The Tin Man » 2003

Monday, June 2, 2003

What can you learn about someone by looking at that person’s movie rental history? Here is an annotated history of my Netflix DVD rentals since I joined in late January, from my first rentals to my most recent.

Tape (2001)

-Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke, together again. I drool over them. Adapted from a play.

The Journey of Jared Price (2000)

-Dumb. I blogged about this one.

Harold and Maude (1971)

-Odd. But good. Very 1971.

The Red Violin (1999)

-Wonderful.

Radio Days (1987)

-It’s been a goal of mine to see all of Woody Allen’s movies. This was sweet and nostalgic, kind of like “Brighton Beach Memoirs.”

Zelig (1983)

-More Woody Allen… one of his more imaginative movies. Weird but good.

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)

-Cute and fun and gay.

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996)

-People rave about this movie, but I could barely watch it, and I tried several times. I finally gave up after the first half hour. I think it was just too dark and painful for me; maybe it brought back too many bad middle-school memories.

The Deep End (2001)

-Not very much plot, but compelling in its way, with some nice performances.

Husbands and Wives (1992)

-More Woody Allen. One of his contemporary New Yorky films. I liked it.

Unfaithful (2002)

-Sexy and well-acted, marred only by a totally unrealistic windstorm in the middle of SoHo.

Best in Show (2000)

-My first Christopher Guest movie. I love Parker Posey here!

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)

-Really enjoyed this. Sort of “Stand By Me” meets “Igby Goes Down.”

Spellbound (1945)

-The Hitchcock movie, not the spelling bee documentary. I’m usually a Hitchcock fan, but this one was just stupid.

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

-Yet more Woody Allen. Another of his most imaginative films, and really charming. Of all the films he’s written and directed, this is apparently one of Woody’s personal favorites.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

-I’ve seen all of Kevin Smith’s movies. I enjoy them for their wit and stupidity. This one looks very high-budget, plus it has Faith and Riley from “Buffy.”

The Game (1997)

-I’d always meant to see this. Really entertaining.

Celebrity (1998)

-More Woody Allen. Engrossing and complicated.

Sweet and Lowdown (1999)

-More Woody Allen. Great acting by Sean Penn and Samantha Morton.

Small Time Crooks (2000)

-More Woody Allen. Better than I’d expected, even though it was sort of dumb.

Liberty Heights (1999)

-Entertaining and visually rather beautiful, plus it has Adrien Brody. The story’s underdeveloped, though.

Waiting for Guffman (1996)

-Classic and indispensable. Stools!

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)

-More Woody Allen. This one was OK, but it would have been better if someone else had played Woody’s role. (At this point I think I’ve seen 20 of his movies.)

Nurse Betty (2000)

-Not as good as I’d expected, but still cute.

Currently out:

Pillow Talk (1959)

-Because I saw “Down With Love” last week.

That Touch of Mink (1962)

-See previous.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

-This is one of those movies I’ve always been meaning to see.

I wonder what all of this says about me.

2:20 PM | 6 drops of oil

Wednesday, June 4, 2003

Back in law school, when I was sexually confused and closeted, I became infatuated with someone. I first saw him in January 1997. He’d joined the Glee Club the previous fall, but I didn’t know him, because as a busy first-year law student, I’d taken a year off from singing. I ran into him in a movie theater lobby while waiting to see the re-release of “Star Wars.” He was there with a few other Glee Club guys whom I knew, and we got introduced. As far as I knew, he was straight, but the moment I saw him, I thought he was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. At this point, though, it was just a crush.

I rejoined the Glee Club in the fall of 1997, still confused and closeted, and there he was again. I got to know him a little bit better as the year continued, and my crush remained steady.

In the spring, we went on a weeklong tour of the South. Fifty Glee Club guys packed on a bus for a week, spending all our time together, singing together, drinking together, touring together. I couldn’t get away from him — he was there all the time. This endless proximity concentrated my feelings, like coal into diamond; it crushed my crush, if you will, into full-blown infatuation. I adored him. And I didn’t even know very much about him.

