From the WSJ Opinion Archives
The
New Dixiecrats
If only Strom Thurmond had lived one more year. In 1948 Thurmond ran for president
as a "States' Rights Democrat." The concept of "states' rights"
was discredited for generations, linked as it was to the defense of segregation
and Jim Crow.
Not anymore. The issue of same-sex marriage has Democrats and liberals talking like Dixiecrats of yore. "For 200 years, this has been a state issue," Democratic front-runner John Kerry said in a statement yesterday, responding to President Bush's endorsement of the Federal Marriage Amendment. "I believe the issue of marriage should be left to the states." In an editorial today, the New York Times takes the same position: "The president, who believes so strongly in states' rights in other contexts, should let the states do their jobs and work out their marriage laws before resorting to a constitutional amendment."
This argument is disingenuous on several levels. For one thing, if Kerry and the Times really believed in states' rights, they would have opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which deemed state sodomy statutes unconstitutional (and on which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heavily relied in declaring a state constitutional right to same-sex marriage).
Kerry's position is--or yesterday was--that "marriage is between a man and a woman." But the Times, in a Nov. 20 editorial endorsing the Massachusetts decision, rejected that view:
The court's logic is persuasive. . . . Denying gays the benefits of marriage deprives them of equal protection. . . . The ban is simply about prejudice, the court concluded, much like state laws barring interracial marriage, which lasted until 1967, when the Supreme Court struck them down in Loving v. Virginia.
If a refusal to sanction marriages between two men or two women is really as invidious as a ban on interracial unions, how can the Times advocate states' rights vis-à-vis the former? That's the Strom Thurmond position, isn't it?
There's something odd, too, about the notion that any constitutional amendment is an affront to states' rights. Approval of an amendment requires the assent of three-fourths of the state legislatures; it's hard to think of any federal procedure in which the states have more power. And in fact, the reason states' rights failed as a legal argument against civil rights is that Congress and the states had already amended the Constitution to provide black citizens with equal protection under the law (the 14th Amendment) and voting rights (the 15th).
Of course, the Times doesn't really believe in states' rights. In 1996 it editorialized that the Defense of Marriage Act, which provides that one state is not obliged to recognize same-sex marriages from another, amounted to "constitution bashing." Kerry voted against the act, one of only 14 senators to do so.
One of the reasons for a constitutional amendment, as President Bush noted yesterday, is the strong possibility that federal judges will eventually hold the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. Slate's Timothy Noah, in an angry piece opposing the amendment, gives the game away: "If Bush really believed marriage was something to be decided legislatively, he'd wait until a judge struck down the statute [the Defense of Marriage Act] before waving the white flag on its constitutionality." Noah is urging supporters of traditional marriage to disarm unilaterally, taking no more steps to defend their position until the other side has won. The Times and Kerry are doing the same thing, albeit less forthrightly.
That said, there is a serious argument that the proposed amendment would go too far in dictating state policy. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's proposed amendment states: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution [n]or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."
There's some ambiguity in this wording, most notably what precisely is meant by "legal incidents," and the language may well be modified before Congress votes on it. Our preference would be for a more modest amendment, one that would prevent the federal courts from imposing same-sex marriage on the country, but would not foreclose the possibility of its establishment if proponents could succeed in the democratic process. As we wrote in September, our amendment would read as follows: "Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require any state or the federal government to recognize any marriage except between a man and a woman."
This would not solve the current problems in Massachusetts and California, but it would prevent them from becoming problems for other states--and in that case, there's no reason to make a federal case out of it. If John Kerry and the Times really believe in states' rights, they'll hasten to endorse the OpinionJournal.com Marriage Amendment. Don't hold your breath.
Kerry
vs. Carter
"Democratic front-runner John Kerry toured an abandoned steel mill today
and heard first-hand about the hardships of being laid off as he highlighted
job losses in a key 'Super Tuesday' state since President Bush took office,"
Reuters reports from Struthers, Ohio:
"That's tough man," the Massachusetts senator said after Randy Velk, an unemployed ironworker explained how he was struggling to pay for the prescription drugs he needs for diabetes.
Kerry, exchanging his navy topcoat and black dress shoes for a brown corduroy jacket and duck boots, visited the shuttered Youngstown Sheet and Tube Works--a rusted-out shell of corrugated iron and broken glass--with Velk and four workers who were recently locked out of their manufacturing jobs.
"That's exactly what we're going to change," Kerry told Velk. "Nobody in America should be in fear for their health."
So Kerry's going to reverse the Bush administration policies that led to the closing of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Works? Well, uh, no. As this Ohio State University syllabus notes, the facility closed in 1977--when, if we remember right, a member of Kerry's party was in the White House.
Heinz
Sans Hyphen
We took
some fire a few weeks back for our
item describing Teresa Heinz Kerry, the outspoken ketchup heiress and philanthropist
whose haughty, French-looking husband by the way served in Vietnam, as "African-American."
She is a native of Mozambique.
Well, it turns out Mrs. Kerry herself has had the same problem. The Baltimore Sun reports:
Officially, she is an American citizen. "But my roots are African," she told a reporter in 1995. "The birds I remember, the fruits I ate, the trees I climbed, they're African."
Other times, she straddles the divide, calling herself "African American," as she did in 1993, touching off a storm of criticism. Her spokesman defended the reference, saying she used the term without a hyphen. "African-hyphen-American belongs to blacks," the spokesman said.
