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Sunday, July 31
The Myth of Marriage
by
Linda Thieman
on Sun 31 Jul 2005 01:00 PM CDT
 The Myth of Marriage
by Monica Mehta, AlterNet.org
A radical new book debunks the concept of marriage as a time-honored institution, and argues that we need to loosen up about it.
The institution of traditional marriage is in a state of crisis.
There's
a misstatement in that sentence. But it's not that marriage is in
crisis. It's that the institution of marriage is, or was at any time,
traditional. As Stephanie Coontz reveals in her new book, Marriage, A
History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage,
human unions have gone through a number of evolutions. We would be
remiss to think that it was ever a stable institution. Instead, it has
always been in flux....
Coontz describes her thesis:
The
basic argument for this book is that what we think of as the
traditional marriage - the marriage based on love, and for the purpose
of making peoples' individual lives better - this was not the purpose
of marriage for thousands of years. Instead, marriage was about
acquiring in-laws, jockeying for political and economic advantage, and
building the family labor force. It was only 200 years ago that people
began to believe that young people could choose their own mates, and
should choose their own mates on the basis of something like love,
which had formerly been considered a tremendous threat to marriage. As
soon as people began to do that, all of the demands that we now think
of as radical new demands - from the demand for divorce, to the right
to refuse a shotgun marriage, to even recognition of same-sex relations
- were immediately raised.
But it
was not until the last 30 years that people began to actually act on
the new ideals for beloved marriage. Social conservatives say that
there has been a crisis in the last 30 years, and I agree with them,
that marriage has been tremendously weakened as an institution. It's
lost its former monopoly over organizing sexuality, male-female
relations, political social and economic rights, and personal
legitimacy. Where I disagree with them, is in how to evaluate that
change and its consequences. I agree that it poses tremendous
challenges to us, the breakdown of this monopoly of marriage, but I
disagree with the idea that one could make marriage better by trying to
shoehorn everyone back into the older forms of marriage. Because the
main things that have weakened marriage as an institution are the same
things that have strengthened marriage as a relationship. Because
marriage is now more optional, because for the first time ever, men and
women have equal rights in marriage and outside it. Because women have
economic independence. This means that you can negotiate a marriage,
and make it more flexible and individualized than ever before. So a
marriage when it works is better for people, it's fairer, it's more
satisfying, it's more loving and fulfilling than ever before in history.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
Saturday, July 23
Des Moines GOP Official, Linked to Rev. Moon, Allegedly Harasses California Journalist
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 23 Jul 2005 10:00 AM CDT
 Des Moines GOP Official, Linked to Rev. Moon, Allegedly Harasses California Journalist
by John Gorenfeld
Last
week I made a phone call to Des Moines to ask a man about a Web domain
my family wants and he owns. The name is "Gorenfeld.com," just like our
last name.
But a
year ago someone took control of the name, someone who dislikes
articles I've written about a wealthy New Age group that owns The
Washington Times. That someone is not named Gorenfeld, which may be why
he hired a service called Domains By Proxy to keep his identity secret.
I found out who he was anyway.
He knew it was me before I could identity myself.
"Hello, John," said David Payer, a Republican Party official in Iowa, and a political operative in the Unification Church.
I asked Payer whether he might be willing to hand it over. It had expired, but was still in his cyber-grip.
"No, I
think I'm gonna hold onto it," he said with a breezy menace that made
me wonder what John Malkovich movies he'd been studying for
inspiration. "I want people to know a little about John Gorenfeld... I
want to give you your 15 minutes."
[Here it is, John!]
A phone
call to the Polk County, Iowa, Republicans confirmed that Payer, a
failed candidate for the state legislature, is an elected officer in
the group's central committee. He also maintains the party's official
Web site, PolkGOP.com.
Payer
was inspired to buy my name, he said, when he didn't like my reporting
on an event that triggered a small scandal in 2004: the "Crown Of
Peace" ritual on Capitol Hill, honoring the controversial Reverend Moon
as the new Messiah.
Just to
recall: Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) said he'd been "deceived" into
hosting Moon's ceremony naming himself humanity's new savior to replace
Jesus. As featured on ABC's "World News Tonight," politicians did more
than just pay witness. They bowed down and wore white gloves, bringing
to Moon a crown and flowing robes resembling King George III's.
The king
part was what I found interesting. The gentleman with the monarchial
sense of style was no minor character. He owns The Washington Times and
calls in favors from American presidents.
