Category Archives: Politics

Leave the Sports Fans Alone, Go Get the Protesters

In writing on Quebec’s heavy-handed crackdown on the continuing student protests (“Our Not So Friendly Northern Neighbor”, International Herald Tribune, May 23 2012), Laurence Bherer and Pascale Dufour note the generally well-behaved demeanor of the protesters:

Since the beginning of the student strike, leaders have told protesters to avoid violence. Protesters even condemned the small minority of troublemakers who had infiltrated the demonstrations. During the past four months of protests, there has never been the kind of rioting the city has seen when the local National Hockey League team, the Canadiens, wins or loses during the Stanley Cup playoffs. [link in original]

The invocation of the behavior of Canadiens fans is a particular instance of a familiar trope: the comparison between the law-and-order response to the behavior of sports fans–drunken or sober, celebrating or mourning–and that of another group, in this case, political protesters. (A classic instance, from a time long past, may be found in Deadheads’ pleas for tolerance as the Grateful Dead were banned in many cities from performing live. As Deadheads noted, Pittsburgh Police had suggested they would much rather work a Grateful Dead concert than a Steelers game; the latter event involved dealing with drunk fans, the former with stoned Deadheads; no prizes for guessing which group was better behaved.)

Now, presumably, when Canadiens fans rioted, the local police must have sought to restore order, perhaps by arresting drunken sports fans that might have damaged private property. But no amount of sports fan misbehavior will, I think, provoke the passage of legislation like Bill 78:

The bill threatens to impose steep fines of 25,000 to 125,000 Canadian dollars against student associations and unions…student associations will be found guilty if they do not stop their members from protesting within university and college grounds. During a street demonstration, the organization that plans the protest will be penalized if individual protesters stray from the police-approved route or exceed the time limit imposed by authorities. Student associations and unions are also liable for any damage caused by a third party during a demonstration….student organizations and unions will be held responsible for behavior they cannot possibly control.

The comparison above with the behavior of sports fans is significant because of a larger culture of  ’boys-will-be-boys’ tolerance of sports fans behavior. (Have the Canadiens been held liable for their fans’ behavior?)  The same folks who would be mildly irritated by sports fans pissing on their lawns after a big game would be positively apoplectic if they were mildly inconvenienced by a political rally, action or demonstration of any sort. (Campus towns seem pretty mellow about the wake of devastation left after a big college football game.)  And the police response to the rowdiness of drunken sports fans, spilling into the streets from sidewalks, is more often than not, far more tolerant than it would be of a small group of sober protesters, perhaps chanting the odd slogan or two. The likelihood of a violent encounter is far greater in the first instance but the heavy-handed crackdown always takes place in the latter.

The problem, of course, is that drunken sports fans rioting sends one kind of message, the protest sends another. The former lets us know the massive narcotizing effect of professional sports is, shall we say, ‘in full effect’; the latter lets us know the medication is wearing off. The clubs and batons are required, therefore, to knock those protesting back into submission. The former assure us they are drunk, in the thrall of corporate fantasy entertainment; the latter, that they are done changing channels and would like to take over the production facilities. Small wonder that the latter evokes alarm, while the former merely bemused worry that someone’s storefront or car might be damaged. The dollar value of the damage caused by the rioting sports fan might cause more damage than the political protester but the protester is likely to generate far more pernicious instability; sports fan riots leave broken windows and bleeding noses in their wake, the political rally invariably disrupts far more.

It’s a no-brainer, really, for those charged with ‘keeping the peace’: leave the sports fans alone, go get the protesters.

Taylorism and the Doctor’s Office

From this vantage, distant point in my life, childhood meetings with doctors, whether at home–they still made house calls–or whether in the doctor’s clinic, appear as encounters with quasi-avuncular figures, benevolent, mostly-solicitous contacts with a wise, ostensibly caring person. I experienced my share of childhood illnesses, suffered from minor ailments, and almost always looked forward to meeting the doctors who treated me. Consultations took place in their office; preliminary wait in a reception, and then entry into the sanctum sanctorum; I sat on a stool next to the doctor’s desk; the doctor was nearby, walked around to his desk to examine me, and sometimes for more extended examination, moved me to an adjoining recliner. While the waits in the office were sometimes onerous, once told the doctor would see you, you got just that – a ‘meeting’ with the doctor. The doctor’s consultation space seemed made for healing.

