It’s great that Graeme Obree finally found the courage to come out, but it’s so sad that it took him so many years of pain and agony to do so. Unfortunately, his story is far from unique. Many gay sportsmen never come out.
That’s how the Chief Executive of the French national rail network describes a planned memorial for the tens of thousands of European Jews who were deported from Paris during the Second World War.
It offers “an experience of Jewish Wisdom through Iyengar yoga instruction together with the study of traditional and mystical Jewish texts”.
Now the opponents to multiculturalism have something new to be upset about.
Al Jazeera reports:
More than a million protesters have flooded into central Cairo, turning Tahrir Square in the Egyptian capital, into a sea of humanity in a massive show of protest against Hosni Mubarak, the country’s president for three decades.
Packed shoulder to shoulder in and around the famed Tahrir Square, the mass of people on Tuesday held aloft posters denouncing the president, and chanted slogans “Go Mubarak Go” and “Leave! Leave! Leave!”
Meanwhile, rumours published in Swedish media have it that Mubarak’s son and wife have sought refuge in a posh house in central London.
The only sensible approach at this stage. I think more and more people realise that it’s only a matter of hours before the Mubarak regime is gone.
Former President George W. Bush’s daughter Barbara has announced her support for gay marriage.
And he’s not even real. Ridiculous.
Dollyy and Daisy were a lot more interesting than Pompeii anyway.
But it’s not the Israelis who say they can’t.
Fascism has shown its ugly face in Cairo.
In Vanity Fair’s list of the biggest earners in Hollywood, Nicolas Cage is said to have made 23.5 million dollars in 2010. Can’t be right. He’s the worst actor ever.
All those who like to blame Israel for everything bad in the Middle East ought to take notice. Personally, I think Israel has everything to win from more democratic neighbours. Dictatorship is always bad.
The Economist has the figures in a chart.
A truly stupid suggestion. But considering its history, I would not be surprised if the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave WikiLeaks the prize. Personally, I would like to see one of the international gay-rights organisations win the prize. Why not Uganda’s SMUG?
In Gay City News, Doug Ireland writes about the horrors of state-sponsored homophobia.
I can understand why this bothers the Polish government. The Auschwitz website should have a German top domain.
The Jewish Week reports on how Egypt’s desperate regime uses anti-Semitism in its fight for power.
They want liberalism.
The best thing about being Jewish is the excuse for not doing anything for twenty-five hours a week. Now I turn off my phone and computer, and then rest until daylight fades tomorrow evening. (I might not be able to stay away from blogging if things get really dramatic in Egypt, though.)
Where will the Israelis now go for meatballs with lingonberry jam?
I’m not much for a holiday at sea, but I think I would have enjoyed this one.
Pastor Daniel Nalliah says Australia is punished by bad weather because its prime minister is an atheist and the leader of the Green Party is openly gay. Personally, I think God is only trying to get rid of people like Daniel Nalliah.
David Boaz on Ronald Reagan:
Reagan had his faults. But he was an eloquent spokesman for a traditional American philosophy of individualism, self-reliance, and free enterprise at home and abroad, and words matter. They change the climate of opinion, and they inspire people trapped in illiberal societies. And these days, when people claiming the Reagan mantle push for wars or military involvement in Iraq, Iran, Georgia, and other danger spots, we remember that Reagan challenged the Soviet Union mostly in the realm of ideas; he used military force only sparingly. George W. Bush, whom some call “Reagan’s true political heir,” increased federal spending by more than a trillion dollars even before the financial crisis. We watch the antigay crusading of today’s conservative Republicans and remember that Reagan publicly opposed the early antigay Briggs Initiative of 1978 (featured in the movie Milk)
In a speech earlier today, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that to belong in Britain, Muslims must believe in such values as equality between sexes, democracy, and integration. He calls for the government to adopt a “muscular liberalism”, but I’m not sure conditioned freedom is freedom at all. A truly free individual must have the right not to accept equality and democracy as sound values. What is important is that he accepts that he has no right to force his ideas upon others. The same thing goes for governments, regardless of ideological muscularity.
Leon Wieseltier’s article is well worth reading.