That week was a revelation for me. After coming out to a few people in college and then recloseting myself, I’d waffled for nearly five years; I’d filled page after page of spiral notebooks, wondering and worrying about my sexual orientation, trying to reason my way to an answer. What am I? Am I gay but just afraid of following through? Am I straight but afraid of women? Am I gay wishing I were straight? Am I straight wishing I were gay? I circled endlessly around and around.

And then I developed feelings for this guy. Sparkly and hollow those feelings might have been, but I finally knew. This felt so good. So real. So natural. I’d never felt this way for a woman. In fact, I hadn’t even felt this way for a guy in ages, but now I remembered that I had before. And it felt wonderful. This was how I was supposed to feel. I knew it. All the reasoning had been futile.

That was my first step toward coming out of the closet a few months later.

Sometimes it just comes down to what you feel.

I am lately coming to care about someone. It’s not something I planned; it has just kind of happened. It’s snuck up on me. My point is not that it’s comparable to infatuation. It’s not; infatuation is shallow. This, on the other hand, feels more sober, more textured, based more on knowledge and less on preconceived notions about a person. Infatuation happens when you project your own ideas onto someone else. Although caring does not require infatuation as a precursor, caring can happen only as your picture of another person grows deeper, as you come to know more about that person. Infatuation, ultimately, is selfish, more about you. Caring about someone, on the other hand, is really more about that other person.

So my point is not that this is similar to infatuation. But neither is my point that this is different from infatuation, even though it is. In fact, although it’s different from infatuation, it’s not yet clear what it is.

My point is this: in some cases, your feelings can teach your more about yourself than endless analysis ever can.

I’d worried that it wasn’t possible for me to care about someone in this particular way. I wanted to, but it just wasn’t happening with anyone. Now I have begun to feel that way, unexpectedly so, and it feels very rich and nuanced. It feels very… human.

This blog isn’t called “The Tin Man” for nothing.

I admire this person’s strengths. And we all have imperfections; that is inescapable if you are a human being. But I do not pity or resent this person for his imperfections, as I would not want to be pitied or resented for mine. Rather, I accept them as part of who he is. All of his qualities contribute to his humanity, as all of our qualities contribute to our own humanity. I like humans.

The outcome is not clear. But whatever the outcome, I have been enriched just by knowing him, and I am thankful that I have met him. Whatever happens, I am thankful for what has already happened. And I am thankful for what I have already learned about myself.

I want him to know that I am thankful.

I want him to know that I am here.

And most importantly, I want him to know that I am rooting for him.

“I think that all of us have from nature a thing called will; I reject the notion of chemical predestination, and I reject the moral loophole it creates. There is a unity that includes who we are and how we strive to be good people and how we go to pieces and how we put ourselves back together again…. We can never escape from choice itself. One’s self lies in the choosing, every choice, every day.”

– Andrew Solomon
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1:25 PM | Comments Off

Thursday, June 5, 2003

On Saturday night I am going to a joint birthday party at a bar in Manhattan. The party is for the birthdays of my brother, my brother’s girlfriend, my brother’s best friend, and some random fourth person.

It is a straight bar.

I am not used to straight bars.

I am trying to decide whether I need to dress like a straight male bar-hopper, i.e. solid-colored button-down shirt tucked into a pair of khakis or black pants, just like the straight guys who get on the PATH at the Hoboken stop on Friday and Saturday nights, or whether I can wear my usual gayboy clothes, e.g. slightly tight-fitting ringer t-shirt and jeans, which I would prefer. I feel like I need to represent, yo.

Maybe I’ll find some sort of compromise outfit.

I’m also trying to decide if I should brush up on my knowledge of sporting events and my grunting and ball-scratching abilities.

Wish me luck.

5:37 PM | 5 drops of oil

Friday, June 6, 2003

For the first time, the U.S. Justice Department has banned the gay pride event that is held annually at the Department. The reason given was that the Bush Administration has never officially recognized Gay Pride month. Last year, the White House stated that Dubya does not believe in “politicizing people’s sexual orientation.”

I wrote a letter to the New York Times this morning in response to the above-linked article:

To the Editor:

According to the White House, President Bush does not believe “in politicizing people’s sexual orientation” (”Justice Dept. Bans Event By Gay Staff,” June 6, 2003).

