The U.S. Supreme Court won’t be hearing the first case to reach it dealing with expressive freedom for service providers who don’t wish to be forced by the state (and LGBT heresy-hunting zealots) to create messages celebrating same-sex marriage. With a number of other such cases heading through the judicial system, it’s unclear how much can be concluded from the failure to grant cert in the Elane Photography case. But it’s a sad day for liberty, and for America, when the situation is as follows:
[T]he Gay and Lesbian Services Organization filed a complaint in 2012 with the local human-rights commission against the outfitting company Hands On Originals in Lexington, Ky., after its owner refused to print shirts for a gay-pride festival. The owner, Blaine Adamson, said he offered to refer the group to another T-shirt maker that would make the shirts for the same price.
Mr. Adamson, whose case is still pending, said he has also refused to print shirts for other events unrelated to gay rights that he believes conflict with his Christian beliefs.
“It’s not that we have a sign on the front door that says ‘no gays allowed.’ We’ll work with anybody,” said Mr. Adamson in a video on the ADF website. “But if there’s a specific message that conflicts with my convictions, then I can’t promote that.”
This won’t shame the zealots, for they have no shame, just hatred and smug self-righteousness used to cloak their totalitarian mindset.
34 Comments for “Liberty Delayed”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t be hearing the first case to reach it dealing with expressive freedom for service providers who don’t wish to be forced by the state (and LGBT heresy-hunting zealots) to create messages celebrating same-sex marriage. With a number of other such cases heading through the judicial system, it’s unclear how much can be concluded from the failure to grant cert in the Elane Photography case.
Elaine Photography was a challenge to settled law. No court in the United States has ever found that a business selling commercial services to the general public has a First Amendment right to turn away customers on a discriminatory basis. The New Mexico Supreme Court applied settled law when it rejected Elaine Photography’s argument in the case.
The Court did not grant certiorari. The votes of four Justices — not a majority, but four out of nine — are required to grant certiorari, and the votes weren’t there. That’s all we know.
In my view, the Court was was correct to deny certiorari review. Nothing in Elaine Photography presented issues that have not been considered in other cases, other than the fact that this case was about refusal to provide service to gays and lesbians in connection with a commitment ceremony. To me, that is not a reason to overturn settled law.
Whether Court will take up a similar case in the future, we don’t know. But for the time being, anyway, settled law remains settled law.
This won’t shame the zealots, for they have no shame, just hatred and smug self-righteousness used to cloak their totalitarian mindset.
I see you’ve brought in NDT as your ghostwriter. Go for it.
posted by Lori Heine on
I actually agree that Elane Photography should have been able to turn down a customer who wanted her to do something against her conscience. As an independent contractor and a freelancer, myself, I know I would not want to serve Elane Photography or any other potential client who shared her views.
The problem, as I see it, is frivolous litigation. There’s obviously a difference between police and fire protection, medical care, food sales or anything else involving good or services needed to protect or maintain life and photographs or wedding cakes. Sorry, but I don’t think “public accommodation” means absolutely anything the public might want.
I suppose I don’t see, in the instance Tom mentioned involving the organic grocer, why an organic grocer’s opinion on gay marriage needs to be made relevant — either for or against that business or the people it serves. Who the hell asks, when we go to buy a head of lettuce, whether the merchant supports gay marriage? A photography business is an altogether different kettle of fish.
The level of white noise surrounding this entire controversy has reached a fever pitch. I don’t think either side is, at this point, making very much sense.
posted by Barbara on
The thing is, though: it’s really not as if this were the very first time in history that a bride-to-be sued somebody for ruining her upcoming special day. I mean, it’s kind of a run-of-the-mill thing, isn’t it?
I guess the circumstances are different here, but it’s not as if we don’t see this pretty frequently; it’s just that it’s usually a dress that isn’t delivered on time or something. And this is just one of – what – three or so similar incidents, in a nation of 300 million? I mean, come on.