Senator
Straddle
Here's John Kerry, in an October speech to the Arab American Institute in Michigan:
I know how disheartened Palestinians are by the Israeli government's decision to build the barrier off of the Green Line--cutting deep into Palestinian areas. We don't need another barrier to peace. Provocative and counterproductive measures only harm Israelis' security over the long term, increase the hardships to the Palestinian people, and make the process of negotiating an eventual settlement that much harder.
And here he is, quoted in the Jerusalem Post, a week before the primary in New York, where the Democratic electorate is heavily Jewish:
"Israel's security fence is a legitimate act of self defense. No nation can stand by while its children are blown up at pizza parlors and on buses. While President Bush is rightly discussing with Israel the exact route of the fence to minimize the hardship it causes innocent Palestinians, Israel has a right and a duty to defend its citizens. The fence only exists in response to the wave of terror attacks against Israel.
As Mickey Kaus points out, these positions aren't necessarily contradictory. "But even if the positions are logically compatible, wouldn't it be more admirable and constructive to tell the Arabs that a barrier is legitimate and tell the Jews that the route of the fence is wrong? Or tell both audiences both parts?"
That'd
Scare 'Em!
"[John Kerry] said that if he were president, he would be pressing Haitian
rebels to back off their goal of toppling Mr. Aristide, perhaps by threatening
the deployment of an international peacekeeping force."--New York Times,
Feb. 24
The
Kucinich Surge
Written off by the pundits and the establishment after weak showings in Iowa,
New Hampshire and elsewhere, Dennis Kucinich finished a surprisingly strong
second in Hawaii's Democratic caucuses yesterday. He managed 26% of the vote,
just 24% short of John Kerry's total. This gives Kucinich's insurgent candidacy
momentum going into the 10 "Super Tuesday" primaries a week from now--including
the contest in his native Ohio.
There's one obstacle in the path of the Kucinich juggernaut: John Edwards, who finished a surprisingly strong second in Wisconsin's Democratic primary last week, giving him momen--oh sorry, we don't mean to sound like a broken record. If Edwards doesn't do well next week, he's likely to end his candidacy, leaving a two-man race between Kucinich and Kerry. That's when things will get interesting.
What
Better Time to Invade?
"Canada's army, navy and air force are facing a funding shortfall of up
to half a billion dollars, defence sources told the National Post, and the military
is recommending drastic measures to make up the difference, including closing
some of the largest bases in the country."--National Post, Feb. 24
Not
Quite Clear on the Concept
"The New Jersey Appellate Division on Feb. 20 halted lethal injection executions
in the state," the New Jersey Law Journal reports. The method's fatal flaw,
according to Judge Sylvia Pressler, is that it is fatal:
Her dramatically worded decision reads at times more like an editorial than a ruling. She said regulations adopted by the state Department of Corrections to govern executions are "arbitrary," "unreasonable" and "tautological," and that the death penalty might only be "conceptually" constitutional.
She said the rules were written without the required medical investigation into whether a lethal injection is "reversible"--if a prisoner won a reprieve after the injection had been given but before the drugs had run their course.
Possibly excepting crucifixion in certain cases, is any method of execution reversible?
What
Would Pedophile Priests Do Without Experts?
"Experts Oppose Policy of Ousting Pedophile Priests"--headline, Houston
Chronicle, Feb. 24
What
Would Kids Do Without Experts?
" 'Passion' Not Suitable for Kids, Experts Say"--headline, Fort
Worth Star-Telegram, Feb. 25
The
Other 93 Are in a Heap of Trouble
"3 Rice Football Players Won't Be Indicted for Assault"--headline,
Houston Chronicle, Feb. 25
Another
Celebrity Scandal
"Star Caught Devouring Companion"--headline, Space.com, Feb. 24
It's the Eponymy, Stupid
Today brings two more business names that don't exactly inspire confidence:
Rip's Cleaners
of Palatka, Fla., and Flatt
Tire Centers (slogan: "You too should ride on a Flatt") of Des
Moines, Iowa. Bonita, Fla., has a Master
Bait & Tackle shop; rumor has it Joycelyn
Elders buys her fishing supplies there.
Denton, Texas, has a divorce law firm called Loveless & Loveless. The Lovelesses were more successful eponymists than Dr. Dennis Wiwi, who unaccountably chose obstetrics and gynecology as his specialty. But Benjamin Leak is, as you'd expect, a urologist, and Gary Peed is a plumber.
More funeral homes: Australia has a Life Style Funeral Co., while the House of Diggs, "once called Michigan's largest funeral home" according to the Washington Post, was run by Charles Diggs, who served in the House. Graves Funeral Home & Crematory is an excellent eponym, but the company that owns it, Newcomer Funeral Services Group, isn't. Pinellas County, Fla., has a Moss-Feaster Funeral Home.
Several readers pointed us to the Eikenberry-Eddy Funeral Home in Peru, Ind., but we didn't get the joke until someone raised the question of what happens if someone other than Eddy dies.
A press release from the California Wine Club notes that "Bruce and Pam Boring founded the Ventura, CA-based Club in 1990 and travel the wine country to sample and select wines for their members." Well, they may be Boring winers, but at least they're not haughty or French-looking.
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Today on OpinionJournal:
- Mary Ann Glendon: The federal marriage amendment would strike a blow for freedom.
- Claudia Rosett: Let David Kay investigate the U.N. Oil-for-Food scam.
- Daniel Akst: A defense of socially irresponsible investing.