Unfortunately, sexual orientation has already been politicized. It has been politicized by judges who refuse to give gay parents custody over their own children; by national and state governments that withhold the legal protections of marriage from loving couples; by authorities who arrest and prosecute adults for having consensual sex in their own homes; by employers who fire American workers merely because they are gay; by school principals and school board members who silently condone physical violence against gay students.

Sexual orientation will no longer be “politicized” on the day when people stop punishing each other merely because of whom they happen to love.

I fear my letter doesn’t say anything new and has too much generic rhetoric, but I still hope they print it.

1:41 PM | 5 drops of oil

Monday, June 9, 2003

I finally saw “The Matrix Reloaded” yesterday. Despite being confused as all get-out (and I saw the first one twice), I enjoyed it, and I didn’t think I was going to, given what I’d already heard.

Sure, the rave scene was long and pointless, and the movie was clunky. But I was willing to sit back and just absorb everything. I can’t tell if the Wachowski brothers actually have a philosophical worldview or are just making it all up as they go along, but whatever; the philosophy, or the simulacrum of philosophy, made my brain happy. If artists have something intellectual or philosophical to say, I’m usually willing to let them mentally masturbate and spew all over my chest. It’s kind of like how Infinite Jest was a big fucking mess of a book but was still amazingly entertaining and beautiful.

A couple of things in the movie confused me. Um, okay. So, this is the sixth version of the Matrix? And Zion has been destroyed five times before? But Zion isn’t part of the Matrix. Zion is real. So, was the Architect saying that the Matrix itself is within a Matrix? I’m lost. And then I zoned out during the last few lines of dialogue, because I didn’t realize it was the end of the movie, so I barely caught what was said. And by that point I’d forgotten what the three different missions were.

Why do movies always seem so much longer than they actually are? When I looked at my watch at the end, it was half an hour earlier than I’d thought. The movie felt like two and a half hours. Do movies seem longer because they don’t have commercials? Or are movies just too long? Or do I just have a short attention span?

Oh, look, bunnies!

12:20 PM | 3 drops of oil

I forgot to write about the party.

I was going to wear a white short-sleeve ringer tee. But at the last minute I decided to wear a navy blue short-sleeve cotton button-down shirt, untucked, over a pair of jeans.

It was really fine, and, in fact, since it was a straight bar, nobody noticed anyway.

I have discovered that the Typical Straight Male Bar Outfit these days is a white Oxford shirt with vertical stripes, untucked, over a pair of jeans. My brother and his two roommates all wore this.

I had three drinks. First I ordered a Corona and was told that there was no Corona. What? What kind of a bar — oh. I was handed a list of beers, and they were all imported and unfamiliar. I ordered a Mexican beer called a Bohemian. It was served to me in a glass.

If a gay bar ever had no Coronas, there would be rioting. Tasteful rioting. And much air-snapping and neck-tilting.

My second drink was an Absolut Mandarin with cranberry juice, which has become my new favorite cocktail. It cost eight dollars.

My third drink was also an Absolut Mandarin with cranberry juice. This time it cost nine dollars.

I don’t get straight people, with their straight outfits and their straight beers and their straight economics.

4:55 PM | 1 drop of oil

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

I don’t usually do this, but here’s a plug for a friend.

If any women in the New York area are interested:

For the Sake of Argument:

Effective Reasoning and Arguing for Women

Tuesday, July 8, 6:30 - 9:30pm

www.destiny-lab.com/workshop
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2:35 PM | Comments Off

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

The New York Times printed my letter today!

More later.

10:02 AM | 7 drops of oil

So, I’m psyched that my letter was printed. I wrote the letter on Friday, and I got an e-mail that night saying that it was being considered for publication in the next few days. I’d been checking the paper every morning since then, and I was so excited when I finally saw it today. It’s always been a goal of mine to get a letter printed in the Times. Now I’ve been immortalized on microfilm, and I’ve been further enGoogled.

(Incidentally, the reason I’ve censored my last name from the comments section is because I don’t want my URL to come up when someone Googles my name. And, yup, that’s really my last name…)

I was nervous about what my parents might think, because they weren’t happy when I came out to them for good a few years ago, and I know they’d still prefer I were straight. Shortly after I got to work this morning, each of them called me within a few minutes of each other.