The times, they’re a changin’.

To visit a doctor now is to experience a cold, unrelenting blast of Taylorist air, a journey through a land dotted with toll-collectors, each aspiring to rapid and efficient quota completion. You make an appointment and wait in the reception like you always did.  Then you are brusquely asked for your insurance forms, and made to fill out–just like at every other doctor’s office that you’ve been to before–a pile of horribly photocopied forms that ask for details on your medical history, whether you’ve understood your privacy rights, and a host of other legally required disclaimers. Then you wait again. When called in, you don’t meet the doctor. Rather, you are ushered into a small consultancy room, cold and bare, while an assistant screens you by conducting a preliminary examination. (You might have to wait a bit before the assistant shows up.) This preliminary examination over, you are left alone again, sometimes clad in a paper gown.

Then, the doctor–whose voice and form can be dimly discerned as he rushes about in the corridors outside–shows up; clearly in a whirl and a tizzy combined, he is brusque, efficient, and keeping an eye on the clock and his production schedule, his throughput. He reads the pre-examination form quickly, asks a few rapid questions–more often than not, not listening too closely to the stream of information a patient can provide on his body, his ailment–dispenses a quick, snap judgment, and leaves. A battery of tests is ordered; pharmaceutical prescriptions written; and you are told that the ‘assistant’ and the ‘receptionist’ will tie up loose ends. You change, head out the door, are reminded by the receptionist that the co-payment is due, and then, it’s all over. You emerge, blinking, into the sunlight, feeling not so much healed, but as if you had been trussed up, placed on an assembly belt, and had several pounds of flesh withdrawn – by the insurance company, by the doctor’s clinic.

The doctors maximize movement through their clinics; the tests ensure expensive bills can be sent in for insurance claims; the prolific prescriptions pad pharmaceutical profit accounts. The patient, meanwhile, many of his questions unanswered, his possible inputs to the diagnostic process ignored, returns home, disquieted by the experience, disillusioned by the wonders of face-to-face contact with a fellow human being, and supposedly a healer at that.

The Scandal of Closed Access to Taxpayer Funded Research

On January 21, Timothy Gowers of Cambridge announced he would no longer publish papers in Elsevier’s journals or serve as a referee or editor for them. This boycott has now been joined by thousands of other researchers. (I don’t referee any more for Elsevier, though I have in the past, and I certainly won’t be sending any papers there.) Thanks to the furore created by three Fields Medal winners–Timothy Gowers, Terence Tao, Wendelin Werner–participating in the boycott, many now know what academics have known for a very long time: academic publishing is a scandal. Indeed, it is more than a scandal; it is a racket which is nothing short of criminal. Before we go any further, here is a number to chew on: in 2010, ‘Elsevier reported a 36 percent profit on revenues of $3.2 billion.’

How does this system work? Consider this. Elsevier, or for that matter, any journal publishing house, publishes ‘content.’ Academic content, the results of research conducted by university academics the world over; much of this research is funded by taxpayer money. This research is written up in papers, and sent to journal editorial boards for review. These boards are staffed by unpaid academics, who, after preliminary review, send out papers to be reviewed by other unpaid academics. (When I say ‘unpaid,’ I mean they are not compensated by the journals for their work.) The paper, if accepted by the referee and the editor, is then sent back to the authors who typesets it, prepares a camera-ready copy, and sends it back for publishing. The publishing house, after making authors sign forms handing over copyright to them, then prints the article in the latest issue of the relevant journal, and sells subscriptions to that journal for thousands of dollars per year to libraries at the same universities where their editorial board and reviewing staff work.

So, this material is not open-access any more; it is closed behind a ‘pay-wall.’ If you don’t have a paid subscription, you don’t get to view the published research. If your library, at say, a public university like the City University of New York, is experiencing budget problems, and library funding suffers cutbacks, well, tough tits. You don’t get to view the published research. If you, as a professor, or graduate student, decided to freely distribute the papers, you may be embroiled in copyright infringement disputes. If you are a taxpayer that funded this research, but cannot afford the journal subscription, well, tough tits again. Go rustle up the bucks. Knowledge should be open and available to all, you say? Talk to my accountant; because the face, it ain’t listening.

