Archive for April 8, 2009

Michele Bachmann Loves Her Some God in Government

To placate her fundamentalist base, Michele Bachmann puts her name on lots of these that deal with abortion and Christian supremacy and ensure she never has to address reality

Yesterday, I wrote about Michele Bachmann (one of my most favoritest subjects of all times, really and truly), her new paranoid fascination with re-education camps, and her nonexistent record on assisting her constiuents in a district that leads her state and the nation in foreclosures. 

I referenced a Minnesota Independent article that says (bold mine):

Bachmann’s record in Congress is not one of a representative whose district faces such a crisis. Bachmann hasn’t authored or sponsored any legislation to assist homeowners facing foreclosure, but she has co-sponsored 14 bills to restrict abortions and five to promote Christianity in government.

Frequent incisive commenter, Kris, asked (bold mine):

… to promote Christianity in government.

What exactly does this mean? What are these bills? How does one get away with this? W?T?F?

Great minds must think alike because Kris’s reaction was my own. So I went in search of Bachmann’s bible bills. The Minnesota Independent article counts five Christianity-related bills the congresswoman has cosponsored. I found three of them from the 110th Congress (her first term).

One bill actually passed the House. Apparently H.R.847 is general enough — referring to Christianity as one of the “great religions of the world” and rejecting “bigotry and persecution directed at Christians, both in the United States and worldwide” — that the vast majority of members could support it. (Though, always suspicious of fundamentalists in government, I am wary of any effort by religious conservatives to cry oppression and use this bill as justification to make some end-run around church-state separation with Christmas ornaments in hand.)

Without further ado, here are the pro-Christianity bills Bachmann (presumably proudly) signed onto as a cosponsor. (Cue angels singing from on high.)

Click to enlarge

Almost all of the bills Bachmann sponsored or cosponsored with the intent to restrict abortion died in committee in the 110th Congress but have been reintroduced in the 111th. One pro-life bill (H.R.1822) that is new to the 111th Congress is the — get ready — “Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2009,” which seeks to “prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis of sex or race, and for other purposes.” (Do fetuses apply for jobs or home loans?)

I also found her famed “Light Bulb Freedom Choice Act” that died in committee in the 110th, and I think I figured out why she made such an ass of herself a few weeks ago during her questioning of Geithner and Bernanke, when this exchange took place:

BACHMANN: What provision in the Constitution could you point to to give authority for the actions that have been taken by the Treasury since March of ’08?

GEITHNER: Oh, well, the — the Congress legislated in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act a range of very important new authorities.

BACHMANN: Sir, in the Constitution. What — what in the Constitution could you point to to — to give authority to the Treasury for the extraordinary actions that have been taken?

GEITHNER: Every action that the Treasury and the Fed and the FDIC is — is — has been using authority granted by this body — by this body, the Congress.

BACHMANN: And by — in the Constitution, what could you point to?

GEITHNER: Under the laws of the land, of course.

She is the cosponsor of a bill introduced by John Shadegg (R-AZ), “The Enumerated Powers Act” (H.R.450), that, if made law, will “require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws, and for other purposes.” I guess Bachmann was giving the rule a test run.

Of course, like any good House Republican, Bachman has her name on bills protecting employers who require English to be spoken at all times in the workplace (H.R.4464, 110th), making English the official language of the U.S. (H.R.997, 111th), decreasing capital gains and corporate income taxes (multiple), and removing regulations or moratoriums on fossil-fuel exploration (multiple).

(By the way, Bachmann’s amendment protecting Americans against a global currency is H.J.Res.41. You can rest easy now.)

Après Vermont…? What’s Next for Gay Marriage

This week, gay couples in two states experienced a “new birth of freedom,” as both Iowa and Vermont recognized the right to same-sex marriage. Vermont’s victory is notable for the mode of its delivery. While gay rights advocates elsewhere have depended upon the power of the state courts for relief from the strictures of a suspicious populace and an ideologically disinclined federal bench, in Vermont the people themselves recognized the right to marry, acting through their elected officials, over the governor’s veto.

Majoritarian recognition is a major step forward. While critiques of “activist judges” certainly miss the point – it is emphatically the province of the judiciary to guard unfairly maligned minorities against a capricious majority – a legal equality built on judge-made law is neither permanent nor tenable. California discovered the former problem, and at least from the 1950s through the 1980s, African-Americans experienced the latter. Courts can create legal equality, but they can only do so much, and no-one but the populace at large can accord minorities full social equality. That gay rights can win in the marketplace of ideas, unaided by constitutional law, is a sign that old prejudices are dying. At least in Vermont.

But one more victory – the D.C. Council’s decision to recognize out of state gay marriages – in fact serves as a solemn reminder of how far we have yet to go. In the 1996 “Defense of Marriage Act” (Orwellian, fearmongering names are a GOP specialty), the Republican Congress stood the Full Faith & Credit Clause on its head by proclaiming that no state need recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state. As long as DoMA stands, a marriage legally performed in Massachusetts or Vermont evaporates for the duration of the happy couple’s sojourn to an unenlightened jurisdiction – like, say, Nevada, whose truly vindictive “mini DoMA” explicitly strips gay couples of any rights as soon as they cross state lines. Take a look at the map (and Human Rights Campaign data) to see what the United States looks like to a gay couple planning a vacation:

When a happily married couple literally cannot travel more than three states from their home without risking accidentally dissolving their marriage – and subjecting themselves to all the risk that entails – clearly we have a lot of work ahead of us still. ((Red states are those that don’t recognize out-of-state gay marriages. That rolls in some states, like Oregon & Washington, that accord limited same-sex rights but define marriage as to include a man and a woman, and would thus (presumptively) refuse to recognize an out-of-state union. Grey states, inversely, recognize out-of-state unions but don’t provide for their own.)) There are still a lot of minds to change, and a lot of tragedy worldwide left to stop. ((There’s more nuance in state law worth exploring. Apparently, these laws make the U.S. pattern on gay marriage look like the early U.S. pattern on abolition!)) Luckily, the President is (at least symbolically and rhetorically) on the side of justice, but ensuring equal rights for all Americans is still the work of a lifetime.

Don’t get me wrong, this week was a major and unhoped-for coup for equal justice. But let’s not make the mistake of sitting on our laurels.