There’s some wisdom in this funny clip from The Simpsons.
What’s that saying again? When shit hits the fan.
No European dish on telly, says the deputy head of Iran’s state broadcasting company. A new role model for Western opponents to multiculturalism?
I particularly like this comment from Eric Goodyer:
I am a third-generation English Jew, with British citizenship, and a culture that is highly influenced by my eastern Europe ancestry. Is there a place for me in Cameron’s bland monocultural Britain?
My own comment here.
I liked the very warm, emotional—yet masculinist—lyrics of The Streets. But I’m not too sad as the farewell album is said to be the best ever.
My favourite Streets song, Dry Your Eyes:
NASA now has 3D pictures of the sun. And I have learned something new today:
The Moon spins once for every time it goes around the Earth, so it appears like the same face is always toward us. But the Sun rotates once about every 24.5 days. During that time, the Earth has moved 1/15th of the way around its orbit, so the Sun has to spin a little more to “catch up” with the Earth—another 1.7 days. So over the course of about a month we see the entire surface of the Sun.
Cool.
Arianna Huffington seems pleased with the deal. If AOL were interested, I would consider selling Aqurette.com for a significantly lower bid.
“Stay in Jerusalem,” writes a 23-year-old secular American who made aliyah to the Jewish capital:
The capital of Israel cannot lose its representative nature. It should embody a spectrum of beliefs and opinions. I am apprehensive about the day when the Israeli government sits in a city that mainly represents one non-pluralistic segment of society. The young and secular populations are a vital part of keeping the city representative, domestically and internationally.
I had a daydream the other day about moving to Jerusalem. Now that there’s a mission to it, I’m tempted.
The Israeli police want to arrest a rabbi who expressed support of a book endorsing the killing of non-Jews. I don’t like state interference and believe the rabbi has a right to say what he wants, but I also find this book and the rabbis who support its racism very disturbing.
The Cato Institute tweets that blogging freedom activist Kareem Amer is missing in Egypt. More here.
“University theologians in Germany have called on the Catholic Church to abandon the vow of celibacy for priests, open up the clergy for women and accept gays couples,” 365 Gay reports.
It’s a welcome move.
Cynthia Nixon and her partner Christine Marinoni are the parents of a baby boy. Congratulations. I hate to make politics of this, but gay people having children is great in the battle against homophobia.
There is reform in orthodoxy, too.
A two-millennia old community is coming to an end:
Miraz, now 68 and living in Israel, is one of the many Jews watching the current crisis in Egypt with a sense of déjà vu. Before the creation of Israel in 1948, the Jewish community in Egypt boasted 80,000 members. In three waves of immigration—after the 1948 war, after the Suez Crisis in 1956, and after the Six-Day War in 1967—the community has dwindled to its current population of fewer than 40.
Fragments of Jewish manuscripts in the Cairo Geniza, a depository for religious books found in the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo, date Egypt’s Jewish community back at least 2000 years. In the 12th century, Maimonides and his family fled Spain and settled in Egypt. Centuries later, Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition found a haven along the Nile. In the late 19th century, the opening of the Suez Canal provided Jews with irresistible economic opportunity as they flocked to Cairo and Alexandria from Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
Sad. When I think of the Jews in Egypt, I think not only of the story in Exodus but also of Philo, perhaps the most important Jewish philosopher.
The Conservative Political Action Conference did not suffer from the boycott by some of America’s homophobic lobbyists.
In Wall Street Journal, Glenn Reynolds had an article about blood libel in American politics, which made Allan J. Lichtman at the Britannica blog write an interesting piece about the history of blood libel.
Hardly surprising. The advocates of monoculturalism are uniting. The pluralism of modern society does not become those who think they are superior by race and reason.
In an interview on Greek television, Mikis Theodorakis says, “Jews are at the root of all evil.”
The stubborn and grumpy 82-year-old dictator must leave his office before Egypt is thrown into a bloodbath.
Update: And finally he went. The dictator is gone.
The guy who thinks Obama wants to go North Korea is really too much. And the Christian nutjob who talks about Sodom and Gomorrah—my God! Has he ever read the Bible?
