Monday Morning Musings
This CNN headline caught my eye:
"Bill Clinton says he 'did the right thing' during Lewinsky scandal"
I found this confusing at first. Then I read the story and discovered that he had done the right thing by not resigning at the time. That made sense. Does he owe a personal apology to Monica Lewinsky? I think he does. In an essay she penned for Vanity Fair, Ms Lewinsky raised an interesting point about her "consent" to the affair with then-President Clinton.
Is it alright for a bakery to refuse to deliver a cake decorated with a vulgar message, but not okay for them to refuse to provide a cake with a message that violates the religious beliefs of the baker?
I think it is a tough question. If we argue that the issue with the Publix cake is vulgarity (and the Washington Post demonstrated that Publix continues to refuse to put Summa Cum Laude on a cake) couldn't the Colorado baker argue that he finds a same-sex wedding message to be vulgar? Maybe. Maybe not.
There is another way to view this. Suppose I own a business and I refuse to serve anyone who comes in wearing a Make America Great Again hat. When asked why, I state that my firmly held religious belief is that I oppose discrimination in any form. MAGA people, in general, seem to support discrimination on a number of levels. Immigration. Gender preference. Then when I'm asked to support my belief with scripture, as the baker did, I use the following:
"If you really keep the royal law as found in Scripture, 'Love your neighbor as yourself ,' you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers." - James2:8-9
"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God." - Leviticus 19:33-34
If those are my sincerely held religious beliefs, then I doing nothing different than the baker who refused to prepare a cake as that same-sex couple asked. My refusal to serve someone wearing a MAGA hat should be protected as much or as little as the baker's.
Balancing freedoms is never easy.
* * *
TMZ is reporting that Tom Arnold says both his ex-wife Roseanne Barr and Celebrity Apprentice host Donald Trump are racists. He says that there are outtakes of tapings of the Celebrity Apprentice that would prove his claim.
There was a major hunt to find those tapes in the months before the 2016 general election. A story published by Vanity Fair describes the search in detail; and contains some post-election analysis on whether or not they would have made a difference.
I don't think they would have made much of a difference. The bulk of the people who voted for him wouldn't have changed their minds. Would airing proof of racism on Trump's part have convinced those who stayed home to get out and vote? Probably not. They seemed to believe that Hillary Clinton would win handily without their votes. They were sadly mistaken.
Where is the answer for Democrats in this year's mid-term elections? It isn't in finding these recordings of racist rants by the #MoronInChief. It is in fighting voter apathy. 42% of eligible voters did not vote in the 2016 presidential election. A Pew Research analysis used data from the U.S. Census bureau to estimate that in 2014, more than 21% of eligible Americans were NOT registered to vote.
We need to reduce that percentage. We need to get people who are registered to vote. In advance, by mail, or by taking them to the polls ourselves.
What the young are doing by trying to register every eligible teen to vote is good, it will lead to nothing if we cannot get them to the polls.
* * *
If a United States Senator wants to tour an immigration detention facility, should the facility refuse him access?
That's what happened when Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley tried to visit one such facility in Brownsville, TX.
Isn't the Legislative branch of our federal government charged with providing oversight of the Executive branch?
This needs to be fixed, post-haste.
* * *
Oklahoma has become the 9th state to be added to the list of states that California has determined to discriminate based on sexual or gender orientation. The ban on travel to Oklahoma takes effect on June 22, 2018.
The addition of Oklahoma was caused by their new law that allows adoption agencies to deny placement services to same-sex couples.
In a San Francisco Chronicle article, California's Attorney General Xavier Becerra says, "Our taxpayer dollars do not fund bigotry. No exceptions."
The UCLA Bruins football team is scheduled to play a game on September in Oklahoma against Oklahoma State on September 8, 2018. Will the addition of Oklahoma to the aforementioned list impact this scheduled game? No. That is because the law allows exceptions for situations where the travel was contracted for prior to January 1, 2017.
But what happens when the contracts for non-conference games in any of those 9 states run out? In 2019 the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships will be held in Alabama, one of the states on that list of 9. Will athletes from UC and CSU institutions be able to compete? Will they get to go, but their coaches and staffs be proscribed from traveling with the athletes because those coaches/staffs are state employees?
Then let's talk about the even more egregious exception. The prohibition doesn't apply to travel outside the United States. How do we justify a ban on travel to states that discriminate without imposing the same kind of ban on travel to nations that allow the killing of gays?
"Bill Clinton says he 'did the right thing' during Lewinsky scandal"
I found this confusing at first. Then I read the story and discovered that he had done the right thing by not resigning at the time. That made sense. Does he owe a personal apology to Monica Lewinsky? I think he does. In an essay she penned for Vanity Fair, Ms Lewinsky raised an interesting point about her "consent" to the affair with then-President Clinton.
"But it’s
also complicated. Very, very complicated. The dictionary definition of
“consent”? “To give permission for something to happen.” And yet what did the
“something” mean in this instance, given the power dynamics, his position, and
my age? Was the “something” just about crossing a line of sexual (and later
emotional) intimacy? (An intimacy I wanted—with a 22-year-old’s limited understanding
of the consequences.) He was my boss. He was the most powerful man on the
planet. He was 27 years my senior, with enough life experience to know better.
