Sides Of History

A new landmark in civil rights. Unlike such decisions as this, and this, the vote fortunately took place while Anthony Kennedy was in a sane phase.

Kennedy couched his opinion in rhetoric about marriage as "the keystone of our social order." But more importantly, he found "The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment..."

It's an historic extension of Loving v. Virginia, also decided on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.

Marriage rights was an issue that Mildred Loving certainly understood, and she endorsed equality before her passing in 2008. Her statement was issued on the fortieth anniversary of her own landmark case, which had been a victory over legal oppression long justified as being ordained by God.

From the NYT editorial—

The humane grandeur of the majority's opinion stands out all the more starkly in contrast to the bitter, mocking small-mindedness of the dissents, one each by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr. and Antonin Scalia.

Faced with a simple statement of human equality, the dissenters groped and scratched for a way to reject it.

Which leads to the other side of celebration; Steve M. asks, "What happens when crazy apocalyptics get their apocalypse?"

I know I should just relax and savor the Supreme Court ruling making same-sex marriage legal nationwide. But it's been a devastating week for angry American reactionaries who think civilization as we know it is going to hell in a handbasket -- yesterday's Obamacare ruling, the sudden rethinking of Confederate symbols, and, let's not forget, gruesome terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia, and Kuwait. If you're an American right-winger, all of this is connected. It's a sign that we've mocked God and fallen out of his favor. It's a sign that satanic forces are winning.

I wouldn't give a crap what these people think except for the fact that they vote, they dominate many American states, and they own guns.
...

When I think of the roadblocks to legal abortion devised by the right since Roe v. Wade, what astonishes me is the sheer creativity. Say what you will about conservatives, they have a genius for concocting ways around laws they don't like. I can't believe they won't find ways around this one.

Right-wingers are really, really mad right now, in both senses of the word. I get nervous when they're this mad.

To Market, To Market

It doesn't garner gory headlines; well, it hardly garners headlines at all. But that's exactly the idea behind a done deal. Our betters know that secret corporate governance is too hard and boring for the public to bother its little head about.

And the King v Burwell is decision comes without yanking the rug from under the millions of people covered by ACA. Roberts' opinion lays out Sacred Principle—

"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them."

Best For Business

Look Away, Dixieland... A bill is introduced into the SC legislature to remove Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds. A bit overdue, seeing as it's over 150 years since they lost the war, and this may or may not be passed. Also a bit slow: Nikki Haley backs the bill, after initial non-commitment.

Charles Pierce, on Republicans and "solid principle"—

... look at the photo of Haley during her press conference yesterday. If you look closely, in the background, you can see obvious anagram Reince Priebus, the emptiest suit in American politics, who was in attendance to represent the Republican party's long-standing opposition to the display of symbols of treason, a solid principle since at least last Wednesday. Of course, he was there because most of the candidates for his party's presidential nomination have been flopping around like fish in a boat on this issue for a week now, and Haley was doing Priebus and the rest of those political giants the inestimable favor of letting them off the hook, at least for the moment.

Walmart, Amazon, Sears, eBay had acted more quickly, announcing they would stop selling Confederate flag merchandise.

Don't know if this purchase came from Walmart, but the company's new policy won't affect the amount of firepower always on sale.

Truisms

It was an attack by a lone wolf; nothing at all to do with race/domestic terrorism/guns...

Pay no mind to the NYT's side-by-side headlines—

Suspect Wore Symbols of White Supremacy/
A Church Long at the Fore of the Fight for Equality

If it's unlikely the murderer knew the history of this particular church, there's no mistaking his choice of target: Southern Black Church, the institution where the previously voiceless have been heard and have built their political strength. And an institution so often targeted.

If he didn't know history, Dylann Roof did "know" other things; as the Times reported—

Law enforcement officials identified Mr. Roof, 21, as the suspect in the mass shooting at an African-American church in Charleston on Wednesday night that left nine dead, including the pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney. Mr. Roof was arrested Thursday in North Carolina.

A cousin of Mr. Pinckney who had spoken to a witness, Sylvia Johnson, told NBC that the gunman entered the church, asked for the pastor and sat next to him during Bible study before opening fire. "I have to do it," he said, according to Ms. Johnson. "You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." The shooting was being investigated as a hate crime.
...

