{"id":955,"date":"2008-12-19T22:51:44","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T06:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=955"},"modified":"2008-12-19T22:51:44","modified_gmt":"2008-12-20T06:51:44","slug":"miscellany-dec-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/miscellany-dec-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Miscellany, Dec. 19"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2207148\/\">Christopher Hitchens on Rick Warren&#8217;s inauguration role.<\/a> You know you want to read it, so go ahead. Meanwhile, <a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=933\">Heather&#8217;s piece yesterday on Warren<\/a> is getting enormous traffic and made <a href=\"http:\/\/www.memeorandum.com\/081220\/p2#a081220p2\">Memeorandum<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>I seldom (okay, almost never) agree with left-leaning blogger Scott Lemieux, but <a href=\"http:\/\/lefarkins.blogspot.com\/2008\/12\/hate-speech-lie.html\">in this case he&#8217;s right<\/a>: there was never the slightest prospect that the California Supreme Court&#8217;s ruling on gay marriage would mean that &#8220;any pastor could be considered doing hate speech&#8221; for preaching anti-gay views, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/News\/2008\/12\/Rick-Warren-Transcript.aspx?p=7\">Rick Warren claims<\/a>, let alone that churches would be forced to perform same-sex ceremonies, as other Prop 8 backers claimed. Speech-suppressive precedents to the contrary from Canada and Sweden are meaningless because those countries (alas) don&#8217;t have a First Amendment, while we (fortunately) do; relying on that Amendment, our courts have stood firm against attempts to turn &#8220;hate speech&#8221; into a legal offense. Precedents from the law of discrimination in public accommodations and business contexts (<a href=\"http:\/\/overlawyered.com\/2007\/06\/debra-saunders-on-eharmony-suit\/\">eHarmony<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/volokh.com\/posts\/chain_1207764182.shtml\">wedding photographers<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/overlawyered.com\/2006\/05\/antibias-law-vs-free-conscience-again\/\">copy shops<\/a>), though deplorable from a libertarian standpoint as infringements of free association, won&#8217;t be extended to churches because churches aren&#8217;t public accommodations or businesses. The California Supreme Court itself made crystal clear that its decision imposed no new legal constraints on churches, and had it somehow reneged on this promise, the U.S. Supreme Court would have enforced the churches&#8217; constitutional rights. The Yes on 8 campaign drew on the talents of some persons well versed in legal matters, who ought to have known that this constant ringing of false alarms was without justification. I think in many cases these persons probably did know, but held their tongues for tactical reasons.<\/li>\n<li>Irish intellectual Conor Cruise O&#8217;Brien has died at 91; Alex Massie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.debatableland.com\/the_debatable_land\/2008\/12\/the-cruiser-goes-down.html\">recalls his career<\/a>. At Reason, Michael Moynihan <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reason.com\/blog\/show\/130677.html\">notes O&#8217;Brien&#8217;s shifting role<\/a> with respect to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationmaster.com\/encyclopedia\/The-Troubles\">Northern Ireland Troubles<\/a>, with their countless atrocities on both Catholic and Protestant sides, in which the writer eventually (to quote the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/obituaries\/3850037\/Conor-Cruise-OBrien.html\">Daily Telegraph<\/a>) came to serve as &#8220;the b\u00eate noire of Sinn Fein and the IRA&#8221;. Anyone who imagines that the impulse toward tribal violence based on religion lingers on only in faraway locales, and was long ago banished from the more advanced nations of Christendom, probably never spent much time hanging around, say, Boston as recently as the &#8217;80s and &#8217;90s, with its <a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/14622374@N03\/2114735505\">IRA-glorifying murals<\/a> and Noraid baskets at bars. Moynihan remembers this milieu well.<\/li>\n<li>As expected, and predicted in an <a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=134\">earlier post<\/a>, the United Nations General Assembly has now passed another &#8220;Defamation of Religion&#8221; resolution sponsored mostly by Islamic nations; the vote was 86 in favor, 53 against and 42 abstentions. Such resolutions don&#8217;t at present have much legal effect, but proponents could build on them in the future, as by arguing that they evidence an emerging international law norm. Coverage: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/news\/issueoftheday\/2008\/12\/19\/Critics_slam_UN_religious_hate_vote\/UPI-29281229711881\/\">UPI<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reason.com\/blog\/show\/130675.html\">Ron Bailey at Reason<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.canada.com\/calgaryherald\/news\/story.html?id=0f3b173b-8af0-4633-a329-f9930b7fcdef\">Steven Edwards\/Calgary Herald<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/insolence\/2008\/12\/antiblasphemy_antifree_speech.php\">Orac\/Respectful Insolence<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christopher Hitchens on Rick Warren&#8217;s inauguration role. You know you want to read it, so go ahead. Meanwhile, Heather&#8217;s piece yesterday on Warren is getting enormous traffic and made Memeorandum. I seldom (okay, almost never) agree with left-leaning blogger Scott &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/miscellany-dec-19\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,50,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":963,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions\/963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}