This is a gigantic rip-off, a racket, a robbery. It is exploitation–primarily of the academic promotion and tenure process and taxpayer money–on a scale that beggars belief. The stench from this should make every thinking person hold his or her nose. And act to make sure this cannot persist.

Right now, the US House and Senate are considering the Federal Research Public Access Act; this will bring about ‘pervasive open access,’ especially to articles reporting on research paid for by taxpayers.  For your own sake and for the sake of researchers, students, teachers, doctors, and the like everywhere, please support it.  A ‘We the People’ petition is up and available for signing at whitehouse.gov. Please sign, spread the word, and end this racket.

Against Commencement Cermonies

I have never sat through a commencement address; I have never managed to finish watching a recommended one on YouTube; and I certainly have not ever read one to the end. (The other day, in a bookstore, I noticed a little book containing an apparently famous one delivered by David Foster Wallace; I couldn’t finish that either, and that’s saying something because I’ve been given to understand that it bucks a trend I note below.) I’m not sure from whence stems my antipathy to this form of oratory. Perhaps because I find the very idea incredibly pompous and suffused with a ludicrous self-importance: hundreds of young men and women sitting, patiently, listening to some ‘inspirational speaker’, providing advice, reminding them of the importance of their accomplishment, and providing a road-map ‘for what lies ahead.’ Some of the content of the commencement speeches is witty–but too much seems like second-rate witticisms–and perhaps some of it is sage advice, but too often it is redolent with bromides and clichés. I’ve come now to suspect, in perhaps excessively cantankerous fashion, that the commencement ceremony is a gigantic rip-off, a modern-day opportunity to make money for cap-n-gown manufacturers and photographers. And for extremely self-satisfied college administrators to preen and strut.

My  personal history of graduation ceremony attendance is quite dismal. I did not attend my undergraduate graduation ceremony because I had already left for the US; I attended my master’s because my mother was keen to see photos (I described this as providing proof that I had attended classes while away from home); lastly, I did not attend my doctoral commencement because I was away, working on my post-doctoral fellowship in Australia. At Brooklyn College, when called upon to do so twice in my capacity as a professor, I have been out-of-town on one occasion, and on the second, attended for as long as I could before leaving. In my own case, my absences were convenient but I would not have attended anyway; I knew I would find the ceremonies tedious in the extreme. (When I finished my Ph.D, I knew I had no intention of attending my commencement; the graduation ceremony would have felt like an interruption; the course of study completed, work lay ahead; to finish the doctoral degree was to complete the proverbial jump from the frying pan to the fire; I did not need to attend my commencement for my PhD to experience closure, that had already been achieved in far more satisfying fashion by my doctoral defense, where my thesis advisors had tested me in the presence of my peers.)

At the heart of this antipathy, I suspect, lies a dislike for such a curiously non-egalitarian setting, one redolent of political rallies and propaganda-and-ideology-dispensation.The students sit in the audience, they are made to file in, in order, and to be seated; administrators and other sundry big-guns take the stage; the only student to speak is the valedictorian (just a reminder folks, that grades are really the most important thing!), and then, the commencement speaker, whose ‘success’ in life more often than not, meets well-accepted societal norms. (Will we have one chosen from Occupy Wall Street in this graduation season?) The standard commencement ceremony reeks of temples and stadiums, of priests and kings and their subjects. I’d rather celebrate educational accomplishment some other way.

Note: I’m well aware that many students find these ceremonies extremely important for a variety of reasons; on which, more anon.

Crossfit and Strong Women

A singularly positive aspect about being in a Crossfit space–like the one at Crossfit South Brooklyn, which, in point of fact, is the only one I’ve ever spent any time in–is the many opportunities that arise to see strong women in action. Women can deadlift, squat, clean and jerk, run fast, do muscle-ups, pull-ups–you name it, they can do it. Many women lifters at my gym are among the most technically proficient in the major lifts; to watch them execute these lifts properly is a genuinely aesthetic and awe-inspiring experience. (I wonder if there is something interesting to be said here about the seemingly greater ability of women to internalize coaching cues about technical lifts. Do men, perhaps, resist coaching cues more, convinced that they can figure it out by themselves?)