Heidi Beirich, the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project, which tracks the activity of American hate groups, said the gunman's reported comments reflected a major topic on white supremacist Internet forums, which are preoccupied with the idea that whites are being hugely victimized by blacks and no one is paying attention. The specter of white women being sexually assaulted by black men has a long history as well, she said: "It's probably the oldest racist trope we have in the U.S."

After observing Fox's viewership explain the massacre, Steve M. findings—

So, to sum up, the real villains here are Al Sharpton, Al Sharpton, Al Sharpton, Rachel Dolezal, the racist (and anti-Semitic) president and liberal media, legislators who turn churches into gun-free zones, and, of course, gay people.

Soon enough, that post needing updated, for Steve M. to add "War on Christianity"—

... on Fox & Friends, commentator E.W. Jackson (who got 45% of the vote as the GOP's candidate for [Virginia] lieutenant governor in 2013) said precisely that. He also called on church members (but only the men) to carry firearms in church...

JACKSON ... I am deeply concerned that this gunman chose to go into a church, because there does seem to be a rising hostility against Christians across this country because of our biblical views. And I just think it's something that we have to be aware of, and not create an atmosphere in which people take out their violent intentions against Christians.

And I would mention one other thing very quickly, and that is, I would urge pastors and men in these churches to prepare to defend themselves. It's sad, but I think we've got to arm ourselves -- at least have some people in the church who are prepared to defend the church when women and children are attacked.

It didn't take the NRA long. The murdered pastor was responsible for his own death and that of eight others; when he was alive and a state senator, he voted against concealed carry.

Charles Pierce—

... This was not an unthinkable act. A man may have had a rat's nest for a mind, but it was well thought out. It was a cool, considered crime, as well planned as any bank robbery or any computer fraud. If people do not want to speak of it, or think about it, it's because they do not want to follow the story where it inevitably leads. It's because they do not want to follow this crime all the way back to the mother of all American crimes, the one that Denmark Vesey gave his life to avenge. What happened on Wednesday night was a lot of things. A massacre was only one of them.

Driftglass—

Even after a day of tragedy and slaughter, the American Swastika continues to fly proudly and at full-mast in front of the South Carolina statehouse.

But maybe that's the point.

Change Of Subject

This morning: NPR fluff about "'Jebcito,'" who "once mistakenly listed his ethnicity as Hispanic on a Florida voter registration form," and "once called himself the first 'Latino governor of the state of Florida.'" That story followed by furor over racial self-identification (of someone not a member of the Bush family): Rachel Dolezal's "passing" as black.

Dolezal is hardly the first: there is a long history of "passing" on different sides of the supposed divide. In a scholarly take here, Daniel J. Sharfstein notes such cases as the Nazi Party secretary and KKK Grand Dragon who had been a Jew, and the former speechwriter to George Wallace who wrote a best-selling "memoir" in the guise of being Native American.

Scharfstein also cites older history: that of the first free families of color and white mothers of black children. Those mothers had to find—

... new ways for their families and themselves to parse slavery, freedom and race, akin to James McBride's account in his memoir, "The Color of Water," of how his mother described her own identity while raising 12 African-American children. When McBride asked her about her parents, she would respond, "God made me." When he asked if she was white, her answer was, "I'm light-skinned."

James McBride's mother is an example Clever Sister brought up a couple days ago;Johnny Otis is another.

Considering Dolezal's multiple and apparently false claims of death threats and harassment, there may be a serious personality disorder involved. But the people it should concern are Dolezal, her family, and her associates. What should have been, at most, a local story in Spokane has been turned into day after day of national headlines.

That it's not simply a local story is no accident—not when it serves to reinforce a worldview of They get special privileges; the NAACP is phony; and the like. Once out, the story was amplified by the immense public shaming platform social media offers.

By now, it's become the perfect narrative for displacing stories that had been getting attention, like armed white cop vs. teenaged black girl clad only in swimwear. And for any attention paid to solid citizen reaction ("the blacks are the ones causing the problems and this 'racial tension.'").