They usually look at the letters page, but they’d missed it this morning; nevertheless, my aunt had seen the letter, and she’d called my dad. When my dad called, he congratulated me and told me it was a great letter. This made me very happy. When my mom called, the first thing she said when I answered the phone was, “I’m so proud of you. I’m SO proud of you. I’m kvelling.” (Hooray for Yiddish!) Apparently she’d found a copy of the paper and had read the letter out loud to some of her co-workers. And she told me to “forge on.” I got a nice e-mail from my aunt, too. I was also congratulated by one of my gay co-workers, who had torn out the letter and put it in his pocket, and by my boss.

The cool thing about the New York Times is that so many people read it. I’m wondering if any long-lost classmates or childhood teachers saw my letter today and said, “A-hah!” Not that I literally out myself in the letter, but… come on.

Anyway, on to my next goal, whatever that is.

5:01 PM | 2 drops of oil

Thursday, June 12, 2003

Either next Monday or the following Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will issue its opinion in the gay sodomy case, Lawrence v. Texas. It will probably be the second Monday, June 23, because that’s the last day of the term, which is when the justices usually like to issue their most controversial opinions, because it means they can avoid all the backlash by jumping into their cars and screeching out of the Supreme Court parking lot and heading off to France. Or this year, maybe Britain.

June is when all the Supreme Court watchers salivate.

In anticipation of the Texas decision, I’ve been reading up on the case. This page links to all the briefs and lower court decisions in the case; other good sites are here and here.

I noticed that the Supreme Court brief supporting the gay plaintiffs, Lawrence and Garner, cites a particular Virginia case.

The case is called Bottoms v. Bottoms.

I don’t think they quite get the concept of sodomy.

The middle schooler in me is laughing hysterically.

12:57 PM | 3 drops of oil

It’s Gay Legal Day here at The Tin Man.

I’ve come across a New Jersey Supreme Court case from 1967 that basically legalized gay bars in the state. Technically, the court said that the state could not suspend a bar’s liquor license merely because “apparent homosexuals were permitted to congregate” there. (The case is One Eleven Wines & Liquors, Inc. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 235 A.2d 12, for all you legal types.)

I’ve always loved the phrase “apparent homosexuals.”

What’s most entertaining, though, is the opinion of the concurring justice (there were no dissents). Here it is, in its entirety:

“PROCTOR, J. (concurring).

“Since the charges against the three taverns did not specify any particular offensive acts by the patrons, I concur with the majority opinion. However, I wish to emphasize that, although well-behaved homosexuals cannot be forbidden to patronize taverns, they may not engage in any conduct which would be offensive to public decency. In the record before us it appears that there was evidence of conduct (men kissing each other on the lips, etc.) which would form the basis for disciplinary action at least against One Eleven and Murphy’s had they properly been charged. A tavern should not provide an arena for the behavior disclosed by this record. I appreciate that the majority opinion does not say that such conduct will be tolerated, but nonetheless I am expressing my positive view that it should not be.”

Well-behaved homosexuals. Tee-hee.

4:50 PM | 1 drop of oil

I had just sat down to dinner this evening when the phone rang.

I looked at the caller ID. I didn’t recognize the number, but it was from the 202 area code. I figured it was a telemarketer who wanted me to consolidate my student loans with his company.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hello, I’m looking for Jeff ——-?” he said.

“That’s me,” I said.

Telemarketers usually ask for Jeffrey.

“Is this the Jeff ——- who wrote the letter in the New York Times yesterday?”

This could be interesting.

“Yes, it is.”

“I’m calling from Ralph Nader’s office. Mr. Nader saw your letter, and he’d like to send you a book.”

Huh?

“Really? Um… wow.”

Then he recited my address and I confirmed it.

“Um, do you know what kind of book he wants to send me?”

“I don’t know, actually, but I assume it has something to do with gay rights.”

“Okay. So… Ralph Nader himself actually read my letter?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, I’d love to receive a book from him!”

“Great.”

“Wow. Well, please tell him ‘thank you,’ if you happen to speak to him.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

The call ended. And I just stood there, kind of… stunned.

And then I wondered if it was really some right-wing organization that wanted to confirm my address in order to send me a letter bomb.

So I went online and typed the caller ID number into a reverse telephone number lookup engine. Three different organizations came up — all of them organizations formed by Ralph Nader.