It seems the violent homophobia in Uganda has inspired some religious leader to fight back and begin to advocate gay rights and religious acceptance of gay people.
Worrying news from Israel:
Thomas Dohlan, who converted to Judaism in an Orthodox Canadian beit din, never anticipated that Israel’s Ministry of the Interior might question his Jewishness and block his bid to make aliyah.
But that’s exactly what’s happening, thanks to what appears to be a new policy that gives Israel’s Orthodox Chief Rabbinate, and not the Interior Ministry, the ultimate authority to decide which Orthodox converts are kosher enough for immigration purposes.
The new policy is another sign of the Rabbinate’s strengthening power over diaspora Jewish affairs, according to Rabbi Seth Farber, the director of ITIM, an organisation that helps people deal with citizenship and religious issues in Israel.
“We’d heard that the Interior Ministry has been handing over some converts’ paperwork to the Rabbinate on an ad-hoc basis, but until last week this wasn’t a written policy,” Rabbi Farber told The Jewish Week. “Now we have proof.”
Considering how many Jewish families that consist of one or more converts, this could split the Jewish people and destroy international support for Israel.
The homophobic lobby in California has gone berserk over a bill introduced by State Senator Mark Leno. The bill, known as SB 48, mentions gay people:
Existing law requires instruction in social sciences to include a study of the role and contributions of both men and women to the development of California and the United States.
This bill would require instruction in social sciences to also include a study of the role and contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, and other ethnic and cultural groups, to the development of California and the United States.
This is more than the organised homophobes can tolerate. “The Democrat state legislators pushing this radical bill want to recruit boys and girls to support the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda, personally and publicly,” sobs the Campaign for Children and Families, a homophobic lobby group, in a statement. “They [the gay-friendly senators in Sacramento] want them to become ‘LGBTIQ’ activists [and] help trample religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, business-owner rights, private property rights, the Boy Scouts, and everything else you hold dear.”
Oh dear! All this anger and alarmism because a senate bill suggests gay people have contributed to the development of California and the United States.
I’m so very impressed by this man’s courage and anger. He truly was Africa’s Harvey Milk.
In a televised interview, Nicolas Sarkozy said he doesn’t want a society where communities coexist side by side. I hate this attitude. In a free society, individuals have the right to create peaceful communities and reject the majority’s way of life.
Michelle Obama wears a $32-dress from Swedish H&M. She looks fab.
Ann Coulter in a speech at the CPAC:
“The left keeps using one group after another to destroy the family. That is their goal, to destroy the family. Liberals want the family destroyed. Then you have loyalty directly to the state.”
I don’t think liberals (the political left in American terminology) want to destroy the family altogether, but it is true in most of western Europe that the welfare system has forced people to be directly loyal to the state. The government has replaced the family. When people go through a life crisis—especially a financial one—it is the government they turn to for support, not their friends and family. Leftist liberals think this is individualism, but it’s the exact opposite.
When in my early teens, I loved Boy George. From my small-town perspective, a world where a man had to prove himself a man by acting out bigoted masculinity, I considered Boy George a brave man. Now this hero of the 1980s’ gay scene is approaching his sixth decade. Congratulations, Boy!
“Iran is somehow producing uranium enriched to 3.5 per cent and 20 per cent. They are producing it steadily, constantly,” Yukia Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says to the Washington Post.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has promised to wipe out Israel.
“You shouldn’t trust any government—including this one,” Britain’s deputy prime minister said in an interview published by the Observer yesterday. Clegg is right. Don’t ever trust any government.
“It is an alternative that we can discuss. I am not opposed to any formula that is effective,” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said in an interview.
It’s a welcome attitude considering the violent and lethal war on drugs in Latin America. Since December 2006, more than 34,600 people dead in drug-related violence in Mexico alone.
A student in Israel sent me this email asking for help:
I represent a small group of students who have been trying for the past year to lay the groundwork to create a homeless shelter in Jerusalem—the only one actually. Progress has been painstakingly slow, as we worked to create a detailed and viable plan of action.