As for
the Des Moines GOP's Payer: the man seems to be doing double duty in a
quest to open doors in Washington for Moon, where the Reverend wants to
end the separation of church and state. Moon's major American Web
sites, including FamilyFed.org, are registered in Payer's name,
according to a WHOIS search. And his Iowa influence groups are
registered to Payer, according to corporate filings.
Payer
complained that I tried to make Moon look "odd." And in my fixation on
the crowning, he said, I ignored the evening's spirit of love, in which
local civic leaders received plaques.
"You
gave it a perspective, or a view, that was cast so diabolically," Payer
told me. "As if there was something to do with becoming the King of
America or something."
(In my
defense, I went with the spin from a top Moon official, who wrote in a
March 2004 memo: "The crowning means America is saying to [Moon]:
'Please become my king." The memo was reported in the newsletter of
Americans United For Church & State.)
I suggested that another Web address -- say, eDavidPayer.com or DavidPayer.us -- might be a great forum for his ideas.
"No, no, it's about you," he Malkoviched. "That's what it's about."
So
that's something to look forward to: a Web site put up about a
journalist by the Unification Church, whose leader, Rev. Sun Myung
Moon, is on record as calling for an "automatic theocracy to rule the
world."
Is that
something the Polk County GOP will want to get behind? And do Red State
voters in Des Moines know their officials, supposedly hard at work
defending American traditions, are linked to a New Age guru's scheme to
use the United States Senate to outshine Jesus Christ?
[Um, gee, maybe I should quickly buy up LindaThieman.com!]
(Source) Used with permission.
John Gorenfeld (pictured above) lives and works in the Bay Area,
where he writes about unusual things for Salon magazine, messes around with
musical instruments, and tries to find interesting things to see and do. As a
result of his reporting, featured on ABC's "World News Tonight," his domain name
Gorenfeld.com is currently being cybersquatted on by a minor official of the Des
Moines, Iowa, Republican Party. It has become increasingly clear that all of this
stems from Gorenfeld's failure to follow the advice of his 8th grade algebra
teacher, Mr. Liddi, who advised him to change his attitude.
Submitted by Rick Mullin, webmaster, Woodbury County Dems.
Wednesday, July 20
Social Security - Am I my brother's keeper?
by
Caroline Vernon
on Wed 20 Jul 2005 04:00 PM CDT
 MUSINGS FROM THE DIRECTOR
Social Security: Am I My Brother's Keeper?
by Reverend Ron Quay - Churches United
I
am very honored to introduce Rev. Ron Quay to Blog for Iowa. Reverend
Quay is the Director of Churches United here in the Quad Cities.
He is also a very active participant of the Reclaiming Moral Values
forum of Progressive Action for the Common Good (among many other
associations). Reverend Quay will be posting with us from time to time,
as well as other local writers who speak from the perspective of faith.
I am honored to share his unique insight with all of you.
One of
the themes from scripture that has been bouncing through my head of
late is the expectation that we, as members of God’s family, need to
see and accept our responsibility for each other, for those others who
inhabit this planet with us. In the story of Cain and Abel we see
this issue raised as God asks Cain where his brother is and Cain
responds, “am I my brother’s keeper?” This question, about our
connection and responsibility for each other seems to run throughout
the scriptures. We see it in the prophets as they call the nation
to remember justice between the members of the community. We see
it with Jesus when he is asked about the greatest commandment and he
points out that love of God and love of neighbor are one in the same.
This
theme or question brings me to consider the means that we have to
assist those other members of the society. Currently our
government is calling for a change in one of the oldest of the New Deal
programs, Social Security. It was this program that drastically
reduced the level of poverty among the nation’s elderly and one of its
underlying principles was that we all had responsibility for each
other. The younger generation would work and contribute to a fund
that would support the needs of those who no longer could work
primarily due to age.
Now we
are told that because of the large number of people in the generation
christened the “Baby Boomers,” the ability of that fund to continue to
support those unable to work because of age will be difficult at
best. Now I am not an economist or a political scientist or a
demographer. I come to this question as a theologian and as a
Christian. From that perspective we are reminded that we need to
carry the responsibility for each other and particularly for those who
are poor or forgotten. Some proposals put forth seem to operate
from an understanding that we are all independent individuals with our
primary responsibility to care for ourselves and our own close
family. I will own my stake and you own your stake in the larger
pie. If your stake is insufficient to supply what you need I am
sorry but the primary goal is to protect my holdings for the future.
