Letters to the Editor
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Sysprog
I don't recall the details of that decision, and it's not online anymore - at least not that I can find - but I don't think you're right. Here's the summary of the court's holding provided by the Court (I believe) in the decision itself:
HELD: Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed samesex
couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the
civil marriage statutes. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to samesex
couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.
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The Right Wing
Has always been antagonistic to the judicial branch. It reached it's zenith when Tom Delay and the House of Reps was wanting to haul judges up before congress and grill them in the Terri Schiavo case.
I believe the sane elements of the republican party nosed their way in and called that off. They knew that would absolutely not fly, and would look REALLY bad on TV.
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Ironic
It's rather ironic how much the right wingers complain about "judicial activism" when what they really want is judges who will be activist in support of THEIR positions.
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pundits too lazy
to do simple research seems to explain a lot of this...makes you wonder who wrote their papers in school.
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Good article
This is a good article and makes its main point very clearly, though I doubt whether right winger pundits are actually interested in the facts of the case.
Their aim is generally to stimulate the indignation of their own crowd.
You can see examples of this in the fundamentalist preachers like Falwell--now ensconced on the right wing of God-- or Robertson, for whom every occasion of bad weather or natural disaster is not an occasion to preach about human vulnerability, but about how God is punishing communities for allowing X-rated movies, homosexuality, science education, or whatever is the favorite sin of the month.
You see it also in the charges of sexual harrassment brought against Bill Clinton re Paula Jones. I had been saying for months that based on the evidence and the charges that there was no case to answer and eventually a judge ruled likewise.
No pundit seemed of either side seemed to predict this in advance, but anyone who had actually worked with the sexual harrassment law in the workplace would have known enough to know that Ms. Jones did not have grounds for suit.
But the Jones case was never brought because they believed she had been sexually harrassed. The case was brought because they wanted to interrogate Clinton under oath about his sex life so as to damage him politically.
And so it goes on. I now prophesy that when the dust has settled and the Democrats have sanctified Obama or Clinton as the Holy One to run for the White House, the right wing pundits and bloggers will bring forth witnesses of appalling character to testify that the annointed one has committed crimes against humanity, and that some voters will be influenced by hearing of these spurious charges.
The Democrats really ought to learn to play the game. They should counter attack with allegations that are absurd. The whole point about the Kerry Swiftboat thing is that you attack someone who actually IS a war hero--not a draft dodger--for being a military mouse not a man.
What the right wing pundits know is that the more baseless an allegation, the harder it is to defend.
Thus the Dems need to start preparing the counter attacks right now. Romney is easy--he is a polygamist and has secret wives hidden in Utah, so secret that they cannot be found. Perfect.
This won't work for Giuliani, a known serial polygamist, but he had advance warning of 9/11, so was able to position himself safely until the masonry had stopped falling and he could come out in his hard hat and address the cameras.
McCain is particularly easy. He was a member of the Keating Five who took bribes from Savings and Loan owners in exchange for legislation that enabled Savings and Loan owners to steal billions of dollars from working Americans. Now he is behind the subprime mortgages collapses. Deny it? Of course he does, wouldn't you?
This should not be done in any mean-spirited way, but with unfailing politness and a twinkle in the eye to show that it is just part of the game and no hard feelings.
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NJ marriage
Maybe it was the MSM source, but I recall reading commentary about the NJ decision identical to sysprog's.
The point being the same: that the court was far from intruding itself on a situation and creating "new rights" for gay people because it wanted rainbow colors and gay parades everywhere. No, sorry: they were just adjudicating a case that required interpretation of NJ legislation. They would have gone the other way if the law had been different.
Where are all the card-carrying Commie revolutionary judges of yesteryear? These days it seems ALL the judges are Republicans, and they rule about 50/50 left/right on a case by case basis.
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Kucinich support in Iowa
As an Iowa voter, I would just like to clear up a little the perceived lack of support for Kucinich (and Dodd, Biden, Gravel).
The first part of the caucuses is determining the "viability" of the candidate. To be "viable", a candidate must have at least 15% of the total number of caucusers at the precinct supporting him/her. If the candidate does not have 15%, then his/her supporters must either support a "viable" candidate, or not be counted.
Because Kucinich did not have 15% in any precinct, he was not eligible to receive any delegates, and therefore his vote count was "0". But this does not mean he had no support! In fact, in my precinct he had more supporters than Joe Biden.
Unfortunately, having a little support everywhere gets you nada in the Iowa caucus.