Nevertheless, three weeks ago, we entered the Dell Social Innovation Competition, a contest run in joint by Dell and University of Austin, where students can win $50000 for their non-profit ideas. Luckily, despite our recent arrival to the scene, we have managed to garner more than 1300 votes and earn 4rd place out of over 800 entries. If we finish in the top ten by February 18th, we automatically proceed to the second round; if we place first, we get an additional $1000, a vital resource if we wish to win the $50000 grand prize.
However, if we wish to maintain our rank (let alone win the competition), and even more so to enact our dreams and build our homeless shelter, we need a lot more help.
Due to the nature of your readership, I was suggested by several people to contact you. I know this is an unorthodox request, but I was wondering if there was a way for you to contact your readers and ask them to vote for us. Information about the contest, and a link to where people can vote is located at http://matzav.org.il/dellsocialinnovationcompetition.
I understand the hesitations you may have; after all you don’t know me or the plan I represent. Still, our cause is just, and with your help we can really do immeasurable good for Jerusalem. I hope that before you dismiss this, you read about our organisation (our website: http://matzav.org.il/about, Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=207182, assorted blogs: http://rutimizrachi.blogspot.com/2011/02/while-all-earths-foundations-shake, http://muqata.blogspot.com/2011/02/one-click-could-seriously-help.html, http://www.kvetchingeditor.com/2011/02/to-build-homeless-shelter-in-jerusalem.html) and contact me with questions and comments at [removed email address].
Christopher, I really hope you consider this, and contact me if you require further clarification. With only five days left to the end of the competition, and a 500 vote gap between us and first place, we need all the help we can get. Only with your support can we affect social change, eradicate homelessness and alleviate poverty, and create a better Jerusalem.
Help them help the homeless in Jerusalem.
How can you not love her.
Same-sex couple shouldn’t be allowed to marry in Britain because they cannot reproduce. Biology demands state-sponsored apartheid, apparently. Problem for homophobes like Michael White is that we can reproduce and biology has no opinions on politics. Not surprisingly, the extreme rightist Melanie Phillips goes one step further and compare gay people to paedophiles and loving same-sex relationships to bestiality.
He was there for the girls, we are told.
David Boaz has written a short history. Notice how the arguments now used to legitimise discrimination of gay people were once used to legitimise discrimination of black people.
Stickers and posters have been distributed in several districts in the British capital. What a great way for the Islamists to promote both homophobia and Islamophobia.
The police say it’s because Pride will cause too much traffic disruption, but we all know that this is yet another victory for Hungary’s neo-fascists.
A demonstration of love in the Chinese capital.
The Christian Right has one thing in common with the militant-atheist movement: they both have decided that God is a mean anti-abortionist who hates women and gay people but loves paedophile priests and homophobic theology. Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, is only the latest to voice such bigoted ideas about progressive religion.
Who needs a bed when there’s a human-size egg available?
According to reports from international news agencies, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain is allowing the army and the police to kill the unarmed people protesting his dictatorship. Yet another leader with no legitimacy is trying to stay in power using ruthless violence against innocent people.
Michael J. Totten on the unexpected protests in Libya against long-time dictator Muammar Qaddafi:
I was almost certain we wouldn’t see much, if any, upheaval in Libya, and even wrote less than a week ago that only the very brave or the very stupid would dare stand up to Muammar Qaddafi’s totalitarian system. As Michael Rubin has pointed out, no country on earth aside from North Korea (and I’d add the possible exception of Turkmenistan) is more oppressive than the vast Libyan dungeon. Even Bashar al-Assad’s Arab Socialist Baath Party state is lax by comparison.
So it’s rather extraordinary that the Arab revolt has broken out in Qaddafi-land. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
I hope it happens to every dictator in the world.
Amnesty International says at least forty-three people were killed by the Qaddafi regime yesterday. Pig!
Update at 9:50:
The number of people killed in three days of protests in Libya has risen to 84, according to the New York-based group Human Rights Watch.
The main focus of the unrest against Col Muammar Gaddafi’s rule has been the second city, Benghazi, where 35 deaths were reported by one hospital alone.
State media have warned of retaliation against critics of the Libyan leader, in power for more than four decades.
