The Cheneys and Changing Attitudes Towards Same-Sex Marriage

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

The Cheneys and Changing Attitudes Towards Same-Sex Marriage

If you are interested in the same-sex marriage debate as it relates to the actual policy issues underpinning the debate–as opposed to the rhetoric and politics of the debate–I wholeheartedly urge you to listen today’s episode of The Diane Rehm Show.  Not only does the show contain a great panel of guests (see below), it also has some fantastic, passionate callers and emails.

Here is a description of the show:

Polls show that about half of Americans approve of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. But among Republicans, that percentage drops sharply. This week a public rift in the family of former Vice President Dick Cheney thrust the issue onto the front page again. One of Cheney’s daughters is married to a woman. The other, Liz Cheney, is running for office on the Republican ticket in Wyoming. On national TV over the over the weekend, Liz Cheney said she believes in the traditional definition of marriage. That puts her in line with most other Republicans –- but not most other Americans. Diane and her guests discuss changing perspectives on same-sex marriage.

Guests

Jonathan Rauch: senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; author of “Denial: My 25 Years Without a Soul” and “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America.”

Michael Dimock: director, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Maggie Gallagher: American Principles Project and co-author of “Debating Same-Sex Marriage.”

Special thanks to Matt McKeon, a regular contributor to the SLACE Blog, for bringing this podcast to my attention.  Matt writes about LGBTQ issues. His blog posts can be found here. 

Fareed Zakaria on Obstacles to Iranian Nuclear Negotiations

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Fareed Zakaria on Obstacles to Iranian Nuclear Negotiations

This past Sunday, Fareed Zakaria began his show by giving his “take” the Iranian nuclear negotiations.

Here is a description of the video: 

Saudi Arabia is not going to accept any deal on Iran’s nuclear program, no matter what is in it. Saudi objections to the Islamic Republic of Iran are existential. The Saudis regard Tehran as a heretical, Shiite, Persian enemy that must be opposed. Its antipathy predates Iran’s nuclear program and will persist whatever the resolution of it.

And then the Republicans in the U.S., some of whom have serious objections and others who see this as an easy avenue to outflank President Obama on the right, placing him in the familiar spot of a liberal Democrat who is soft on America’s foes.

Many of us have assumed that the greatest obstacle to a deal would come from Tehran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards remain deeply anti-American, and they may well oppose the concessions that President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif would have to make to get a deal. But it’s now clear that greater obstacles might lie in the path of the negotiators on the other side. The minute any deal is announced, Saudi Arabia and Israel will denounce it, and many Republicans will join in. Given that Congress would have to pass laws to lift any of the major sanctions against Iran, this could prove to be an obstacle that cannot be overcome.

So Obama faces two major challenges. First he has to get a deal that the hard-liners in Tehran can live with. Then he has to get one that the hard-liners in Washington and Jerusalem and Riyadh can abide. If he can do both, maybe he will deserve his Nobel Peace Prize after all.

Watch the video for the full Take or read the TIME column

“Ordinary Injustice”

/ Melissa DiRado / Leave a comment

The book “Ordinary Injustice” was assigned by one of my professors. As a disclaimer, the author is a lawyer, but only practiced for a short time. She then spent eight years researching, and ultimately wrote this book. She focuses on several specific locations, but the themes that she emphasizes are derived from problems the criminal justice system as a whole suffers from. These include under funding, over and under criminalization, and corrupt or biased judges, to name a few. The overall message of the book, however, made evident through the situations she focused on, is this: many of the problems the criminal justice system faces often go unnoticed because they are so common place.

In her introduction, Amy Bach sets forth several conceptions of “ordinary injustice.” First, “Ordinary injustice results when a community of legal professionals becomes so accustomed to a pattern of lapses that they can no longer see their role in them” (p.3). Second, “Ordinary injustice seems to occur in a blind spot” (p.4). Third, “ordinary injustice flourishes in the shadows where these deals are cut and decisions are made” (p.7). Fourth, “Ordinary injustice is virtually always rooted in an incomplete story” (p.8). Fifth, “ordinary injustice cannot be explained away by any one variable” (p.9).

It is no secret that the criminal justice system does have its fair share of problems. For instance, scholars who study the system constantly point to the lack of indigent defense as one of the main problems within the system. Some scholars analogize that the criminal justice system is a triangle in nature- that is, the judge rules over both the defense attorney and prosecutor. If this balance/hierarchy is not maintained, and the three separate roles of these parties lose their distinctive shape, the system begins to collapse.