I agree with you otherwise, though; especially at this point, live and let live makes much more sense to me – and as somebody below said, I’m just as glad to take my business to somebody who wants it.
You’re right, too, that the noise level really IS way overdone….
posted by JohnInCA on
… huh.
You know, I’ve read your first line at least once and skimmed it several more times.
But it just clicked. Have any of these gay marriage anti-discrimination cases been pushed by *men*? The only one I can think of by name off the top of my head (Elane Photography) had a set of brides. What was the make-up of the other couples?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Who the hell asks, when we go to buy a head of lettuce, whether the merchant supports gay marriage? A photography business is an altogether different kettle of fish.
I think that it is reasonable to allow exemptions to public accommodations laws for small, family-owned and family-operated businesses, just as we do in housing accommodations laws, so long as the exemptions are religion-neutral, issue-neutral and class-neutral. I’ve discussed that enough times in other threads to obviate the need to do so again. But that is a legislative issue, not a Constitutional issue.
I think that the “expressive freedom” is the wrong tree to be barking up, to be truthful, given that what conservative Christians seem to want is a general exemption covering all sorts of service providers, from photographers to bakers to florists to bridal shops and now T-shirt printers.
I can understand that wedding photography is an “expressive” craft, having read the depositions in Elaine Photography. She apparently decides on a theme for a wedding she is going to shoot, and then devotes a lot of time altering the actual photographs to fit into the theme. The example that comes to mind is editing out children to create a “romantic mood”. She’s not so much recording an event as creating a fantasy version of the event, and that is definitely “expressive”.
But cakes? Flower arrangements? T-shirts? At some point, trying to squeeze everything and anything into “expressive freedom” is akin to trying to fit Dolly Parton into a AA cup (her joke, not mine). It just doesn’t fit.
posted by Lori Heine on
I must say that I agree with Houndentenor here. Why don’t we just take our business down the street to a different company?
People who want to refuse to serve us in non-essential capacities may be jerks, but I don’t believe we need to pass laws against jerks. Hyper-expanding our definition of “public accommodations” to encompass absolutely everything makes us look as absurd and hysterical as — say — gay conservative bloggers who go into earth orbit in their hyperbole against the Evil Gay Left.
I really am beginning to feel as if I’ve gotten trapped in a very bad melodrama. I wish it would stop so I could get out.
posted by JohnInCA on
“Why don’t we just take our business down the street […]?”
Have you been to New Mexico? It’s sorta like Arizona. But worse. You try and take your business down the street and you have to start fending off the coyotes with a stick because you’re in the wilderness now.
Which isn’t to say that if any wedding vendor gives me crap in the next two months I’ll sue them (I’ll do exactly what you suggest), but quite frankly until these bigots do me the favor of broadcasting said bigotry so I can conveniently blacklist them and we never have to talk, I see nothing wrong with carefully documenting their bigotry and posting it to their facebook.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I must say that I agree with Houndentenor here. Why don’t we just take our business down the street to a different company?
I do, too. I avoid a dozen or two local businesses (as do a lot folks I know) owned by vocal anti-equality or anti-Semitic folks. If they want to yap on about gays and lesbians or carry on about “Jewing people down …” that’s their business. They just won’t get any of mine.
I think that’s what most people do — refuse to patronize businesses that don’t want them or who stand in opposition on issues that are important to them. Nothing wrong with it, although folks like Stephen throw a hissy-fit about it when we make choices about which businesses to patronize, and which not.
Having said that, I don’t think that it is my business to try to stop other gays and lesbians who want to push the issue from using laws of general application enacted through the legislative process to make a stink about it, if that is what they choose to do. After all, public accommodations laws have been around for a long time with respect to serving customers of all races, religions and creeds, and both genders, and businesses seem to get along just fine under those laws.
The problem seems to arise only when businesses are “forced by the state (and LGBT heresy-hunting zealots)” to obey the law.
