Author Archives: Epluribusunum

Irony alert – can I get a witness?

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Back in 2005, a new program designed to remove impediments to cooperation between local Arab, Muslim and Sikh communities and law enforcement agencies was presented to the FBI. The Partnership for Prevention and Community Safety (PfP), “developed with considerable input from law enforcement and local communities, quickly gained the support it needed within the agency and was green-lighted for funding.”

But then a powerful member of Congress stepped in and, with one blow, killed the initiative. According to those with knowledge of the program, the congressman acted at the behest of an influential and strident anti-Muslim propagandist. This week, in an ironic twist, that same congressman is slated to speak at a congressional hearing looking into the allegation that American Muslims are insufficiently cooperative with law enforcement.

The “powerful member of Congress” was Frank Wolf. Continue reading →

A better idea for a Homeland Security hearing

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Sadly, it appears we have attracted a commenter who would like to have a tiny (in so many respects) Loudoun version of Rep. Peter King’s execrable hearings, hearings that further target a minority community already in the crosshairs of a profoundly ignorant hate movement. The small-minded individual in question has been placed on moderation for using exactly the kind of slurs that are the premise of those hearings, scheduled to begin on Thursday.

Eugene Robinson calls this exactly what it is:

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is about to convene hearings whose premise offends our nation’s founding ideals and whose targets are law-abiding members of a religious minority. King has decided to investigate Islam.

Continue reading →

Frank Wolf, wrong side of history

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Correction below: The New Republic is most definitely not The National Review. I was thinking of an entirely different article. My mistake.

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun.

Frank Wolf thinks that the Justice Department should still be defending Section 3 of DOMA in court:

“Congress has a reason to be concerned” over the Justice Department’s decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) said Tuesday.

Wolf told Attorney General Eric Holder at an appropriations subcommittee hearing that the Obama administration had abandoned its duty.

“It almost looks like a political decision,” Wolf said. “I think it’s inappropriate and it’s a bad decision.”

I can understand why he’s concerned. It means that if anyone is going to argue in defense of DOMA, it will have to be Congress. That will be an uncomfortable position to be in.

First, let’s clear up any lingering misconceptions resulting from uninformed statements by people who should know better. First, the Obama administration has not stopped enforcing DOMA, nor has DOMA been ruled unconstitutional; second, the decision to no longer defend it only concerns Section 3 of DOMA (the provision that denies federal benefits to same sex couples legally married under state law), not the entire act; third, an executive branch decision to no longer defend a law is not unprecedented; and fourth, the decision does not represent a change in the president’s views (he has always opposed DOMA), only a change in circumstance with regard to the cases under court review.

That change in circumstance is this: in previous cases in which the Justice Department has defended DOMA, the level of scrutiny had already been established by precedent in those courts. In these new cases, it has not. Therefore, anyone in the position of defending the law in these cases must first establish that the lowest level of scrutiny – rational basis review, which basically means that the government doesn’t have to come up with a reason for the discrimination in question – is the appropriate one. What the Justice Department is saying is that they don’t think that can be done anymore, given the changes in the legal landscape since the passage of DOMA in 1996 – but that Congress is welcome to try to do so if that is what they want to do.
Continue reading →

Astroturf

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Suppose that you wanted certain policies enacted in Loudoun, policies that would enrich you at the expense of other residents and the long-term health of the county. Further, suppose that if you were honest about this goal, those who would do your bidding would never stand a chance of being elected. The quickest, easiest route to what you want would be to find an issue that you can use to generate fear and anger. Fear and anger will motivate otherwise busy or uninterested people to go vote for your candidate, whereas the ordinary business of actual governance – analyzing evidence and debating different solutions to problems – usually will not. It may be lazy, and it may be disingenuous, but it does work – and if serving your own interests is the goal, that’s all that matters.

The issue could be almost anything; it’s what you do to exploit it that counts. In this particular case, the issue is an attempt by local government to address the problem of deteriorating stream quality, and therefore the quality and cost of our domestic water. Continue reading →

No bears to poke

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Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

Loudoun Out Loud Kickoff:
Leave a comment below if you want to attend.

