning advocacy for pedophilia, thus equating it with homosexuality in the public debate. The bill, which is backed by the ruling United Russia party, passed the first of three required readings last week with a 27-1 vote, with one abstention.

Shortly after the bill passed its first reading in St. Petersburg, a Moscow-based newspaper reports that a similar bill is in the works in the Moscow Duma. There is also talk that Russian state legislators may take up similar measures. One delegate says the proposal however would not go far enough:

If this [law against gay propaganda] is meant for our state’s security, this is all good. Only the people who break that law should not be fined;instead, they need to receive punishment under the criminal code”, said deputy Ekaterina Lahova.

Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1993 under President Boris Yeltsin.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, November 23

THE AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: New Orleans, LA (Black Pride); Cologne, Germany (International Bear Pride).

Also This Weekend: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; Miami White Party, Miami, FL.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Georgia Supreme Court Strikes Down State Sodomy Law: 1998. It was on this date when the Georgia Supreme Court did what the U.S. Supreme Court refused to do. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s sodomy law as constitutional in Bowers v. Hardwick, a ruling that deeply disappointed the gay community and set back the quest to get rid of the nation’s sodomy laws by nearly two decades. But in 1998, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the state’s law as a violation to the right to privacy. Unlike the 1986 case which involved a gay man who was in a consensual sexual relationship with another man, this case a heterosexual man who was accused of performing non-consensual oral sex on a niece. The jury acquitted him of the non-consensual portion of the charge, but convicted him of consensual sodomy since Georgia, like many states, defined sodomy to include oral sex. And unlike many states, Georgia made it a crime regardless of whether it was heterosexual or homosexual. On appeal, the defense held that the statute was unconstitutional, but the state was confident. After all, the law had already been validated by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But the Georgia Supreme Court saw it differently. “While many believe that acts of sodomy, even those involving consenting adults, are morally reprehensible, this repugnance alone does not create a compelling justification for state regulation of the activity,” the court ruled in its 6-1 decision. Citing a 1905 state ruling, the state Supreme Court found that the defendant had “the right to be let alone,” a right that was more expansive than the right to privacy protected by the U.S. Constitution. “We cannot think of any other activity that reasonable persons would rank as more private and more deserving of protection from governmental interference than consensual, private, adult sexual activity,” Chief Justice Robert Benham wrote in the decision.

If you know of something that belongs on the Agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.

A Message from a Moderator at Ruthblog

As a follow-up to my post NOM’s Special Right, I got this comment from Betsy, a moderator at Ruthblog. As thoroughly as I disagree with her on most everything we’ve talked about, I’ve never viewed her in the same light as I do many NOM folk, so in response to her request, I’m highlighting this message.

Hi, Rob. Long time no “see.” About this Ari business, this was entirely my fault. NOM has nothing to do with the Ruth blog, and they had no idea about Ari. I’ve never met or even spoken to anyone at NOM. I’m just a stay-at-home mom whom Dr. Morse hired to manage her blog. As she gives me almost entirely free reign there, she’s not to blame for the Ari thing either. Therefore, Ruth Institute isn’t to blame either. Dr. Morse didn’t know anything about the Ari post until today.

Months ago she and I had reprimanded Ari for going over the line in his comments. We suppressed him for a while, but then let him try again months later. He sometimes writes good stuff, but now it’s clear he has his own agenda and is using the Ruth blog to get readers for his own site. What he posted on the Ruth blog seemed safe enough, I thought, so I allowed it, but it was my fault for not following it back to his blog to see where else he would go. If he had written that ridiculous stuff on the Ruth blog I would never have allowed it. I only saw it today. I get the impression that he is being purposely inflammatory in order to sell his book.

I’ve never met the guy. He wasn’t employed by Ruth. Dr. Morse let him start posting things years ago because she thought he was witty, but he has clearly changed.

Rob, I remember you asking me to print a retraction on the Ruth blog, and I complied. I would expect you to extend the same courtesy now. If you want to blame someone for the Ari debacle, it should be me, as manager of the Ruth blog. Pinning this on NOM is completely unfair.

Thanks, Rob.

Betsy

I would like to point out that my problem wasn’t with Ari’s post. He’s a fringer, and that’s what I expect from fringers. My issue, rather, is that when schools and companies want to dissociate themselves from people with extreme anti-gay views that affect their work, NOM accuses them of repressing freedom, even though NOM is doing the same thing with Ari. Frankly, I believe NOM — or Ruthblog, as you prefer — did the right thing in cutting off their association with Ari. I do, however, wish they extended the same courtesy to Bank of America’s (temporary) decision to dissociate themselves from the hateful distortions of a man like Frank Turek.