(Photo by James Gordon.)
“They didn’t have to go anywhere really, because they weren’t being persecuted anymore but they were taking other people’s land,” the former White House correspondent Helen Thomas says in a recent interview. When questioned if she considers herself an anti-Semite, she replies that she herself is a Semite of Arab background, adding that Jews are not Semites since most of them are from Europe.
It ought to be obvious to anyone but Helen Thomas herself that she is an anti-Semite. She rewrites history and redefines common terminology to legitimise her contempt for Jews.
“Security forces in Libya use sniper fire and missiles against anti-government protesters,” BBC reports. This is the vary same Qaddafi who has an international human-rights award named after himself. May the tyrant fall!
BBC has a podcast and an article about the growing number of openly gay Muslim. I particularly like Imam Daayiee Abdullah when he says, “By not allowing same-sex couples to wed, there is a direct attack on the Koran’s message that each person has a mate who is their ‘comfort and their cloak.’” Yes, yes, yes! It’s about time progressive Muslims confront traditional sexist and homophobic interpretation of the Koran.
The African News Agency reports from the ongoing “urban war” in Libya:
A protester in Benghazi—Libya’s second city and the centre of unrest—over the telephone reports of an estimated 900 persons being killed or seriously wounded by live ammunition in that city only. “The wounded are in critical condition,” he adds. Hospitals are running out of blood.
Reports from Benghazi agree that the city is a war zone. The “revolutionary guards” have installed themselves in a fortress-like building in the city centre, shouting towards the areas of protests. Helicopters have been used to shoot at protesters, and there are reports of “cars with four people inside with guns, passing through the street and shooting people.”
Rather than leaving office with some dignity, Muammar Qaddafi is acting like a bloodthirsty lunatic. I truly hope the Libyan people manage to overturn the regime without too much suffering.
Lee Smith writes of the crisis in Libya:
Among other unconfirmed reports out of Libya right now, one is that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has left the country for exile in Venezuela. Another is that Qaddafi’s sons, Muatassem and Saif al-Islam, fought each other, with the former shooting the latter. It’s hard to know much right now, since media coverage out of Libya has gone virtually black.
The lack of information is frustrating when one feels that history is being made.
“OK” was introduced to the world on 23 March 1839. It appeared in the midst of a long paragraph on the second page of the Boston Morning Post.
“A pair of male spider monkeys at Drayton Park Zoo have been named Elton and David by their keepers,” Pink News reports. The monkeys are said to be inseparable and spend most of their time cuddling and kissing.
The situation in Libya is getting ever more absurd. It is impossible to keep up with everything that goes on, but the most horrendous news story this evening tells about military aeroplanes bombing unarmed protesters in the Libyan capital.
Diplomatic staff that worked for the Libyan regime only a few hours ago is defecting. The ambassador to the Arab League is one of them. In a statement reported by Arab News, he demands that Qaddafi “be put on trial along with his aides, security and military commanders over the mass killings in Libya.” He adds, “Qaddafi’s regime is now in the trash of history because he betrayed his nation and his people.”
“The Equality and Human Rights Commission is to investigate gay-only hotels for possible breaches of equality law,” Pink News writes. The British anti-discrimination body says:
“As discriminatory issues concerning ‘Christian’ bed and breakfast establishments and hotels have been officially brought to our attention, and as we are testing the law in this area, there is a need for the Commission to establish an ‘objective balance’.
“We are, therefore, looking in to the matter of ‘gay-only’ hotels’/B&B establishments and the potentially discriminatory policies towards heterosexual couples that some of those ‘gay-only’ establishments may hold.”
Well, just drill some glory holes in the toilets and the straight men will stay away—or not.
Seventy years after the Nazis destroyed Hamelin’s original synagogue, the city gets a new one.
These are the first Iranian military ships to enter the Mediterranean in thirty years. Israel rightfully considers this a provocation.
Ronald Bailey writes about a liberating outcome of gene technology and the rather scary scenario whereby humankind can alter its own biology:
Genetically engineered inequality is a bioethical phantom. The truth is that biotechnological interventions will eventually enable nearly everyone to enhance their bodies and their brains. The good news is that as researchers learn more about the good and bad effects of our genes, the more we will be liberated from whatever tyranny they do exercise.
