The recent ruling of the California Supreme Court has brought one big question to my mind: Why the heck is gay marriage even an issue? It makes no sense. With a tanking economy, a war to fight, and a pathetic public education system, the government and the American citizen body clearly have more important things to worry about. But here in California, according to a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times, the sides are already polarizing and digging trenches for the coming battle over who gets to walk down that aisle to matrimony.

This divisive issue, however, should not even enter into the political arena. The job of the government is to assure the safety and liberty of its citizens, not to regulate each and every household in the United States. The government has no right to define marriage. Marriage is something to be defined within a religious context, and last I checked, this nation was pretty big on the separation of church and state. In order to alleviate this stress between the legal and religious definitions of “marriage,” I propose that in all government documents the word “marriage” be replaced with “domestic partnership” or some other neutral term. Don’t think of it as “politically correct terminology,” think of it as “finding the right phrase.” This would side-step the entire issue of the government having to take a stand on same-sex “marriage.” Everyone is happy unless you feel that the sanctity of your marriage has been “cheapened” because that word doesn’t appear on your tax papers. Don’t you have something better to whine about? Leave the term “marriage” to the various churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques of the world’s religions. It’s time to grow up, America, because the closet doors aren’t staying closed anymore.

According to a recent article in the Politico, some strategists–Republican and Democrat alike, predict that–despite the strong odds against the Republican Party right now, McCain has a fairly strong chance at taking the Presidential election in November.

This optimistic prediction assumes that Obama will receive the nomination from the Democratic Party, which seems most likely right now. If a lawsuit against the DNC for representation of the Florida Democratic delegates currently under way succeeds, however, it might turn the tide. A brief description of the lawsuit is below:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/05/22/lawsuit/index.html

McCain’s chances would rely primarily on his wrestling away much-needed swing state electoral votes from Obama, which some pundits think the Arizona senator can accomplish by virtue of his numerous candidate strengths and Obama’s various vulnerabilities. McCain is a decorated war hero, a former prisoner of war, a straight-shooter who speaks his mind and stands by what he believes even if it is unpopular, a maverick who has agitated for change in Washington from the Senate floor for more than twenty years, and a pragmatist who is able to work with both sides of the aisle. Obama, on the other hand, is a left-wing ideologue who has for twenty years attended a church led by an anti-white, anti-American, conspiracy theorist who still believes–despite overwhelming scientific evidence–that there are genetic differences between whites and blacks which make their brains different, and who furthermore believes that the United States government intentionally infected the black community with the AIDS virus. In addition to his long and apparently deep relationship with the radical Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama speaks of bipartisan unity but has the honor (or dishonor) of holding the most liberal voting record in the US Senate. See here:

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

McCain could well capture many states normally up for grabs in election years, including Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and possibly even the traditionally Democratic California. I think this is achievable if voters see the true story of Obama: his staunch liberalism masked by his eloquent calls for unity, hope, and change, they will shy away from supporting him, and instead consider the more moderate, conservative, common-sense, and principled approach of John McCain. The key is showing the electorate the true Obama, while highlighting the remarkable personal journey of Senator John McCain’s life, a life filled with steadfast commitment to public service.

You can read the article on McCain’s potential for a “blowout” victory below:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10585.html

In a sadly true sentence, the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

But the Republican governor’s stance on same-sex marriage has been curious and confusing to many people.

This is only confusing if you understand the structure of the United States government less than an Austrian immigrant, which apparently is true for the vast majority of Californians, including the supposedly well-educated ones who hang out on college campuses.

Arnie’s view has been pretty much consistent. California banned same-sex marriage via Proposition 22 in 2000. As such, he vetoed the legislature’s attempts to overturn it, because the legislature is subordinate to the people in terms of legislation. The people’s legislative powers, in turn, are subordinate to the Constitution, but if the Constitution prohibits Prop 22, then it was up to the judiciary to determine that (as it did).

Note that Arnie’s own opinion didn’t matter in that construction. If you recognize ideas such as separation of powers or structured government, where each aspect of the government has a specific role, then Arnie’s view is the obvious one.

On the other hand, if you view every branch of government as just one more place to get your way, rather than an entity with a specific job to fill, then you’ve been complaining about Arnie’s anti-gay hatred for the past few years and/or are calling him a hypocrite right now.