So Crossfit, whatever its merits as a fitness training program–and debates about that have provoked some wonderfully informative discussions–has at least ensured the creation of a space where stereotypes about women being weak go to die. Anyone that spends sufficient time at Crossfit South Brooklyn will see women indulge in feats of athletic ability that are wonderfully disruptive to any reductive,  long-held opinions about the athletic incompetence of women. But stereotypes of ‘women can’t lift’ are not just held by men, they are very frequently entertained by women themselves. So witnessing ‘Crossfit women’ may provide  a salutary lesson to women too that dominant, culturally transmitted and reinforced, conceptions of what you might be capable of are very often mistaken.

Here on the gym floor, the lifting platform, under the pull-up bar, too, are spaces thus, where men can learn valuable lessons in humility and in assessing how confident they may be about their  masculinity. After all, if women around you are faster, stronger, more limber than you, then what kind of man are you? Are you–to deploy a particularly ugly word sometimes thrown around by men in gyms–just a ‘pussy’? An educational moment for a male Crossfitter presents itself when he looks at the specifications–or prescription–for the assigned workout of the day, and realizes he can ‘only’ do a weight that is just above or sometimes even below the prescribed weight for women. I have had many moments like these, and it was a little galling, so well had I internalized the spoon-fed mantra of reassurance, “At least I’m stronger than any girl out there!” But often, that simply does not happen. There are women, constantly, around me, that, shall we say, kick my ass. And to have to deal with that is a wonderfully educative experience.

But there is an opportunity here to be seized, if one insists on making comparisons. As my friend Malcolm said to me as I agonized over what weight to choose for a workout, secretly not wanting to dip below the ‘ladies prescribed weight’: “Remember, if you can do what a strong woman does, you’re pretty damn fit!”

So there you have it, guys, this is what I really want to be: a strong woman.

A Bad Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage

I would have scarcely believed it possible, but a few short hours after teaching the naturalistic fallacy in my Philosophy of Biology class, I was exposed to an argument–from a professional philosopher–that, roughly, same-sex marriage is problematic because a) marriage is all about procreation and the raising of children and because b) evolution tell us that reproductive success is important, therefore: Gay marriage should be frowned upon. This resistance then, has nothing to do with religion, God, or the divine sanctification. Rather, it is the scientific thing to do: resist gay marriage because it is against evolutionary demands made on us as a species. This means that active disapproval of homosexuality–societal and legal discrimination for instance–is an expression of a biological instinct and should not be condemned as a moral failing.

The outlines of this argument should be familiar to most folks. It has been made time and again and despite having been spectacularly debunked, it rises again and again, like a zombie, or your favorite refusing-to-die cinematic ghoul.

What this argument attempts–and fails–to do is derive a proposition with normative import from a set of propositions that are purely descriptive. This–as David Hume pointed out a long time ago in his A Treatise of Human Nature–is an instance of the naturalistic fallacy, an attempt to bridge the is-ought gap:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

This fallacy manifests itself in the current situation as follows. There are biological facts about us: We reproduce, we pass on our genes, various reproductive strategies are adopted, some work better than the others (in securing more offspring to whom we can pass on our genes). This much can be ascertained by observation and measurement. But what should  we do on noting these observations? The proponent of the argument noted above, wants to derive the following: Those reproductive strategies that work ‘better’ are ‘good’, and therefore should be encouraged, should be praised. The rest should be condemned. (Marriage, it will be noted, has been admitted as a successful reproductive strategy; this is a matter of empirical assessment and could well turn out to be false.)

But whence ‘better’, whence ‘good’? Why is ‘reproductive success’ a moral good to be sought? What is the source of that valuation and why is it allowed to override other values in the derivation above? Might we be allowed to admit other values in arriving at an alternative conclusion? Like, for instance, a more tolerant society is a ‘better’ society than one that isn’t? But then, we would be opening up a debate–conducted within some broad ethical and moral frameworks–on valuation, which is precisely what our protagonist didn’t want. He merely wanted the straightforward elevation of reproductive success to the preeminent moral value without further debate.

The tireless proponents of the so-called evolutionary arguments against same-sex marriage forget that efforts to read normative judgments off the historical workings out of the evolutionary process have as much difficulty in bridging the is-ought gap as any other species of argument. Calling upon biology here is not the scientifically sophisticated thing to do; it is merely to reveal one’s ignorance of the limitations of evolutionary explanation.