I get that — we are the latest minority in America to be included in “equal means equal”, and it takes time for people to adjust.
It took a couple of decades after the Civil Rights Acts were passed for the idea of serving African-Americans in restaurants become a non-issue, and a decade for businesses to adjust to hiring women for “men’s jobs”.
So it will be with us. This will all be a non-issue in a decade.
posted by Houndentenor on
I think this is all being blown up as a distraction from very real issues. I’m sure everyone here knows at least one gay couple who ran into problems because they had no legal status with their partner during a very difficult time. (Medical emergency, for example, or worse.) I don’t mean to minimize what could be a real hardship if you are in a small town and the nearest business not run by bigots is 20 or 30 miles away (or more). I’m just saying that personally I would probably not file a lawsuit against a small business owner for something like this.
At the same time, I’m far more annoyed at the hyperbolic descriptions of these cases by the right (including Stephen). You’d think brown-shirts were bashing in their windows at night. Is baking a cake for two women really a violation of your deeply held beliefs? Has our culture gotten this ridiculous that this is the #1 issue for some Christians? Never mind all the homeless people in your community or people who lost their job and have a house under water and don’t have food to feed their kids. Oh, no. gotta watch out for those gays. I’m not really exaggerating because I encounter people like this on a regular basis. And people are constantly stirring them up and it’s not a few isolated cases from some overzealous gay couples doing it either. There are people who make a living and have radio and tv programs that push this nonsense all day every day. Gay-bashing has long been profitable and politically expedient (see: 2004 Election). It’s less so now and they are freaking out more than ever.
I will offer a compromise. Let us marry in all 50 states and we promise not to make you bake us any cakes. I think that’s a pretty good deal. I’m also sure there will be vendors happy to take our money. I somehow doubt that’s a deal the religious right is going to be willing to make so it’s a moot point.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think this is all being blown up as a distraction from very real issues.
I agree that it is a distraction. We need to stay focused on marriage equality, ending employment discrimination, reducing the number of gay and lesbian kids who end up on the streets, teen suicide rates and other important issues.
But we can’t simply blow it off just because it is a distraction. Several distractions being are tossed at us from the social conservative right, which, added together, are the opening salvos of “massive resistance”, the intent of which is to subvert the gains we’ve made toward equality, and there are more to come. We have to beat them back, issue by issue, compromising where it is sensible to do so, holding firm where it is not. We have a long road ahead of us.
In an odd way, though, I think that this will work to our advantage.
As social conservatives get more and more shrill and unreasoned, accusing us of being totalitarians, communists, homofacists and the like (Matt Barber’s current trope is that gays and lesbians want Christians “either 1) dead, 2) imprisoned or, if they can have neither of these, 3) marginalized to the point where they can’t even support their families”), social conservatives will turn more and more moderates off.
You often point out that social conservatives are our best spokesmen, in a perverse sort of way. You bet. I think we’ll see more of it going forward.
posted by Jorge on
This won’t shame the zealots, for they have no shame, just hatred and smug self-righteousness used to cloak their totalitarian mindset.
No, indeed. Arizona, or bust Brewer. Find another way.
And find it quickly, before we pass immigration reform, the old bigots die off, and we finish relaxing this country’s drug laws, creating a permanant supermajority for the Democratic party at the same time the oceans begin to recede. Lest we be trapped in an almost-utopia in which everything is perfect but for that one thing.
posted by Houndentenor on
I don’t get the lawsuit. The company referred the potential customer to another company. I’d have taken ALL my business to the new company and been done with it, perhaps informing my gay-friendly friends and colleagues as well. And that would be that.
Yes, I get that they technically violated the law, but I’m just not that big on lawsuits where they aren’t necessary and frankly I don’t see any good coming from this lawsuit. At best gay people get to force bigots to take our money. That’s not much of a win if you ask me.
