How does the right justify this? By proposing that if paying women less than men helps balance the budget, that makes discrimination by gender against women acceptable. Because a bunch of mostly white men don't mind taking money away from women, so long as they don't take money away from men who have more money than others. And because there is apparently, an underlying notion about returning to those 'glorious days of yesterear' when the world was ordered more to their liking: women were submissive to male 'headship' or domination, and minorities were submissive, subordinate, and knew their 'place'-----instead of getting themselves elected to the Presidency. (shocking!)
The Culture War, against women, by the political right (the Republicans, the Tea Partiers) is occurring at all levels of government - the local, the state, and the federal. How organized it is would be hard to qualify, but it is fair to say that there is a concerted attempt to remove every gain for equality and gender fairness that has taken place in the last half century or more. Who is doing it? For the most part, men, although as this from the Minnesota Progressive Project notes, there IS one woman co-sponsor of this bill.
Why in the world would the political Wrong-on-the-Right ever think they could succeed in putting this genie back in the bottle? Here's why; it's because Justice Antonin Scalia says so.
The 14th Amendment's equal protection clause doesn't prohibit discrimination against women and gays, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. "Nobody ever thought that's what it meant."The Wrong-on-the-Right believes that so long as they have allies against women on the SCOTUS, this is the time they've been waiting for to go after women's rights. Don't fool yourself that women are the only target. It is only a matter of time until we see attempts to dismantle protections against race and religious discrimination as well, not to mention doing everything in the power to make sexual orientation discrimination legal. Expect efforts to undermine the legal rights of the elderly in repealing legislation against age discrimination as well, and repeal of protections for the disabled won't be far behind. The current efforts to make voting more difficult for targeted groups is just one example of this larger intent. The legislation to make English the official language is another, and the legislation in other states against the non-existant use of Sharia law gratifying the fears of Islamophobes on the right is one more.
The right is all about money - for themselves, for the rich who pay them to act for them and against the rights and well-being of the majority of citizens of the United States. And the right is about privilege and unequal advantage that benefits those they identify as 'themselves', those few who are 'like them', and disadvantages anyone they view as different from themselves.
In the past, the Right in their arrogance dramatically over reached their imagined mandate. Coupled with the epic failure of their policies, that over reach led to their political downfall. Anyone who naively believed this time around that the Right wasn't all about these same old same old culture wars is unwise at best, and a full-blown fool at worst.
The voices on the Right try to deny they are anti-women. The point to the leading women in their political movements and in their media. What they have promoted are harpies and kewpie-doll popsies, not women of substance. They don't let women in to the top leadership, they only let them be as prominent as it works for them to exploit those women. That isn't going to change.
Academy nominated screen writer for 2011, winner of some 30 other awards for his work, Aaron Sorkin said it well here:
"I have a big problem with people who glamorize dumbness. And demonize education and intellect. And I'm giving a pretty good description of Sarah Palin right now."My colleague Penigma and I have ongoing discussions about whether or not the Right will be stupid enough to keep trying these measures, both new legislation, and repeal of old legislation. He says they know better and won't. Every new day demonstrates, with fresh examples, that in fact they are that unwise, and they are that arrogant as a group, and that they will, and do exactly that. Because the Right is too busy re-writing history to their ideology to learn from it. It will be their undoing, and probably before the 2012 elections.
It would be nice to see the context of the statement by Scalia. He is a very nitpicky legal scholar and he is correct that every supreme court decision about the equal protection clause was about race and only about race, not gender or sexual preference. Also when it was written there was no thought about women or gays, only about negroes and the court has expanded it to include chinese and mexicans in some of the decisions since.
ReplyDeleteYour wish is my command Tuck. Here is the link to the original full interview in the California Lawyer:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.callawyer.com/story.cfm?eid=913358&evid=1
"In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?
Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society."
Because I know you expect me to do the fact checking on what I write.
Thanks DG, and you have to admit seeing the full quote Scalia is not saying he is in favor of gender and sexual preference discrimination just that he believes it is the job of the legislature to outlaw it not the Supreme Court. Several interviews I have seen with Scalia have led me to believe he is very firmly convinced that the Supreme Court should not read things into the law. If it does not specifically say something then the legislature should add it not just have a court interpret that in. And yes he thinks Roe v Wade is a bad decision but in one interview with Barbara Walters he also said that abortion was not unconstitutional either. He thinks that since it is not mentioned in the constitution that the states should decide how to regulate, allow, or outlaw it within their state. And he seems to feel the same way about medical marijuana as long as you are not transporting drugs across state lines the federal govt should stay out of it.
ReplyDeleteTuck,
ReplyDeleteExcept that Scalia invented the "right to hunt" out of whole-cloth. Scalia is PLENTY judicially active when it suits him, though far less so that Clarence Thomas, who is the judge who has overturned the most legislative decisions among serving justices.
BTW, Tuck, the prohibition against bearing arms was a 2nd Amendment right enforcable agsint the federal government only (with some impliation that states couldnot prevent reserve armies by totally banning guns). That was UNTIL Scalia (as the writer of the majority decision in McDonald AND Heller), usurped state's rights and expanded the 2nd amendment FROM THE BENCH, suggesting incorporation in Heller and codifying it in McDonald. In the past 130 or so years, there has been NO MORE JUDICIAL ADVENTUROUS postion taken, none, with only Roe V. Wade being a peer.
ReplyDeleteYour judidially pure example (Scalia) is in fact anything but.