A bit of background: As recently as 2005, some members of the Loudoun County School Board were discussing a policy that would have prohibited the presentation by our public school drama departments and clubs any work that acknowledges the existence of GLBT people. That ridiculous situation, largely created by former delegate Dick Black and some of his family members, was provoked by a student’s original work. See Equality Loudoun archive. Although the policy eventually adopted by the board did not include unlawful viewpoint discrimination, the debate (which included threatening hate mail and some atrocious behavior at School Board meetings) did result in a chilling effect. The message was, as one drama department head put it, “Don’t poke the bear.” That era of self-censorship has now ended with the announcement that The Laramie Project has been selected as the spring play at Broad Run High School.  This is wonderful news, and when we have all the details we’ll post them here. This award-winning play has been presented by many, many high school drama departments – as it should be.

Here is some more wonderful news: Loudoun will now have a PFLAG support group, and counselors in our schools will have appropriate material to provide to GLBT and ally students seeking support.

Metro DC PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), is starting a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth and parent support group to meet in Sterling.

Loudoun Out Loud Kickoff:

Sunday, Jan. 23, 4-6 p.m.

Leave a comment below if you would like to come and you will be provided location information.

The groups will meet every fourth Sunday during the same time.

It’ll be interesting to see who actually opposes these things and decides to make an issue of it. Would those really be good campaign issues? Advocating that kids be exposed to bullies and told they don’t deserve any help? Preventing parents and children from trying to keep their families together? I get the feeling there aren’t many bears left to poke, not ones of any consequence. We’ll see.

[Note: Meeting location information redacted at the request of organizers in favor of soliciting RSVPs. – P13]

It needed to be said

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There is much that we don’t yet know about the circumstances surrounding the terroristic act in Tucson yesterday. However, this we can say with assurance (via Bob Griendling):

If Congresswoman Giffords Were a Republican, and a wacko shot her, and a Democrat had posted  this kind of graphic on her website, Fox News and Rush would be all over progressives, blaming them for the shooting.


I’m sorry. It’s simply, unfortunately, true.

Bob Marshall embarrasses himself again

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Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

This morning’s Virginia Politics blog brings us tidings of great desperation. In the wake of the historic vote to repeal DADT, Delegate Bob “Virginia’s Chief Homophobe” Marshall claims to be drafting a bill for the 2011 session that would establish a ban on openly gay servicemembers in the Virginia National Guard.

Marshall, who is considering running for U.S. Senate in 2012, is one of the House’s most conservative members. He said Article 1, Section 8, Clause 16 of the Constitution gives Virginia the authority to uphold the ban by “reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”

{Not to hijack David’s wonderful post, but Mike Kondratick, our candidate against Bob Marshall, has a post up about this issue on Blue Virginia today. Go give him some love! – P13}I’ve helpfully bolded the final clause, as Mr. Marshall appears to have missed it. The “discipline prescribed by Congress” was just corrected on Saturday, such that gay and lesbian patriots can now serve in our military without, as one servicemember put it, “a knife in my back.”

Like the architects of Virginia’s shameful “Massive Resistance” to an earlier era of civil rights, long after the rest of the world has moved on these bitter old men will still be lashing out at their imaginary enemies and wasting everyone’s time. Mr. Marshall’s legislative career needs to join DADT in the dustbin of history.

Bonus: On a lighter note, watch these two videos and tell me you don’t see the uncanny resemblance.

I hate to say I told you so, but…

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Back in August, those who wanted to see holiday displays continue on the grounds of the Leesburg courthouse were vocal champions of the First Amendment.  The grounds should be open to everyone, they said, and they were delighted to have the ACLU on their side. Here are some typical comments on the Loudoun Times-Mirror site at the time, in response to those who argued that all displays should be prohibited:

“Public property should actually be FOR the public, and allowing public use by all is not “establishing” any one of them. Everyone should have equal access, in my opinion.”