Stephen, however, seems to think that it’s “just hatred and smug self-righteousness used to cloak their totalitarian mindset” (seriously, I couldn’t go that far over the top if I had intended to strawman him!) to insist that companies providing public accommodation treat everyone fairly. If he wants to repeal the nondiscrimination laws, he is welcome to make that case. I don’t think there’s a huge audience of people willing to go back to the days of “Help Wanted–Irish Need not Apply” and all the other prejudices once tolerated in our country.
I do have some sympathy for Stephen’s argument. (I said some…though not a lot) but the hyperbole turns me off as I suspect it does many others. Ratchet it down a few notches and you might be able to convince some of us who don’t really like forcing our business on bigots (who are likely to turn around and donate our money to anti-gay groups).
posted by Jorge on
I do have some sympathy for Stephen’s argument. (I said some…though not a lot) but the hyperbole turns me off as I suspect it does many others.
I happen to think you engage in hyperbole too now and then. You’re just careful enough to be concrete–I come to think you are drawing overbroad conclusions. One of Mr. Miller’s big weaknesses is that he doesn’t have a regular punching bag to connect his worldview with the present event. Let me rephrase that. One of Mr. Miller’s big weaknesses is that his regular punching bags are usually people and organizations, rarely specific events or incidents.
This leaves him open to making extremely biased and uneducated statements. Using concrete examples exposes you to many more forms of attack than being vague does, but those are the attacks that are sustainable or that often make your opponent commit unforced errors.
posted by Doug on
I would have some sympathy of a business that refused service to everyone who violates his/her religious values. Especially if you clearly state your position up front. However, if you only refuse service to LBGT customers, you are a bigot and do not deserve any consideration or sympathy.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
I notice that Mr S. chooses to characterize anyone who dares to express an opinion counter to his, is apparently secretly plotting some sort of smug-socialist-totalitarian regime. Nice that.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Stephen frequently insists that progressive LGBT’s should “engage” with anti-equality folks. Perhaps he is just giving us an example of the techniques he thinks are useful in that regard.
posted by AG on
I’m really curious why the regular commenters post on this site. There’s practically never any agreement between Stephen and gay Democratic party apparatchiks in the comments. Why bother? It’s been like this for years. Nobody is changing their opinions.
posted by JohnInCA on
If the only barometer of “success” after a conversation is measured with vocal minds changed, then public discourse might not be for you.
posted by Houndentenor on
I’ll assume the “apparatchiks” comment was not directed at me since I have never even attended a party meeting much less held any official position in any way. I comment because I have comments to make. I am under no illusion that Stephen will change his mind. I do hope that the comments that I and others make will be food for thought for moderates who are constantly bombarded by nothing but right wing misinformation on gay issues. Where I live that is common. I’m constantly surprised to find how few people know that in most states it’s still legal to fire someone for being gay. The religious right and their allies in the GOP outright lie about gay people and overinflate what little influence we have in politics. Lies need to be countered with the truth. Nutbaggery needs to be challenged with common sense. I think that’s important. I do think it’s interesting that people seem to want to attack certain posters here without taking on their specific arguments and facts. I guess that’s all one can do when one’s position is so intellectually bankrupt.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
As a “gay Democratic party apparatchik” (amusing allusion to the Communist Party, by the way) I’ve been reading and commenting for a decade.
IGF has been a forum in which I can engage in public discourse with people who often disagree with me (Lori and Houndentenor are prime recent examples), testing my arguments and helping shape my views.
It was a year-long discussion on IGF about civil unions versus marriage (2004 or 2005), for example, that solidified my conviction that gays and lesbians should ignore civil unions and push for marriage equality. I got a lot of blowback during that discussion from both sides of the political arena for the conclusion I reached, but I reached it by listening to the arguments on both sides of the issue, from a variety of perspectives, and it was valuable.