Liberation from our own biology seems appealing to me.
Violent homophobia from other Polish football supporters makes the gay football fans ask for separate seats at the 2012 European Football Championship. Unfortunately, this absurdity has good reason.
From the New York Times:
President Obama, in a major legal policy shift, has directed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act—the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages—against lawsuits challenging it as unconstitutional.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday saying that the Justice Department will now take the position in court that the Defense of Marriage Act should be struck down as a violation of gay couples’ rights to equal protection under the law
Yes! This federal law is a violation of gay people’s rights to equality under the law.
The Libyan dictator gave the orders to carry out the Lockerbie bombing that claimed the lives of 270 people in the Scottish village in 1988.
A year ago, Malmö, Sweden’s third city, made headlines around the world following a number of anti-Semitic attacks and comments by prominent politicians. Now, the Swedish English-language news website The Local has an article on the situation today.
The article is fine, but I think the interviewees are not entirely honest when they blame the local congregation’s membership decline on anti-Semitism. There is another reason so many local Jews prefer not to get involved, and it has to do with the Orthodox profile of the congregation. I live in Malmö, and most Jews I know are either seculars who feel they can be Jewish without membership or liberal Jews who prefer Copenhagen’s Progressive congregation. Malmö’s local congregation knows this, which is why some members try to create a Masorti group within their organisation.
Jim Burroway has the reactions from some of America’s top homophobes.
British judge Howard Riddle has made his decision. About time. I’m sick and tired of Assange, and I’m repulsed by the disrespect and hostility shown toward the two women who claim he raped them. The Local has more here.
A website for Libyan youth fighting for freedom and democrcy.
BusinessWeek reports:
Senior Libyan officials are warning foreign journalists who have entered Libya without proper government accreditation to cover the violent unrest sweeping the country that they will be considered al-Qaida collaborators and subject to immediate arrest, the State Department said Thursday.
A free press is the worst enemy of any dictatorship.
From the press release:
The History of the Jews is a five-part series that will explore the Jewish experience, spanning over 4,000 years of history from the Ancient Israelites and the origins of the Hebrew Bible to the impact that Jewish people have had in creating the world we live in today—through culture, money, science and entertainment.
The documentary will air in 2012.
“If I were to compare this to anything it would be to the Swedish films based on Stieg Larsson’s popular novels,” writes John Sexton in his review.
The story is really the star here. It’s a film on gleaming blue rails that carefully follow the curves of the landscape Ayn Rand created over 50 years ago. There won’t be any unpleasant surprises for devotees of the novel. No Jar-Jar moments to make you cringe. In fact, the producers have put together a top notch cast of character actors, many of whom will be familiar to audiences even if their names aren’t quite household words.
I look forward to this film, which I will see on its premiere in San Francisco on 15 April.
Gingrich says of Obama, “he swore an oath on the Bible to become president that he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States. He is not a one-person Supreme Court. The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody.”
I can’t see the problem. If Obama really behaved as some kind of dictator, I would agree with Gingrich. But what the American president has done is nothing but instructing the Justice Department to stop defending a law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages.
I’m no expert on the American constitution, but I think the matter will eventually be settled by the Supreme Court—in favour of marriage equality. It’s simple unsustainable to defend this discrimination based on gender.
I have read many stupid comments from conservative Americans regarding same-sex marriage, but I think Alan Keyes triumphs in stupidity:
Government doesn’t endow people with the ability to procreate the species. The Creator takes care of that. Like all unalienable rights, those associated with the natural family exist in consequence of this endowment. A couple that cannot, by nature, procreate has no claim to those rights. Nor can government grant them a semblance of it without impairing the claims of one or both of the parents biologically implicated in the physical conception of the child. The DOMA simply makes more explicit the government’s obligation to secure the Creator-endowed unalienable rights of the natural family. This obligation precludes government from fabricating other rights that impair them. In this respect, granting homosexuals the right to marry is like granting plantation owners the right to own slaves.