“Let everyone have an equal chance to display.”

“If we are to protect individual freedom, we must protect the ability of all to express their opinions, whether we personally agree or not. Allowing freedom isn’t abridging it, and a free for all is just that:  free.”

“Tolerance means to respect (and ALLOW) others their differences.  Their difference doesn’t harm you by existing, even if you disagree with it.”

“I think it would be nice if displays could continue, and include not only serious representations of beliefs involving faith and/or no faith, and yes that would mean we’d have to welcome the onanism of the attention seekers too.”

“The American Civil Liberties Union, AG Ken Cucinnelli, Barbara Munsey, many others, including myself all say the same thing: no harm in allowing all points of view.”

That last comment is from TMitOH, by the way – the individual who rounded up all the angry speakers by leading them to believe that the board was poised to ban the baby Jesus, or send them to prison for wearing Christmas sweaters, or some such thing.

We were additionally told that raising concerns about vandalism and escalating animus due to the perceived offensiveness of this or that display was fearmongering about a “non-existent” security issue, that once the equal access policy was implemented the agitation would “run its course” and settle down, and that democracy is messy and can make people uncomfortable (with this I agree).

Well, it’s not August anymore, and the equal-access-for-all crowd has morphed back into the special rights crowd. The fun started when the ten lawn spaces were assigned to the applicants exactly as advertised; on a first-come, first-served basis. Complaints ensued. The nativity scene should automatically get the favored corner spot no matter who applied first, argued the complainants, because of “tradition.” Well, equal access law doesn’t grant super-special privileges to any faith tradition on that basis, and neither does our policy, so the answer to that was “no.” The policy adopted by the board is exactly what was praised by the ACLU and embraced by the pro-display, pro-freedom of expression public.

Judging from the comments on the current LTM article, the policy they were so in favor of then is now completely unacceptable. The problem now is that other points of view are “defacing” what they feel is their exclusive Christmas display privilege. Pointing out that there is no such special privilege gets one called “pig” and “freak.”

This is what I told the board in early September:

“Back in 2008, there was a holiday display and invocation that included the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh faith traditions. Some people did make valid arguments that it shouldn’t be at the courthouse, and I respect that. Maybe a different public site would address those concerns – I can’t speak for others.  But in spite of that I think, rather than making people angry, it brought them together. I wish it could have continued in that direction. And that was the first and last time that happened.

Now what we have is anger and division. I’m not saying that most of the people upset about this are trying to divide us; I don’t think that’s true. But the loudest voices, and the voices getting the most attention, are the militant ones – and no matter what you decide, the people who are angry now are still going to be angry, either because there are no displays, or because they don’t like the other displays.“

Look, I’m not particularly clairvoyant, nor do I possess any other special powers. You could see this coming ten miles away.  It’s not very jolly, is it? Nor very Christian. I’m not sure she’s explained this fully, but could it be that the person who created the “Letter from Jesus” display – she used to be a Christian, and now identifies herself as an atheist – left the faith because of behavior like this? Who could blame her?

The text of “Letter from Jesus” is in the comments over there. It’s worth a read.

And please, don’t forget to check out Loudoun’s Alternative Gift Fair. Happy Holidays – all of them – to all.

It’s never too late to start doing the right thing

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Honestly, I haven’t paid much attention to the latest excrement from the desk of Mr. Delgaudio, only enough to know that it has gone viral (and if someone from the UK could explain what a “Merino-faced numpty” is, that’d be great). Folks who know what he is are less inclined to give him attention. Phyllis Randall provides a nice summation of the dilemma in her comment at the Loudoun Times-Mirror site, pointing out that it’s really the responsibility of those in the party he has made his nest in.

She’s right. And where is the evidence that this isn’t true?

“There is only one logical reason [for the refusal of the LCRC blog police to condemn the behavior]; they along with others in their LCRC circle agree with the stuff Delgaudio has been saying.”