I value the experience of being confronted with ideas I haven’t considered. For example, Jzero posted this in the previous thread:
I don’t know how I feel about that idea, but it is an interesting idea, food for thought. If I hadn’t been on IGF, I wouldn’t have heard it, most likely. I’ll be thinking about Jzero’s point in the back of my mind for a while, I suspect.
I do my part to try to keep IGF alive as a locus for rational, reasoned discussion. I try to post comments that are substantive, reasoned, documented and address the arguments to which I am responding.
I wish that more thoughtful conservatives would comment on IGF on a regular basis. I’m not hoping, by any means, that NDT or the Gay Patriot crowd show up, spreading bile and rants (if I want rants, all I have to do is turn on a local station many of us call “Rant Radio”), but I’d like to see more engagement by thoughtful conservatives.
posted by Jorge on
Why Here is because this is a site with interesting enough news and commentary that have occasionally influenced me to do or read something important. I have no need to look for anything better right now. Also Mr. Miller, the other blog posters and the regular commenters here pass the character test both individually and collectively.
Why I Post is a personality thing.
Among the contributors to IGF over years past, Stephen Miller has a worldview I have comparatively less in common with. He still occasionally cites writings by the others in his blog posts, and that is worth reading. Good grief I can’t believe I’ve been reading this site for that long.
Like Houndentenor and Tom Scharbach said, there are things to do and things to learn. I do not think commenters who dissent are gay Democratic party apparatchiks–not even the guy who claims to be one. Anyone who stays here long comes to reveal that he or she has a certain very stable worldview for a reason, usually having little to do with political branding even if it has much to do with political events. It is those reasons that drive us… this is a crowd that has lived many years in a state of being driven and so you are likely to find people who have war stories about the things they were driven to do.
posted by Carl on
With a number of other such cases heading through the judicial system, it’s unclear how much can be concluded from the failure to grant cert in the Elane Photography case.
And yet myriad other things lead to claims of “zealotry.” I guess the Supreme Court having a conservative majority spares them that accusation…
posted by Houndentenor on
I have a suspicion that SCOTUS decided not to hear the gay wedding case because they will be addressing the religious exemption matter in the Hobby Lobby case and therefore won’t need to. (Note: No corporation has filed an amicus brief on behalf of Hobby Lobby. They are terrified of the ramifications of a win for HL. It could well tear down the protections offered to officers and board members of corporations, in short it could eliminate the benefits of incorporation. This is going to be interesting no matter what the court decides.)
posted by Kosh III on
“for they have no shame, just hatred and smug self-righteousness used to cloak their totalitarian mindset”
A perfect description of the Theocrat/pseudo-Christian/Teanut/conservatives who have been bashing gays for centuries and getting away with it.
Funny how the right has been going on about “lawn and order”* for decades but now when affects their hate-full lives, they want to avoid any law they don’t like.
“Woe unto you….hypocrites” Jesus
* or is it lawn ordure?
posted by CMTinPHX on
SHM shows an extreme, almost cute ignorance of the concept of “facial versus as-applied.” If your problem is with public accommodations laws generally (and that’s fine, perhaps even honorable), then why throw a tantrum about an attempt to apply a law you oppose, even abhor, in the least opposable, least abhorrent way possible? SMH can sophomorically screech all he likes, but demanding that a bad law at least be applied rationally (i.e., equally bad to all) does not make one a shameless, self-righteous zealot. It just makes one a thinker.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
SMH can sophomorically screech all he likes, but demanding that a bad law at least be applied rationally (i.e., equally bad to all) does not make one a shameless, self-righteous zealot. It just makes one a thinker.
Social conservatives demand that the “religious freedom” of businesses to exclude gay/lesbian couples be recognized and written into law, but they do not support the “religious freedom” of businesses to exclude interracial couples.
The problem Stephen and others allied with social conservatives face in this respect is that there is no way that a law that does not meet the “equal means equal” test (religion-neutral, issue-neutral, class neutral) can meet Constitutional muster.