He was, at the time, at the pinnacle of his career, while I was in my first job
out of college. (Note to the trolls, both Democratic and Republican: none of
the above excuses me for my responsibility for what happened. I meet Regret
every day.)"
Can a subordinate be rendered incapable of giving consent by virtue of the work relationship? What if the subordinate is the aggressor in the situation? Is the age difference something that can render one incapable of giving consent?
When I was in the military, dating one of my subordinates was unthinkable. There, the rules are made clear from the beginning. If I ran a business, my firm's personnel policy manual would prohibit such relationships between people where one of them was in a supervisory position over the other. It is a bad business practice. It doesn't matter who the aggressor is. If a subordinate makes a move on someone higher up on the "chain of command" then the supervisor must take responsibility and refuse the advances.
* * *
The United States Supreme Court issued a ruling today (6/4/2018) that a Colorado baker had the right to refuse to decorate a cake for a same-sex couple, citing his religious beliefs as the reason for the refusal. The decision is narrowly drawn and some legal scholars do not believe it sets a broad precedent.
Something that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent should be noted:
"...when a couple contacts a bakery for a wedding cake, the product they are seeking is a cake celebrating their wedding -- not a cake celebrating heterosexual weddings or same-sex weddings -- and that is the service (the couple) were denied."
Remember the case of the graduation cake decorated by Publix?
Is it alright for a bakery to refuse to deliver a cake decorated with a vulgar message, but not okay for them to refuse to provide a cake with a message that violates the religious beliefs of the baker?
I think it is a tough question. If we argue that the issue with the Publix cake is vulgarity (and the Washington Post demonstrated that Publix continues to refuse to put Summa Cum Laude on a cake) couldn't the Colorado baker argue that he finds a same-sex wedding message to be vulgar? Maybe. Maybe not.
There is another way to view this. Suppose I own a business and I refuse to serve anyone who comes in wearing a Make America Great Again hat. When asked why, I state that my firmly held religious belief is that I oppose discrimination in any form. MAGA people, in general, seem to support discrimination on a number of levels. Immigration. Gender preference. Then when I'm asked to support my belief with scripture, as the baker did, I use the following:
"If you really keep the royal law as found in Scripture, 'Love your neighbor as yourself ,' you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers." - James2:8-9
"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God." - Leviticus 19:33-34
If those are my sincerely held religious beliefs, then I doing nothing different than the baker who refused to prepare a cake as that same-sex couple asked. My refusal to serve someone wearing a MAGA hat should be protected as much or as little as the baker's.
Balancing freedoms is never easy.
* * *
TMZ is reporting that Tom Arnold says both his ex-wife Roseanne Barr and Celebrity Apprentice host Donald Trump are racists. He says that there are outtakes of tapings of the Celebrity Apprentice that would prove his claim.
There was a major hunt to find those tapes in the months before the 2016 general election. A story published by Vanity Fair describes the search in detail; and contains some post-election analysis on whether or not they would have made a difference.
I don't think they would have made much of a difference. The bulk of the people who voted for him wouldn't have changed their minds. Would airing proof of racism on Trump's part have convinced those who stayed home to get out and vote? Probably not. They seemed to believe that Hillary Clinton would win handily without their votes. They were sadly mistaken.
Where is the answer for Democrats in this year's mid-term elections? It isn't in finding these recordings of racist rants by the #MoronInChief. It is in fighting voter apathy. 42% of eligible voters did not vote in the 2016 presidential election. A Pew Research analysis used data from the U.S. Census bureau to estimate that in 2014, more than 21% of eligible Americans were NOT registered to vote.
We need to reduce that percentage. We need to get people who are registered to vote. In advance, by mail, or by taking them to the polls ourselves.
What the young are doing by trying to register every eligible teen to vote is good, it will lead to nothing if we cannot get them to the polls.
* * *
If a United States Senator wants to tour an immigration detention facility, should the facility refuse him access?
That's what happened when Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley tried to visit one such facility in Brownsville, TX.
Isn't the Legislative branch of our federal government charged with providing oversight of the Executive branch?
This needs to be fixed, post-haste.
* * *
Oklahoma has become the 9th state to be added to the list of states that California has determined to discriminate based on sexual or gender orientation. The ban on travel to Oklahoma takes effect on June 22, 2018.
The addition of Oklahoma was caused by their new law that allows adoption agencies to deny placement services to same-sex couples.
In a San Francisco Chronicle article, California's Attorney General Xavier Becerra says, "Our taxpayer dollars do not fund bigotry. No exceptions."
The UCLA Bruins football team is scheduled to play a game on September in Oklahoma against Oklahoma State on September 8, 2018. Will the addition of Oklahoma to the aforementioned list impact this scheduled game? No. That is because the law allows exceptions for situations where the travel was contracted for prior to January 1, 2017.
But what happens when the contracts for non-conference games in any of those 9 states run out? In 2019 the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships will be held in Alabama, one of the states on that list of 9. Will athletes from UC and CSU institutions be able to compete? Will they get to go, but their coaches and staffs be proscribed from traveling with the athletes because those coaches/staffs are state employees?
Then let's talk about the even more egregious exception. The prohibition doesn't apply to travel outside the United States. How do we justify a ban on travel to states that discriminate without imposing the same kind of ban on travel to nations that allow the killing of gays?
posted by me at 11:48 AM
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