As most of you have probably heard, the California Supreme Court has ruled (PDF) that the California constitution guarantees a right to marry to same sex couples. Eugene Volokh has one of many summaries you could find on the intertubes. I imagine there are many folks who are not particularly happy about this, so I thought I’d make a post and invite comments.

You know a person has contempt for an idea as he pays lip service to it when he describes it in quotation marks. Take this column in the East Bay Express by Robert Gammon. Gammon writes a feature column which calls for Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo to be fired for those infamous torture memos. The last paragraph pretty much summarizes his approach:

If you’re a professor, and you cross the line with a coed, it will cost you your job. On the other hand, you can violate moral, ethical, and legal standards. You can hurt the reputation of your university and your country. You can bring shame upon the nation and harm its standing in the world. You can put our soldiers at risk unnecessarily. You can enable people to be humiliated, tortured, and possibly even killed. And, aparently, you can do it all in the name of “academic freedom.”

The short response is “yeah, that’s pretty much right,” but the lines are phrased to encourage negative responses that are independent of actual consideration of the issues involved, and the ideological goal is hidden with quotation marks as if it’s being presented as an excuse.

The article includes a hyperbolic discussion of various topics framed to make Yoo look as bad as possible, somehow including both complaints about how Yoo wrote a torture memo because non-torture methods weren’t working on Abu Zubaydah (”He started the government’s torturing ways!!!”) and complaints about how Yoo wrote the torture memo after Abu Zubaydah was already being tortured (”He was participating in a cover-up!!!”). It also references a Nuts and Boalts post, referring to the blog as a “campus web site,” which is true for some values of “campus web site,” in the sense that it includes a bunch of Berkeley Law students who often deal with campus issues, but it has no direct affiliation with the campus.

The discussion of academic freedom is a tortured (pun intended) treatment of the subject, and one I’ve seen quite often. While first explaining that Yoo probably won’t be convicted of a crime, a standard suggested by Dean Christopher Edley, Gammon shows his true colors with this paragraph:

But what if no court ever indicts Yoo? Does that mean he’s destined to mold the minds of tomorrow’s top lawyers while continuing to stain Boalt and UC Berkeley’s reputation for the next quarter century or more? Not necessarily. Despite Edley’s contention that he has no options, it turns out there are plenty of ways to get rid of Yoo.

The honest approach to academic freedom does not include the plan suggested here: First pick which professor you want to get fired because of his views, and then look for some kind of rule you can use to fire him. The comparison to Ward Churchill is perhaps apt on this score, as he appeared to be a victim of much the same way of thinking, since the university didn’t care about his academic misconduct until he sparked a different controversy with his ideological comments. The rest of the comparison, though, is laughable:

The University of Colorado ultimately decided that Churchill’s essay was protected by academic freedom. But during its investigation discovered that Churchill had committed research misconduct in some of his other scholarly work. A university panel charged him with “plagiarism, misuse of others’ work,” and “falsification and fabrication of authority.” In essence, he ripped off other people’s ideas and made stuff up.

“Made stuff up” is not even close to the issue here, but Gammon uses the simplistic phrase so that he can then apply it to Yoo, who he claims made up a legal theory that helped the administration. Making up theories is part of a professor’s job. To say that the theory was unsupported is a claim of the work being shoddy, not intellectually dishonest.

In comparison “making stuff up” on Churchill’s part was not writing unsupported theses. Churchill ghostwrote essays to provide supporting points for his papers, and then cited his own work without identifying it as such to bolster his argument. He also described false events as factually true, and falsely attributed statements to authors.

To try and treat these two forms of “making stuff up” as comparable intellectual dishonesty is itself an act of astounding dishonesty. As the East Bay Express moves away from challenging corrupt government authority through deep investigation and adopts the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s model of “rah rah” attacks on safe targets, it puts some of us in the strange position of supporting corporate-run, rather than independent, alt-weeklies.

Some time around 3:45 this afternoon, someone was shot in the Southside Top Dog parking lot. I was at La Burrita next door at the time, I believe, but didn’t hear anything or notice anything amiss until I saw the cops running by as I was leaving. Later, I saw an enormous police response, and even the Parking Enforcement Vehicles were being used to block traffic. As always, the first place to gather information was the UC Livejournal Community.

UCPD Crime Alert

Daily Cal

Greetings, Patrioteers.