Unfortunately, as much as this silence should be pointed out, it also permits a very poor and distorted framing of what this is about.  Contrary to the language of many commenters on both threads, the behavior at issue is not antics, it has nothing to do with the ‘politics of personality’, and the problem with it is not that it causes embarrassment to the LCRC or to actual Republicans, although I’m sure that it does. If the primary concern is bad publicity and the damage Delgaudio’s (and Black’s) hate speech will do to the cause of electing Republicans, even the well-meaning participants in this conversation have badly missed the mark.

The TSA email that’s currently garnering so much attention shouldn’t be – at least not as if it represents a new low point of Delgaudio’s career as a professional bigot. It doesn’t. It’s merely one more of many carefully calibrated look-at-me outbursts, one correctly described yesterday on the local NBC affiliate Reporters Notebook as “dumb” and “nuts,” but nothing really groundbreaking.  

No, the low point was reached earlier this year, and the Republican leadership in this community utterly failed its responsibility to condemn the amoral little predator who claims to be one of them.

Referring to another human being as “it” is not an antic. It is not clowning. It is not a PR problem. It is not indicative of a colorful personality. It is not hyperbole. It is not the same thing as saying that the other human being is wrong, or sick, or even immoral. It is a statement that the other human being is not, in fact, a human being. It is a statement that the other human being is not, in fact, a human being.

With the pathetic* exception of Lori Waters, our supervisors – Mr. Delgaudio’s colleagues – easily made this distinction and called his behavior morally unacceptable:

Not so for anyone in his own party. I have yet to hear anyone who claims to speak for Republicans in Loudoun County make this distinction and single out this behavior for the condemnation it merits. This goes for both the smarmy LCRC operatives who are busy trying to shut up the dissidents, and those who only wish the “embarrassment” would stop. This was true back in January, and it is true today.

If there were ever a time for disciplinary action, this would have been it. If there were ever an event that would cause the supposed moderates in the LCRC and in elective office to stand up publicly and say that this violates basic human decency, this would have been it. But no one did. They all responded as if this was just another PR problem for them.

Let’s be clear: This is a measure of basic human decency. Anyone who fails to recognize this behavior as distinct and requiring specific condemnation cannot be trusted to govern. It doesn’t matter how moderate you say you are if you can’t be trusted to do the right thing when it matters.

*I highlight “pathetic” here rather than something else only because Ms. Waters’ reaction struck me as more clueless than cruel when confronted with the realities of public restroom use. I could, of course, have misread the situation.

Return of the Loudoun Alternative Gift Fair

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It’s heartening to see (thanks, Paradox) that such a large majority of us think an appropriate role of government is that activity we sort of blandly refer to as “providing human services.”

Besides our collective ~cough~ responsibility to help each other, individuals can choose to support these agencies by shopping for the gift of a service to someone in our community who needs a hand. Here are some examples:

  • $25 provides a textbook and supplies to enable one ESOL, GED or basic literacy student to participate in tutoring or classes (Loudoun Literacy Council).
  • $10 will provide the gift of transportation to and from a doctor appointment, shopping or an errand to a frail senior citizen or disabled adult who is unable to drive or use public transportation (Loudoun Volunteer Caregivers).
  • $50 will give the gift of a rental subsidy to a Loudoun neighbor. People with chronic mental illnesses want food, clothing, shelter, friends, money in their pockets, recreation – the things we all want. Among all of these, stable and affordable housing is the cornerstone of their being able to live successfully in their own communities and reach their full potential (Friends of Loudoun Mental Health).

In addition to these, there are seven other local nonprofits represented, and 100% of the proceeds will help deliver services to Loudoun residents in need. An “any amount” option makes it easy for both a small child and a large donor to give according to their ability. What’s not to like?

Loudoun was just (again) named as the most affluent county in the nation, so chances are pretty good that you either are someone or know someone who does not need or want another “thing.” If you think it’s time to say no to compulsory consumerism, giving a meaningful gift is a great way to go. Check it out.

This project is made possible by a partnership between Loudoun Interfaith BRIDGES and  Loudoun Cares.