I figure there are several possibilities:

1) Ralph Nader read my letter and was genuinely moved by it.

2) Ralph Nader is running for president again in 2004 and wants to shore up the gay vote, homo by homo.

3) 1 and 2.

Life gets stranger and stranger.

10:11 PM | 7 drops of oil

Monday, June 16, 2003

If you haven’t been able to tell, I’ve lately been engrossed by the intersection of gay rights and the law. (Perhaps there’s a niche for me there?) It doesn’t help that it’s Supreme Court Drama season. I’m currently reading Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court, which traces how the high court has dealt with gays and lesbians since it took up its first gay-related case in the 1950s.

Stemming from all of this, I present some law links, not necessarily gay-related:

How Appealing is a blog that obsessively tracks appellate litigation. I can’t believe I never thought to look for something like this until now. Pretty comprehensive.

SCOTUSblog is a Supreme Court blog run by a law firm that does lots of litigation before the Supreme Court.

Lesbian/Gay Law Notes is a monthly publication that apparently tracks and summarizes any and all gay-related litigation or law review publication out there. Wow.

Finally, for no apparent reason, Queer Vampires. Not law-related — yet.

4:29 PM | 1 drop of oil

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Thursday, June 19, 2003

There are three possible outcomes to the Texas gay sodomy case. Which outcome would be the best for gays?

Obviously, the worst result for gays would be if the Supreme Court upheld the Texas Homosexual Conduct law, affirming the status quo. States would continue to be free to outlaw gay sodomy and discriminate against gays. We’d gain nothing. The power of Romer v. Evans (which struck down an anti-gay state amendment in 1996 on the basis that “animus” was not a good enough reason to discriminate against gays) would be weakened, or at least greatly circumscribed.

But what if the Supreme Court strikes down the law, which is very possible? It can do so on one of two bases. Which basis would be the best for us?

One, the Court could strike down the law on the basis of privacy. This would strike down the anti-sodomy laws in all of the 13 states that still outlaw sodomy for everyone. (Note that “sodomy” means not just anal sex but also oral sex.)

Two, the Court could strike down the law on the basis of equal protection. This would strike down the anti-sodomy laws in the four states that ban only homosexual sodomy (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri), but it would leave in place the laws in the nine remaining states that outlaw all sodomy.

Which would be better for gays: the privacy basis or the equal protection basis?

If the Court used the privacy argument, it would mean, simply put, that the government would have to stay out of our bedrooms from now on. Adult consensual sex would now be off-limits to governmental regulation. Since there would be no more sodomy laws, there would no longer be an excuse to brand gays as criminals. This would be wonderful.

If the Court used the equal protection argument, nine states’ sodomy laws would be left standing. In those nine states, gays could still be branded as criminals. This would not seem to be as good as the privacy argument.

But maybe the equal protection argument would be the best for gays? Maybe it would be one more precedent to show that governmental entities can’t discriminate against gays? After all, striking down the law on the basis of privacy would sidestep this question, but the equal protection basis would confront it directly, right?

Not necessarily. It’s not likely that the equal protection argument would further bolster the argument that gays should be a protected class under the Constitution. Currently, women and blacks are considered “protected classes” under constitutional equal protection theory; because women and blacks have a history of being oppressed, a governmental entity must have a pretty damn good reason for discriminating on the basis of race or sex, and such laws are subject to “strict scrutiny” or “heightened scrutiny” by the courts. The Supreme Court has never stated that gays are a protected class; this means that if a governmental entity wants to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, it need only come up with some rational-sounding basis for the law. It doesn’t have to be a particularly good reason; it just has to have some semblance of logic to it. (In comparison to “strict scrutiny” and “heightened scrutiny,” this is known as the “rational basis” test.)

In their brief to the Supreme Court, Lawrence and Garner’s lawyers (who want to get rid of the sodomy laws) haven’t gone so far as to argue that gays should be a protected class under the Constitution or that laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation should be subject to higher scrutiny. Rather, they have argued that even under the more lenient “rational basis” standard, Texas’s Homosexual Conduct law does not pass muster. Texas has said that the purpose of the law is to uphold standards of morality, to express the moral views of the people of Texas, et cetera. Lawrence and Garner’s lawyers have argued that this is just not a legitimate state interest.