Letter to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould: Get Security off Students’ Backs!

The Executive Committee of the Brooklyn College Chapter of the Professional Staff Congress – CUNY (PSC-CUNY) has written to the President of Brooklyn College, Karen Gould, regarding the assaults on, and arrests of, CUNY students by CUNY Security at Brooklyn College on May 2nd. Please take the time to read the letter–reproduced below–in its entirety and help spread the word.

(For background, including links to videos, President Gould’s response, student letters, petition links please consult the Reclaim Brooklyn blog. As I’ve noted before on this blog, this kind of response by campus security is a classic piece of intimidation that always, without fail, succeeds in creating a hostile, combative, threatening atmosphere, and almost invariably results in students getting hurt. And as noted here before as well, the police continue to harass and abuse those that are ‘on their side.)

Must One Vote for President to Be Political?

I concluded yesterday’s post by saying:

There is a far more fundamental problem…it centers on my disillusionment with elections–especially in modern politics in this nation–and with my evolving understanding of my political responsibilities.

I should have been more specific above. I have acquired a profound dislike of presidential elections: the campaigning by candidates, the so-called ‘debates,’ the insincere campaign promises. I consider presidential elections the worst part of American democracy: for the opportunities for pandering and demagoguery they provide, for their choking off of reasoned discourse, and especially in the US, the inordinate amount of time, energy and money they consume. The Republican primaries began last year, or at least, it felt like they did. That’s a full year before the elections. Really, US polity, really? A year-long election season?

I dislike too, the elevation of the presidential election to the center-piece of American democracy–that somehow casting my vote for the president is the most important political act I can commit. This often results in guilt-mongering:  If you don’t vote for a presidential candidate, you’ve committed a grievous abdication of political responsibility. The propagandizing and resource consumption associated with presidential elections is especially insidious; their prioritization cripples a great deal of engagement with the political process; it denudes political activism of energy, purpose and resources by drawing too much attention to itself.

The privileging of these elections has meant all too many US citizens imagine that presidential elections are all there is to their democracy;’ that to participate in their polity, one need only show up once in four years to vote, followed by rapid disengagement. Presidential candidates, like Barack Obama, are guilty of the precise converse; they imagine that having won the election, there is no need anymore to engage with those that brought them to power. A fraction of the passion spent in engaging with the ‘base’ during the election season, had it been deployed during the last few years, might have earned Obama considerably more legislative victories, and not cost him the support of his ‘base.’ (It didn’t help, either, that the option chosen, instead, was denigration of the ‘base.’)

I’ve come to think of the presidential election as the deployment of a vast machinery of systematic obfuscation. The disappointed voter is a cliché now, precisely because he imagined that voting was all there was to it; better to ignore elections and do politics somewhere other than the presidential polling station. The real action lies elsewhere; in local elections where one might, for instance, vote for judges who can rule on important decisions affecting families and groups: divorce or bankruptcy proceedings for example.

A citizen can be political in many ways. I can be political by resisting the policies that my nation’s rulers seek to impose:  sometimes by writing here, sometimes by my daily utterances, sometimes in my teaching, sometimes in the lifestyle I adopt, and in those I encourage. My politics resides in my daily actions, in the many little decisions I make on a daily basis. The political process operates on many levels; it can be poked, prodded, and interacted with via a multiplicity of processes; voting for the president is but one of them.

Not Nearly Enough Change I Can Believe In

Yesterday’s post and Dan Kaufman’s comment on it, have prompted me to pen some thoughts on Barack Obama (and elections).

In 2008, I made two separate donations of $50 to Barack Obama’s campaign. I also drove down with some friends to Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania and spent the day walking around several neighborhoods, knocking on doors, and talking to residents about their possible election choices, thus helping the Obama campaign build up a map of voting patterns that they could use in estimating their chances in the region. I’d like to think that in some small way, I actively helped Obama’s victory in the elections that followed. I took these actions because, besides  wanting to vote for Obama in New York State, I wanted to contribute as much as I could elsewhere, to help the Obama campaign in the so-called swing states.  My vote in New York, a state that votes overwhelmingly Democratic, and where Obama was all but guaranteed the Electoral College votes, didn’t feel like that it would be that useful to Obama; at most it could help some him make some talking points about the size of his mandate.

