Filed under: Author - didionsmommy,Politics | Tags: Dick Cheney, Environment, Laura Bush, Marianas Islands
While the Dubya White House (WWH) is making a last-minute sweep to deregulate all sorts of consumer and environmental protections, a standoff is in the works, pitting First Lady Laura Bush against Vice President Dick Cheney over the establishment of a protected marine zone around the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The proposed protection plan mimics a marine monument President Bush previously established around parts of the Hawaiian Islands. The CNMI plan has been floating around the White House since late summer, but the Vice President is angling to quash the plan, or at least modify it to the point that it is useless, citing a protected marine area runs the risk of hindering economic development and — wait for it … energy exploration. (Nevermind the CNMI economy relies primarily on tourism dollars from China, Japan, and Korea, and offshore derricks don’t do much to encourage snorkeling.)
Laura Bush, though, is having none of Cheney’s one-note song. She has called for at least two briefings, and scientists and environmentalists have found a potent ally in the First Lady. She, obviously, is interested in establishing bright spots on the balance sheet of her husband’s political legacy (however few they might be). I dare say, too, Laura is likely going to win this battle, and rightly so.
For what it’s worth, the CNMI legislature appears to be on top of Big Oil’s machinations to get its drills into the Marianas trenches. In 2006, the legislature called out improperly instituted leases between the Commonwealth’s Port Authority and Mobil and Shell Oil, leases that — surprise — favored the companies over the interests of CNMI citizens.
For as much as I have lamented George W. Bush’s long presidency, I have liked Laura Bush to a surprising degree. I wish she had flexed her muscle more often over the last eight years, but I suppose the fact that she so rarely does makes this faceoff against Cheney all the weightier.
Apparently, deception *is* a family value.
Not one day out, and this election already has a bittersweet tinge to it. Today, per a California ballot question entitled “Proposition 8,” the state will annul thousands of marriages, lawfully and lovingly entered into, merely to defray the squeamishness of a public still coming to terms with the ramifications of pluralism. It’s too bad – especially because Proposition Eight had two brothers – but especially now, we can’t let this defeat blunt our enthusiasm or fracture America’s new progressive coalition.
(Ahem… update: apparently, although this point is being litigated, Prop 8 will not invalidate extant marriages.)
In any fight for liberty, deception is the reactionary’s greatest weapon. Proposition 8 was no different. Anti-gay marriage groups – funded by Mormons and Moonies – ran a campaign of fear and deceit, threatening Californians with over-inflated horror stories of a “gay-ified” California, and quote-mining Barack Obama (above, right) to make it seem that he, too, supported a ban on gay marriage. He doesn’t, and he didn’t -
- but that won’t stop enemies of the nascent Obama administration from using Obama’s moderate-conservative stance on gay rights, and the latent prejudices of some of his constituents, to try to de-motivate victorious progressives and drive a wedge between President-Elect Obama and gay America. We can’t let that happen. Obama, a Democratic presidency, and a Democratic Senate are the best things to happen to gay America in a long time. Not only has #44 already steered the rhetoric on gay rights away from fear, and towards respect ((Recall his Chicago speech: “It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America.”)) but a receptive federal judiciary – the kind Obama will create – is the first step to a litigation strategy. Hint: the federal Constitution trumps California’s any day of the week.
Admittedly, for the next few years at least – even under a Democratic President – gay rights advocates will have to play a “long game.” Especially if the Republican Party veers right in response to its ’08 implosion (as seems likely from ex-McCain supporters), when it comes to gay rights, neither America’s attitudes, nor America’s law, can be expected to turn on a dime. Mindful as I am of the “dream deferred,” not all change comes in a matter of days. Make no mistake, the passage of Prop 8 is a bitter defeat. But it might be the last – and Obama’s election is a major victory for a more tolerant America.
**UPDATED** with a Hitchiker’s Guide to the Gay Agenda
The far right loves to talk about the “gay agenda” as if it were a monumental, insidious force bent on subverting society. Think the Sith, but with guys holding hands. The truth is, there’s never been a “gay agenda” except liberty; one could just as easily speak of the “black agenda” in the early 1900s. But this, in shortened version, is a roadmap to what gay Americans and their straight allies (like me) should be fighting for:
- REFINE the discourse to drain the gay rights issue of homophobia and its culture wars context; couch marriage rigths in terms of respect and – dare we say it? – family values. President-Elect Obama has already started down this path (check!).
- REPEAL the Defense of Marriage Act. By subjecting marriages to geographical boundaries, DoMA works an intolerable hardship on legitimately married gay couples, while turning the Constitution’s vision of federal unity in on itself and essentially reading the Full Faith & Credit Clause out of the document. Luckily, DoMA is just a statute: Pres. + 57 Democratic Senators = potential repeal. Lacking a filibuster-proof majority, though, there’s no guarantee. But, DoMA is pretty plainly unconstitutional. With a federal bench willing to listen, it could, with just a little more handwringing, disappear.
- REFRAME sexuality as status, rather than conduct. In Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the Supreme Court, per Justice Kennedy, was at pains to not treat homosexuality as an immutable personal trait. While Lawrence was a major milestone for gay rights, by protecting intimate conduct (under the Due Process clause) rather than a person’s right to be free of discrimination based on sexual orientation (under the Equal Protection Clause), it left much to be desired. If the Court can be forced, instead, to recognize gay men and women as a “discrete and insular minority” under the Equal Protection Clause, United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 153, n.4 (1938), states will be hard-pressed to discriminate against gay Americans on the basis of sexuality.
- REFOCUS the marriage issue on civil rights, rather than ecumenical status. No civil rights lawsuit will ever force a church to marry two men; the fight for “gay marriage” is just a fight for “state and federal civil benefits for same-sex couples.” Once it’s clear that the marriage right does not interfere with peoples’ religious beliefs, moderate Americans might start to let go of their fears.
- DEFINE marriage as mixed conduct and status. The act of marriage is, in some way, expressive – it’s a way you tell the world who you are, and what’s important to you. In that sense, marriage is kind of a “fundamental right” protected by the Due Process clause, see Loving v. Virginia, 338 U.S. 1 (1967). Defining marriage as a mixed conduct/status issue could make up any ground not covered by Step 3, and establish a firmer legal basis for securing same-sex marriage benefits.
- PROFIT. Isn’t that always the last step?