This is the argument that worked in Romer, which was decided 6-3, and the exact same nine justices sit on the Court now, so it has a good chance of working in the Texas case. Presumably, if the Court uses the equal protection argument to strike down the law, this will be the basis on which it does it.

Of course, it’s always possible the Court could go out on a limb and use the equal protection argument in this case to enshrine gays as a protected class, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The best result for gays would probably be if the Supreme Court struck down the law on the privacy basis. Another terrific result would be if the Court struck down the law on the equal protection basis and stated for the first time that gays are a protected class.

Which means that the Court probably won’t use either argument. The Court likes to avoid controversy.

If I had to guess, I’d say that the Court will play it safe and will strike down only the four sodomy laws that discriminate against gays, using merely the “rational basis” version of the equal protection argument — letting other nine states’ sodomy laws stand and still leaving gays as an unprotected class. It’s not the result I’d most prefer, but it’s my guess.

But stranger things have happened, so you never know.
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1:39 AM | Comments Off

Here’s another primer on Lawrence v. Texas. (I’m not going to shut up about this until the case is decided, and probably not for a while after that.)

:-)

(Note that it’s supposed to be decided this month, not next month, as that piece misstates.)

10:31 AM | 1 drop of oil

My brain has gone to summer camp. I don’t mean that it’s turned to mush; I mean that it’s become one big playground lately. Kindergarten. My brain wants to play. I get like this sometimes. Suddenly, so much out there seems interesting. Web surfing can be dangerous for people with brains like mine.

So:

Here’s a sardonic and entertaining 1952 New Yorker essay written by Dwight MacDonald, ridiculing Mortimer Adler’s grand project, the Great Books of the Western World. It’s one of those witty, curmudgeonly, midcentury pieces that you’d expect to see in The New Yorker.

Here is another list of Great Books.

Here are lots of lists of Great Books.

And some more.

Here you can access many of the Great Books.

Here is St. John’s College, whose entire four-year curriculum consists of the Great Books.

Here is The Center for the Study of Great Ideas, founded by Mortimer Adler.

Here are The Mortimer J. Adler Archives, including what you need in order to live a good life.

Here are some of Adler’s Syntopicon essays; the Syntopicon is essentially the index to all the Great Ideas contained in “The Great Books of the Western World,” the whole thing that Dwight MacDonald made fun of (see above).

And here is A Syntopicon of Donald, which apparently was begun just this week. What a bizarre coincidence.

OK, my brain can go to lunch now.

12:40 PM | 1 drop of oil

Monday, June 23, 2003

The Supreme Court will announce its decision in the gay sodomy case on Thursday morning.

Will we get reamed by the Supremes, or not? Stay tuned.

(Sorry, I’d been waiting a long time to use that one and I just couldn’t wait any longer.)

11:21 AM | 3 drops of oil

There is nothing in American politics quite like the announcement of a Supreme Court opinion. The justices give no hints as to what opinions they will choose to announce on any given decision day; nor, other than in oral arguments, do they give any hint as to how they will decide a particular case. Other political events have warnings: we know what day Congress will vote on a particular bill, and the only mystery in such an event is the number of votes on a yes-or-no question; members of Congress do not write treatises on why they voted a particular way on a particular bill. Even summaries of State of the Union addresses are provided in advance.

Supreme Court opinions descend upon us from out of the blue. Nobody, not even a veteran Supreme Court reporter, knows what an opinion will say. Furthermore, the Internet has put virtually everyone on an equal playing field; those who are in the courtroom when the justices announce their decisions have a slight head start, as there is still no live TV or radio coverage of the announcements, but no longer do we have to rely on reporters and analysts to interpret the decisions for us, for they are posted on the Web mere minutes after they are announced; a written opinion will appear here, for instance, while other opinions are still being read from the bench. At 9:59 in the morning, an opinion is still a mystery, but by 10:10, it can be read and analyzed and parsed all over the world. All of us can download the opinions (and the dissents and concurrences, too), in either HTML or, more spectacularly, in PDF, and read the words for ourselves. I’m still blown away by the fact that on the morning of June 23, 2003, I can hold in my hands a Supreme Court opinion dated June 23, 2003. Linda Greenhouse doesn’t get to read it any sooner than the rest of us do.