With the end of the academic year comes the time for a tearful farewell to our friends, buddies, comrades, and objects of wrath who happen to be graduating. Among those departing for greener pastures is Online Editor Christopher Page, who has maintained this blog through rough waters and (additional meaningless metaphors excised).

That means someone has to take up the slack, and while I couldn’t possibly handle the load that Chris has handled during his time with the Patriot, I’m going to be managing the Patriot Blog for the foreseeable future.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be cleaning up some of the dead links and adding new ones. If you have suggestions for the blog, please let me know.

While I won’t actually be posting anything beyond administrative messages like this one, I’m also hard at work finding new authors to bring a diverse set of conservative views to the blog. Hopefully, you’ll start seeing their posts soon.

Because celebrating Israel’s 60th Birthday is so unacceptable at Berkeley, some people decided to fly the Palestinian Flag on the university flag pole, located between VLSB and California Hall. I’m celebrating with alliteration.

All this week, the pro-Zionist student group Tikvah will be celebrating Israel’s 60th year of sovereignty. So it was no coincidence that the Palestinian flag was hoisted above campus. I also recognized some members of the Students for Justice in Palestine on sproul today wearing keffiyehs around their necks, which was probably not in recognition of Cinco de Mayo.

The Patriot’s own Ben Chapman took these photos of the Palestinian flag raised at half mast:

According to Chapman, UCPD took down the flag at around 2:40 pm because the flag was flown without the university’s permission.

Tikvah’s first event of the week, a special lecture from talk radio host Dennis Prager, drew no protesters. The topic of Prager’s talk was “Why Berkeley should be celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday.” Nearly all of the seats in 145 Dwinelle were filled for tonight’s presentation. Prager came with his usual on-air wit, straight-forward wisdom, and a few good stories.

He argued that universities, Berkeley included, are teaching students to hate Israel. One particular example came from a female UCLA student, whom Prager confronted on his radio show. The student had written an op-ed in the Daily Bruin that Prager described as “venomously anti-Israel.” She told Prager that her family was strongly pro-Israel, and so was she…until she got to her university.

Colleges have little reason to hate Israel, Prager contended, since the values of Israel are the same values cherished by our colleges. Israel, unlike its neighbors, is egalitarian, democratic, supportive of liberty, free speech, women’s rights, equal treatment of gays, and overall the type of society a school like Berkeley should be celebrating.

One of the most important points that Prager made was during the Q&A session. When asked if he was further polarizing the opposing sides by ignoring the alleged wrong-doings of Israel, Prager said, “Ask yourself this question: If Palestinians announced that they will put down their weapons today, what would the Israeli response be? And if Israel announced that they will put down their weapons today, what would the Palestinian response be? If Palestinians put their arms down, there will be peace. If Israelis put their arms down, there will be Holocaust.”

Celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday with Tikvah this Thursday at noon on Sproul Plaza. There will be free food, dancing, and music. Check out their Facebook group for info on other events taking place this week.

A Berkeley Senior was killed last night. The victim was Chris Wooton, a Berkeley senior originally from southern California. He was stabbed at a party at his fraternity, Sigma Pi, while trying to break up a fight. The Daily Cal mentions that he might have been in a fight, but close sources told me he was not involved in the fight, but was stabbed when he tried to separate those who were involved. I am also told that the attacker was not a student (updated). He was pronounced dead at the hospital. Chris would have attended UC Berkeley for grad school in the fall.

I post it not because we should follow every grisly detail of each death around campus, but because the area around campus, where we all walk and pass through frequently, isn’t as safe as it should be. Everyone should be prepared to confront a situation like this, with the hopes that more could be prevented. The liberal utopian enclave that Berkeley has tried to form itself into has failed another of it’s own, and its really a shame.

Edited to add more information.

If anyone is interested in a more real debate on issues then what has been going on in the recent comments, there is an event going on tonight I heard about from Igor. It is being up on by the ASUC External Affairs Office.

Tonight in 87 Evans from 6-7:30pm there will be a debate on Propositions 98 and 99, which are on the June 3 ballot. There will be speakers from the Berkeley Property Owners’ Association and the Rent Stabilization Board. I have also heard there will be free snacks from Chipotle.

In case anyone is wondering, in May’s Patriot, which will be out tomorrow, Rohit has an article saying YES on 98 and NO on 99.