By late 2008, as the elections approached, I was alarmed in a way that I had not been in 2004 (when I had voted for John Kerry). In 2004, I had merely voted; that was the extent of my involvement in the election process. But in 2008, I might have been described as a member of ‘the energized base’. I was ‘energized’ by Sarah Palin, by eight years of GW Bush, by the chance for change that I saw in Obama’s election. Back then, I was happy Obama had trumped Hilary Clinton’s campaign; even though her election would have been a historic event, I was made just a tad bit uneasy by her connection with the ‘old’ Democrats. Thus, I should have been more alarmed than I was by Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as vice-president; it was the first serious indicator, for me at least, that this candidate would indulge in a great deal of the ‘ol same-’ol, same-’ol.

Some three years on, as this election season heats up, and writing the day after Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage,  my disappointment remains acute. The language of betrayal is tempting, but I’m too weary to deploy it. Rather I’m inclined to think that I’ve just been reminded of the cartel-like nature of party politics in our nation, and of the disappointing inability of politicians to recognize where historical opportunities lie. Obama could have been a great one-term president; he has chosen, instead, to aspire to be a disappointing two-term president. I do not think I will send $100 to his campaign this year, and I most certainly will not take the time to go door-knocking for him in Pennsylvania or anywhere else. I wonder how many there are like me, and how much that will hurt Obama (Obama will have gained some new supporters in these past few years and perhaps they will be enough to get him over the finish line.) But I do not intend to fall for the tired old Democratic line ‘if you don’t vote for us, the bad old Republicans will come to power’. I do not feel like voting for Obama, and I certainly do not intend to vote Republican. Perhaps the Working Families Party? Who knows? November is still a long way away.

But there is a far more fundamental problem in all of this: it centers on my disillusionment with elections–especially in modern politics in this nation–and with my evolving understanding of my political responsibilities. More on that in a follow-up post tomorrow.

About Time, Mr. President

The following was intended as today’s post. It has been pre-empted by Obama’s endorsement, today, of same-sex marriage.

Barack Obama will soon sit down for an interview in which he will, in all probability, attempt to explain his ‘evolving’ views on gay marriage. Perhaps he will come out strongly in favor of gay marriage. Or perhaps he will equivocate a bit, and attempt to triangulate his desire to be re-elected–and thus the need to placate those segments of the electorate that thinks the president should take a stronger moral stance on this subject, whether it be condemnatory or laudatory–, his actual personal views on the subject, and his evident talent for backing away from the ‘soaring’ campaign rhetoric that so enthralled so many (and still continues to captivate many every time he deigns to address the nation on a matter of grave importance, or to offer clarification for some mysteriously weak-kneed response to his political opponents).

I have a suggestion for the President, a pointer to a course of action that might help his views ‘evolve.’ He should go to the Library of Congress, which I believe is located in Washington DC, contact a good reference librarian (after first getting a patron card filled out appropriately), and ask him or her for some help in locating some good historical material on the social institution of marriage. He should also ask for some historical material on institutionalized racism. The President could also put out an open call to academics the nation over, and ask them for book recommendations on these subjects. Then, he should sit down and read a couple of these books. (Only if he has time to spare from the relentless electioneering that will soon be his primary occupation; after all, elections are the most important part of a democracy, aren’t they?)

I think President Obama might be interested in what he will find in the course of these historical investigations. (I’m presuming here that he will read with an open mind, that he will deploy his intelligence, which I’m presuming has not been warped excessively or deformed by the extensive contact it has had with organized religion and its vile prejudices.)  In his readings on marriage, he will find that marriage has a history, that it has cultural variations, that it has served very particular functions in the past, many of them grounded in the preservation and promotion of very particular economic states of affairs. He will find that far from being a divinely exalted and sanctified expression of the love of man for woman (or vice-versa), marriage is infected with the profane, through and through. And when President Obama reads a history or two of institutionalized racism, he will be struck by the similarity of the language deployed as apologia for racism to the language used to delay and deny gay marriage today.

Mr. President: The denial of gay marriage, and its writing into state constitutions, are acts of bigotry. Get with the program, and use your bully pulpit to condemn it.  As I wrote today on Twitter: President Obama: If your views are “evolving” on gay marriage, please hurry the fuck up – that timescale is a little sluggish.