I still hold a childlike sense of wonder that such things are possible today.
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3:57 PM | Comments Off

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

I’ve just read an article that referred to the word homophobia, in passing, as “a contrived word that makes no etymological sense.”

And I’ve realized it’s true.

Doesn’t homophobia, literally, mean “fear of things that are the same” or “fear of being the same”?

And, likewise, wouldn’t the subconscious fears of difference that some people ascribe to those who espouse anti-gay opinions be better characterized as heterophobia? Logically, shouldn’t a heterophobe be someone who has a fear of difference?

Words are fun.

11:37 AM | 6 drops of oil

In approximately 11 hours, we will know the Supreme Court’s decision in the sodomy case. I’m on tenterhooks here. (I used to think the word was tenderhooks, but it’s not.) I’m interested in more than just the result; I’m really looking forward to reading the opinions, no matter how it turns out.

Unfortunately, I have a meeting out of the office at 11:00 tomorrow morning, which means I’ll have to leave my office by about 10:40, which means that although I’ll probably have time to learn the result and quickly post something online (or maybe not), I won’t get a chance to really read the opinions until later in the day. I hope the PDF files are downloadable somewhere by 10:30, so I can print them out and take them with me!

If I were forced to guess, I’d say that the Court is going to strike down the law using the “rational basis” equal protection argument… but I really have no idea what’s going to happen.

And I hope to God nobody retires.

11:21 PM | 1 drop of oil

Thursday, June 26, 2003

The Supreme Court has struck down the Texas sodomy law!

More later!

(The opinion will be posted here.)
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10:12 AM | Comments Off

So they struck it down on privacy grounds, not equal protection… I was wrong. But wow. I haven’t seen the opinions yet but I think this means that ALL sodomy laws are now unconstitutional.

Which means the Court hasn’t bolstered equal protection for gays, but it does mean that gays can no longer be branded as criminals merely for having sex!

Yay!
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10:26 AM | Comments Off

Kennedy wrote the opinion, and it was 6-3! O’Connor concurring, apparently. Wow…
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10:29 AM | Comments Off

Lambda calls the Lawrence decision “the most significant ruling ever for lesbian and gay Americans’ civil rights.”

(Check out Lambda’s cool splash page today.)

“Today, the Supreme Court corrected one of its gravest mistakes. This ruling removes the terrible shadow cast over the gay community by the Supreme Court’s destructive and misguided decision 17 years ago.”

Bowers v. Hardwick is in the dustbin of history.
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2:33 PM | Comments Off

I have to say, out of all four opinions, I was most surprised by Thomas’s dissent:

“I write separately to note that the law before the Court today ‘is � uncommonly silly.’ Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 527 (1965) (Stewart, J., dissenting). [Griswold struck down a law that criminalized the use of contraceptive devices.] If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources.”

Nevertheless, Thomas still thinks the law is constitutional, because the Constitution doesn’t explicitly guarantee privacy. I can sort of respect that. At least he’s not as dickish as Scalia is in his dissent.

Friday, June 27, 2003

Tonight (Thursday night) I went to the rally on Christopher Street, in Sheridan Square. I got there somewhat late, and I had to stand somewhere behind the dais, so I only saw the backs of the speakers’ heads. The Stonewall Inn was to my right, where — 34 years ago, almost to the day — the modern gay-rights movement was born. It felt so appropriate.

The final speaker was Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda. He was in the courtroom this morning when the opinion was announced. At the rally, he read from Justice Kennedy’s opinion:

“Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be, and now is, overruled.”

The crowd exploded in cheers. I had tears in my eyes.

At the end, as everyone began to disperse, I heard someone yell, “Now everyone go home and fuck!”

What a day.

The gay community has never had trouble finding easy targets to ridicule. How strange to have people to praise today. It feels strange to have won something — something so big, and yet so basic. It feels strange, but it also feels normal, like a weight has been lifted. It feels so un-archaic, finally. There are more struggles ahead, more natural positive rights we need to claim for ourselves; but today, a big negative was erased. It’s a clean slate. We don’t have to participate in the political system with one hand tied behind our backs anymore. This was huge, and it makes so much more possible now.