So, the heterosexuals who cannot procreate “by nature” (gays have babies supernaturally) should be discriminated against, too? Keyes doesn’t say; however, he does clearly express his wish to see American democracy replaced by theocracy:
Judging by the evidence of his career as an activist and politician, Barack Obama does not now nor has he ever subscribed to the doctrine of Creator-endowed unalienable right the U.S. Constitution involves and implements. He is by his own admission a devotee of socialism. His speeches and actions reflect the substitution of History for the Creator as the judge of human actions and the authority for human rights. As far as he is concerned, marriage is whatever those who control the government say it is, without respect to any rights associated with the bonds and obligations inherent in the way the Creator made humanity to be (human nature)
Theocracy or socialism? Oh dear!
From Chandran Kukathas’s introduction to his book The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom:
Ultimately, the present work [Kukathas’s book] is an attempt to answer the question, what is the place of authority in a free society? Having asked how can a diversity of people(s) live together freely given their differences, it asserts that the answer lies in the way authority is allocated. More particularly, it argues that in a free society—which is to say, a liberal society—there will be a multiplicity of authorities, each independent of the others, and sustained by the acquiescence of its subjects. A liberal society is marked by respect for the independence of other authorities, and a reluctance to intervene in their affairs.
And:
Political thinkers have generally assumed, or asserted, that the world is divided up into nations or dominions, each presided over by some ultimate authority. The problem they have addressed is that of accounting for the legitimacy, and the proper role, of the authority in each one of these closed societies. While they have disputed the basis of legitimacy, they have generally agreed that one important role of political authority is to preserve the unity of the state. How, they have asked, can the many be made one? The good society, they have suggested, is a political order marked by a degree of social unity. This work [Kukathas’s book], however, takes a more sceptical attitude to this question, and the assumption that underlies it. Social unity, it suggests, is not nearly as important as has been intimated. On the contrary, the good society is not something confined by the boundaries needed to make it one. Political authority is necessary in any good society; but political authority should be understood as something which has a place in the good society, rather than as something which circumscribes it.
I agree with this approach to the multicultural society, whish is the exact opposite to Nicolas Sarkozy’s nationalistic identity project and David Cameron’s “muscular liberalism”.
Update: Kukathas writes more about classical liberal multiculturalism in this essay. I like his take on so-called weak multiculturalism:
While assimilation may be difficult to enforce, it is also difficult to avoid. In any society in which there is a reasonable degree of freedom, people will associate with and imitate one another. There is a tendency to conformity that is as difficult to eradicate as is the inclination of some individuals to go in a different direction. And for reasons of expediency or prudence, newcomers or minorities in any society will be inclined to follow the dominant norms simply because it makes life easier, less costly, or more enjoyable. It is easier to learn the language that most people speak than to wait for them to learn our own. It is easier to make friends with people with whom we share something in common. And it is better to have a wide range of people with whom to speak or form friendships than to be confined to the company of a few who are like-minded in every way.The multiculturalist response to the fact of cultural diversity is neither to try to prevent diversity from emerging in society by isolating it from others, nor to try to prevent diversity from taking root by assimilating minorities into the whole. Early immigration policy in Australia was concerned—alarmed—by the prospect of non- Anglo-Celtic minorities making their homes in Australia. In 1971, the then Minister for Immigration, Phillip Lynch, while willing to continue the new policy of accepting European and Asian immigrants, expressed a concern that Australia would be home to a large number of ‘undigested minorities’. The multicultural outlook, however, is both willing to accept a diversity of newcomers to a society, and untroubled if they remain undigested. The doors should be open to anyone who wishes to enter society; and the extent to which anyone assimilates should be determined by the desire and capacity of each individual to do so.
In other words, true freedom of the individual. It rather kills the argument that multiculturalism must be collectivist in form.
Christopher Hitchens writes about the historic inaccuracy of the film that just now won Best Picture at the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles. “The King’s Speech is an extremely well-made film with a seductive human interest plot, very prettily calculated to appeal to the smarter filmgoer and the latent Anglophile,” Hitchens writes. “But it perpetrates a gross falsification of history.”