When I
place that concept up to the mandate of scripture and of our tradition
as Christians it simply cannot find the defense to under gird it.
When we are invited to participate in a debate about Social Security or
any program to support the needs of all members of the society can we
ask whether the proposal truly calls for us to offer justice? Can
we remember that we are a community of people and as the technology
advances that community grows even larger in terms of whom we are asked
to be concerned about. Do the proposals enhance the sense of
community and shared responsibility or do they separate us one from the
other? When as a society of people we are invited to consider how
those joint funds we know as governmental budgets are spent can we be
reminded again of Jesus’ definition of life in his kingdom? “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Saturday, July 16
Supreme Court: Democrats Hope For Not Crazy
by
Trish Nelson
on Sat 16 Jul 2005 01:14 PM CDT
 Supreme Court: Democrats Hope For Not Crazy
MinutemanMedia
by Donald Kaul
You know that liberalism in this country is at low ebb when
liberals go around mourning the loss of Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme
Court.
Not that Justice O’Connor was so awful. She was the deciding
vote in cases that upheld a woman’s right to abortion, ruled prayer at high
school graduations unconstitutional, struck down Nebraska’s ban on “partial
birth abortions,” upheld the use of race as a “plus factor” in college
admissions and held that the display of the Ten Commandments on courthouse
walls was unconstitutional. All of these are more or less the liberal position.
But let’s get real. She was a conservative. During her
nearly 24 years on the Court she voted with Chief Justice William Rehnquist
about 70 percent of the time in cases that were not unanimously decided. In
decisions that made conservatives hearts go pitty-pat she was the key vote in
upholding the use of publicly-financed vouchers for religious school tuition,
rejecting a constitutional basis for gay rights, allowing the Boy Scouts of America
to exclude homosexuals, striking down the Gun-Free Schools Zones Act and
refusing to rule that the death penalty was racially discriminatory.
And, most egregiously, she sided with the conservative (and
Republican) majority on the Court in stopping the Florida
recount in 2000, thereby handing the election to George W. Bush. It was one of
the Court’s worst decisions in recent decades, not quite up there with Dred
Scott (the one that, in effect, made the Civil War inevitable) but close.
Moreover, it violated the principles that members of the
conservative Court majority had espoused for years: a strict, narrow reading of
the Constitution and a bias toward federal deference to state authority.
Instead of leaving the Florida recount to be fought out by
the state Supreme Court and legislature, as the federalist principles they held
in such high regard demanded, the Supremes moved in and gave the game to Mr.
Bush.
How bad was the decision? So bad that no one in the majority
had the nerve to sign it. It also contained the proviso that it should not be
considered a precedent for any subsequent case. That bad.
Still and all, it can be said of Ms. O’Connor that she was
truly a remarkable woman. She graduated third in her class at Stanford law
school (not chopped liver) but was unable to get a high profile clerkship or a
job with a prestigious law firm because, well, she was a woman.
So, she got married, raised a family, entered public life
and became the majority leader of the Arizona Senate, the first woman in the nation
to hold such a post. She was appointed to the state appeals court by a
Democrat, then to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan as our first woman
Justice.
Her main strength, and one that argues for diversity on the
court, was that she brought to the Court the unique perspective of someone who
had been discriminated against because of her gender, yet one whose eventual
rise owed a great deal to affirmative action. (No Justice before her, all men,
had come to the court carrying such modest judicial credentials.) Both sides of
that seemingly contradictory personal history are reflected in her decisions.
And now liberals are sorry to see her go because they know
her successor will be much, much worse.
The name of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has
been put forward as a candidate and already right wing groups are forming
torchlight parades to protest his consideration because he isn’t conservative
enough.
Meanwhile, Democrats are forming ranks for a bloody battle
but the best they can hope for is a nominee who is very conservative but not
crazy. Federal Appeals Court Judge Harvey Wilkinson III would fill that bill,
but don’t hold your breath. The radical right likes crazy.
Fasten your seat belts, folks. It’s going to be a bumpy
ride.
________
Donald Kaul recently retired as Washington
columnist for the “Des Moines Register.” He has covered the foolishness in our
nation’s capital for 29 years, winning a number of modestly coveted awards
along the way. His column can be found weekly at MinutemanMedia.Org.
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