Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Glenn Greenwald: Marriage and the role of the state

Ross Douthat uses his New York Times column today  to put what he undoubtedly considers to be the most intellectual and humane face on the case against marriage equality.  Without pointing to any concrete or empirical evidence, Douthat insists that lifelong heterosexual monogamy is objectively superior to all other forms of adult relationships:  such arrangements are the “ideal,”  he pronounces.  He argues that equal treatment of same-sex marriages by secular institutions will make it impossible, even as a matter of debate and teaching, to maintain the rightful place of heterosexual monogamy as superior:

   

The point of this ideal is not that other relationships have no value, or that only nuclear families can rear children successfully. Rather, it’s that lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best can offer something distinctive and remarkable — a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations — that makes it worthy of distinctive recognition and support. . . . .

   If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary. . . . But if we just accept this shift, we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate.  That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve. And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different:  similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their potential fruit.

   But based on Judge Walker’s logic — which suggests that any such distinction is bigoted and un-American — I don’t think a society that declares gay marriage to be a fundamental right will be capable of even entertaining this idea.

This argument is radically wrong, and its two principal errors nicely highlight why the case against marriage equality is so misguided.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: Chris Dodd, the Senate’s happy warrior

When it comes to the role and functioning of the U.S. Senate, my rather dyspeptic views could not be more at odds with those of Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is retiring at the end of the year.

I’ve reached the point where I’d abolish the Senate if I could. It is more profoundly undemocratic than it was when the Founders created it and less genuinely deliberative — problems compounded by a Republican minority’s strategy of delay and obstruction.

Dodd, on the other hand, is a second-generation senator (his father, Tom, served from 1959 to 1971) who reveres the institution. He recently earned a lot of scolding on progressive blogs by defending some of its odd habits and criticizing efforts to reform the filibuster.

William Saletan: Mosque Uprising

Islam and the emerging religious threat to our Constitution.

Islamophobia is on the march. In New York, opponents of a Muslim community center and mosque are trying to stop its construction near the site of the 9/11 attacks. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, is leading a jihad to nationalize the mosque fight and turn it into a culture war over “Islamism.” Meanwhile, uprisings against mosque construction have broken out in Tennessee, California, and Wisconsin. “I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented,” a Tea Party activist tells the New York Times. “I do believe everybody has a right to freedom of religion. But Islam is not about a religion. It’s a political government, and it’s 100 percent against our Constitution.”

It’s true that our Constitution is under threat. But that threat isn’t coming from Muslims. They’re less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, according to a report issued last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. To mess with the Constitution, you’d need a majority. The sort of majority you’d find, say, in the backlash against the New York mosque. And you’d need a charismatic ideologue, or at least a shrewd opportunist, to galvanize that majority into a political force. In this case, Gingrich.

David Weigel: Lame-Duck Quackery

Newt Gingrich takes command of the campaign to cancel the post-election session of Congress.

Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., won his last election on Nov. 3, 1998. Not enough of his fellow Republicans came with him. Gingrich’s party lost five seats in the House of Representatives after a year exploring impeachment charges against President Bill Clinton. Gingrich, who was House speaker, acknowledged the unexpected setback by announcing his resignation. His final act of power was to call a lame-duck session of Congress to deal with the impeachment.

Democrats were horrified and helpless. As far as they were concerned, the election had been a referendum on impeachment, and the Republicans had lost it. Republicans who were retiring or being replaced by Democrats were going to provide votes for impeachment that wouldn’t be there when the new, Gingrich-free Congress took over in January. “Listen to the American people,” said Democratic investigative counsel Abbe Lowell, one of many members of his party who spent weeks wringing hands, pointing at polls, and watching the impeachment train chug along.

Joe Conason: Democrats deserve credit — not blame — on ethics

Voters angered by corruption should laud Nancy Pelosi’s reforms (and beware a Republican restoration)

Clarity of thought is rare in both political press coverage and public opinion, but the reaction so far to the House ethics cases brought against Reps. Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters is well beyond average stupid.

According to conventional media wisdom — always heavily influenced by Republican noisemakers — the should expect to suffer because two powerful committee chairs from their party are undergoing ethics investigations. But why should Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats take the blame when they brought reform that led to those investigations, regardless of the political consequences?

Yet, having thrown out the bums who tolerated corruption for so long under Republican leadership, the public is supposedly itching to throw out their replacements, who have reformed the House rules, created a new Office of Congressional Ethics, and handled every case impartially, as promised when the Democrats took over in January 2007. Voters have plenty of reasons to feel frustrated and angry this year, but ethics reform is not among them.