In order for such a law to survive Constitutional scrutiny, courts would have to find that a rational basis exists for protecting “religious freedom” in the case of same-sex marriage but not in the case of interracial marriage. To put it in lay terms, the courts would have to find that religious objection to interracial marriage is “unreasonable” but that religious objection to same-sex marriage is “reasonable”.
That’s a stretch, both in practical terms and in terms of Constitutional theory.
That’s why (to my mind, anyway) Stephen and his social conservative allies have not argued the “religious freedom” case in the courts, but instead turned to “expressive freedom” as a means to achieve a path to selective discrimination. An “expressive freedom” rationale, to be sure, will inevitably lead to “religion-neutral, issue-neutral and class-neutral results, because the courts cannot carve out an exception to “expressive freedom” for same-sex marriages but not for interracial marriages, but the implications of the “expressive freedom” rationale do not confront the issue quite so directly, so the implications can be ignored when making the argument for “expressive freedom” in a way that the implications of “religious freedom” laws cannot.
But in shifting the legal rationale to that front, it seems to me that social conservatives are barking up a very short tree.
The “expressive freedom” rationale has substance in limited situations (the actual participants in Elaine Hugenin’s “wedding storybooks” are little more than props for her fantasy creations, akin to fruit and flowers in a still life painting) but does not translate to wedding cakes, flower arrangements and the other mainstays of the wedding industry, unless the boundaries of “expressive freedom” are substantially expanded.
I have very little problem with giving Elaine Hugenin and other owners of small, family-owned and family-operated business a pass when it comes to public accommodations laws. If Stephen and others allied with social conservatives would accept a “de minimis” exception (as we do with respect to public lodging establishments), we could come up with a reasonable accommodation. I don’t see any signs of that happening, though.
To quote Lori, “I really am beginning to feel as if I’ve gotten trapped in a very bad melodrama. I wish it would stop so I could get out.”
I feel that way. I’ll bet a lot of people do.
posted by Mike in Houston on
As Justice Breyer is fond of noting, it’s the boundaries that matter…
So where does this new “expressive freedom” / “religious freedom” boundary exist?
Does it re-open settled law with regards to federal protections on race, sex, religion, disability, age, veteran status, etc. (noting that sexual orientation and gender identity are no explicitly protected classes)? If not, why not Stephen?
In the case of the baker who believes that somehow the florettes on a cake = endorsement of a same-sex marriage… where do we draw the line? The wedding cake? An anniversary cake? Valentines cake? Or shared date-night dessert? Surely any commercial transaction with a gay person has to be fraught with the danger that those extra chocolate chips = an affront to your religious beliefs.
At the heart of this issue is that certain people have been used to being privileged — to consider themselves better than others. The loss of privilege stemming from the changing tide in culture and attitudes may be uncomfortable for them, but let’s remember what real victims look like: gay-bashing victims, the kids thrown out of their homes and on to the streets because they’re LGBT; the trans person denied housing or being fired when they are outed; the one in five LGBT employees that have been denied a job, promotion or equal pay because they are out… and oh yes, the happy couples who have what should either be a joyous (or at least routine) commercial activity turned into an exercise of making them feel inferior.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
For those interested, there is a very good summary of the pending state and federal lawsuits affecting marriage equality at Lambda Legal.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
A side note: 10th Circuit oral arguments are being head today. Prior to the arguments, the State of Utah sent a letter to the court saying, in essence, that it no longer relies on the Regnerus study, which it relied upon in its briefs to the court:
Regnerus is toast as an expert witness in federal courts. I can’t say that I’m unhappy about that … the man was an academic whore, bought and paid for by the anti-equality industry.
posted by Jorge on
More Regnerus-chomping, eh?
I want to read the original smackdown, “The Court finds Regnerus’s testimony entirely unbelievable and not worthy of seriousconsideration. from the Michigan decision.