What a day.
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12:26 AM | Comments Off

The Washington Post’s front-page article about the sodomy decision. Also from the Post: A Debate on Marriage, and More, Now Looms.

And, “Breakthrough”: Friday’s lead editorial.
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12:33 AM | Comments Off

New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse’s article about the sodomy decision. Also from the Times: Gays Celebrate, and Plan for Broader Rights.

And the fact that this happened on the same day is just too weird to be true. I guess he just couldn’t take the news.
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12:49 AM | Comments Off

From Law.com: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Banning Gay Sex.
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1:08 AM | Comments Off

For my fellow law-geeks out there: an essay stating that the Court’s equal protection jurisprudence has become a shambles. It was written before the sodomy decision was announced, but it’s still relevant to O’Connor’s concurrence. (Can you say “O’Connor’s concurrence” five times fast?)
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1:16 AM | Comments Off

scan (86k image)

washingtonpostsodomy (61k image)
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3:00 AM | Comments Off

Get Busy. Get Equal.
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12:53 PM | Comments Off

Yesterday’s decision has already had a concrete effect:

“In one of the first consequences of its landmark ruling on gay rights on Thursday, the Supreme Court today set aside the lengthy prison sentence imposed on a gay Kansas teenager for having had sex with a younger boy.”

If the man had had sex with a 14-year-old girl, he would have gotten probation, but because it was a 14-year-old boy, the guy was sentenced to 17 years in a correctional facility. The Supreme Court today basically said “I don’t think so,” and sent the case back down today “for further reconsideration in light of Lawrence v. Texas.”

Awesome.

3:20 PM | 1 drop of oil

Oral arguments were heard today in New Jersey’s gay marriage case, on the State of New Jersey’s motion to dismiss. (The State opposes court-ordered gay marriage.) You can read the various legal briefs in the New Jersey case (note that the website is for a group that opposes gay marriage).

A ruling on the motion to dismiss will be issued in approximately two months.
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10:07 PM | Comments Off

Saturday, June 28, 2003

I’m going to put together a list of interesting (or entertaining) quotes on Lawrence v. Texas. Here are a few, for starters.

”There is a strength and passion to the decision… it doesn’t just overturn Bowers, it trashes it.”

- David Garrow, Emory University law professor, praising the ruling

“Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the three [dissenters], called the ruling ‘the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change.’ It is the same argument made in 1967 for upholding a Virginia law banning marriage between blacks and whites. The idea that minorities must wait for the majority to recognize their basic rights is as wrong today as it was then.”

- Friday’s lead editorial in the New York Times

And here is one of my favorites:

“The court is forcing San Francisco values on the whole country.”

- Peter LaBarbera, senior policy analyst for the Culture and Family Institute (from the Boston Globe)

More as I find them.
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1:14 PM | Comments Off

More on Limon v. Kansas, which the Court remanded yesterday for reconsideration in light of Lawrence v. Texas (see this post).

7:08 PM | 1 drop of oil

One sentence in O’Connor’s concurrence in Lawrence is particularly interesting:

“As the Court notes… petitioners’ convictions, if upheld, would disqualify them from or restrict their ability to engage in a variety of professions, including medicine, athletic training, and interior design. See, e.g., Tex. Occ. Code Ann. �164.051(a)(2)(B) (2003 Pamphlet) (physician); �451.251 (a)(1) (athletic trainer); �1053.252(2) (interior designer).”

Do you see that? Before Thursday’s decision, gay people in Texas were technically not allowed to be interior designers.

If for no other reason than this, Lawrence was an excellent decision.

8:22 PM | 2 drops of oil

Sunday, June 29, 2003

“First of all, this decision isn’t anywhere nearly as dirty as the Starr Report. If the Supreme Court is going to legalize civilian sodomy across the nation, and maybe pave the way for military sodomy as well, the least it could do is enumerate in painstaking detail all the acts that are now permitted.”

(more here)
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10:27 AM | Comments Off

Monday, June 30, 2003

Congratulations to Nick of Zionide! Awesome news. And his writing is sublime, as always.

11:54 AM | 1 drop of oil

Oh, dear.
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12:33 PM | Comments Off