For instance, in one chapter of “Ordinary Injustice” Bach focused on one severe instance of judicial misconduct. There, the judge set exorbitantly high bail amounts, would not always assign a lawyer to defendants, and in many instances would enter pleas for defendants who were not present in the courtroom. However, in this situation, the prosecutor and defense attorneys were complacent with the judge’s actions. While there is a whole separate argument to be made whether attorneys legitimately have the option to report instances of misconduct (despite their professional obligations to do so), the point is the judge’s misconduct continued for years without anyone questioning whether he was following the law.

The overall point is from an outsider’s perspective the system may appear to function and be fair. Few tend to question the system and how it operates. Complacency seems to plague the system to a high degree. Those who want to change the system face high levels of resistance. Change in this area does occur, but at a painfully slow rate.

http://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Injustice-America-Holds-Court/dp/0805092277

Inside Guantanamo Bay

/ Matthew Clemente / 4 Comments

Inside Guantanamo Bay

Yesterday, 60 Minutes went inside Guantanamo Bay.  Here is how the story began: 

If there’s a heaven above and a hell below, then limbo can be found just 90 miles off the coast of Florida at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There, prisoners who’ve been scooped up in the war on terror have remained locked up — most for 11 years now without being charged. And it’s cost taxpayers $5 billion so far.

 

Two weeks ago, we reported on the handful of the prisoners going on trial. Tonight, we’ll tell you about the others, many of whom can’t be tried. The evidence against them is weak or inadmissible, in some cases, because it was obtained through quote “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

 

With Congress having mandated that none of the detainees can set foot on U.S. soil, and President Obama vowing to shut the prison down, life at Guantanamo Bay grinds on.

Accessibility of Museums

/ Angel Baker / Leave a comment

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires public accommodations (businesses and non-profit organizations) to provide goods and services to people with disabilities on an equal basis with the rest of the public.  Museums, like other businesses, that serve the public are to allow visitors with disabilities to fully experience all that museums have to offer, including exhibitions, programs, special events, publications, and videos.

The New York Times wrote an article titled “Welcoming Art Lovers With Disabilities.” It discusses that a museum held public exhibition of original art made in its “Seeing Through Drawing” classes. This exhibit was done to accommodate people who were blind or partly sighted. The art was described to them and they were allowed to touch it as well. Another museum held tours in American Sign Language to accommodate people who were deaf. This museum also had new “multisensory stations” at an allotted time which would allow those with a range of disabilities to experience exhibits though scent, touch, music and verbal imaging, or describing things for people with vision impairment. Another museum provided a wheelchair to accommodate those with mobility impairments. There are newer programs which allow families with children on the autism spectrum and cognitive disabilities to arrive early and receive materials in advance to get familiar with the building and exhibits. A different museum stressed to accommodate persons with disabilities and those without to have access to the same devices and content. Technology has played a huge role in helping to accommodate a larger variety of people with disabilities. Museum efforts to accommodate persons with disabilities are thought to increase due to the increase in the amount of people who have disabilities here in the U.S..

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, museums must make reasonable modifications in its policies, practices, and procedures in order to accommodate individuals with disabilities.  Theses modifications are not required if it would “fundamentally alter” the goods, services, or operations of the public accommodation.  Furthermore, they must provide auxiliary aids and services when they are necessary to ensure effective communication with individuals with hearing, vision, or speech impairments.  “Auxiliary aids” include such services or devices as qualified interpreters, assistive listening headsets, television captioning and decoders, telecommunications devices for deaf persons (TDD’s), videotext displays, readers, taped texts, brailled materials, and large print materials.  Auxiliary aids that would result in an undue burden, (i.e., “significant difficulty or expense”) or in a fundamental alteration in the nature of the goods or services are not required by the regulation. However, a public accommodation must still furnish another auxiliary aid, if available, that does not result in a fundamental alteration or an undue burden.

Here, the museums have been offering modifications through auxiliary aids.  These are wonderful improvements for accommodations. The current drawbacks are that as it stands each museum is only accommodating certain individuals with certain disabilities.  Is it enough to accommodate only certain disabilities, and say that they have been compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act?