Right after the Court credits a study finding that children of heterosexual parents are less than 1% less likely to be held back in school than children of same-sex parents, the court cites this testimony:
“Law professor Vivek Sankaran testified that the MMA destabilizes children raised bysame-sex couples in the event the sole legal parent dies or becomes incapacitated. Sankaranstated that in such circumstances the “non-legal” parent could petition for guardianship over thechild, but that these proceedings are burdensome and often lack finality….
…Should the non-legal parent encounter any delay in pursuing the guardianship, there isalso the prospect that the Michigan Department of Human Services (“DHS”) could initiate achild neglect investigation because the child would be left for at least some period of timewithout a legal guardian. Sankaran, Tr. 2/26/14 pp. 120-121. In this event, DHS is authorized tofile a petition in juvenile court to remove the child from the custody of the non-legal parent and place the child in foster care. At the removal proceeding, the non-legal parent would not be a party to the proceeding nor would the juvenile court appoint a lawyer to represent the non-legal parent’s interests.”
All factors which, I trust no one needs the court to explain, make children more than 1% more likely to be held back in school. It’s a very seductive set of arguments and facts that are being presented to the courts, and courts must consider only those facts and arguments which it is permitted to consider.
There may be intangible harms to society to permitting same-sex marriage. But 1) these intangibles cannot be upheld in a court of law, and 2) to the extent that the belief in these harms are associated with a Christian worldview, they are actually benefits when applied to a religion that embraces suffering and humility.
Anyway, this court loves finding expert witnesses “highly credible”, “fully credible”, and giving their testimony “great weight”. I wonder how bad Regnerus really is:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/213774919/Decision213770186-2-12-cv-10285-151-Michigan-Decision
Anyway, I’m creating a Regnerus is an Academic Whore file, just because you’re so happy, Tom.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I’m creating a Regnerus is an Academic Whore file, just because you’re so happy, Tom.
Feel free, Jorge. Be sure to include the full texts of the professional standards bodies that look at this study and found it unprofessional.
I’m tired of being lied to and lied about by bogus academics like Blankenthorn, Regnerus and Cameron, weaving an ugly web of half-truth and mis-truth, cloaking it in academic trappings. only to crumple when put to cross-examination.
I am happy that our country has a legal system that puts men like this to the test, finding them wanting. I spent most of my professional career practicing law, and I am glad that I did.
The three of them, each in their own time and in their own way, lied to the constituency they purport to serve, as well as the rest of us, and have a lot to answer for if truth is a value.
posted by Jorge on
Ummm, I meant a Microsoft Word file. I’m only taking a snapshot of some of the sharpest stilettos dancing on his corpse–beginning with you. Here’s a nice blog post, which headlines with the full damning exerpt.
http://electradaddy.com/post/80300780203/the-court-finds-regneruss-testimony-entirely
But since you ask, I shall also document a flamenco dance that slowly builds to a rousing crescendo whose brutal, sustained trampling force systematically breaks the foundations of his scholarship.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
But since you ask, I shall also document a flamenco dance that slowly builds to a rousing crescendo whose brutal, sustained trampling force systematically breaks the foundations of his scholarship.
By “sustained trampling force” you mean, perhaps, legitimate scholarship, accurately representing what is known, and not, without misrepresentation and sleight of hand?
When an academic, in a court setting under oath to “tell the truth and the whole truth”, is forced to admit that his stated findings cannot be sustained by the facts supposedly underpinning the findings, that speaks for itself, very clearly.
posted by Jorge on
Yes.
Well, I meant to add that my first entry on that score was a link to the court decision itself. A slow, inevitable buildup may not involve sleight of hand, but it certainly can involve a poker face. I had the honor the other day of watching an experienced attorney successfully challenge the admission of evidence (she also won important background information from a credible opposing witness). She did not give any more information than she absolutely had to in her objection (because the opposing attorney would have established the way to admit it); the judge said the issue is very settled law, but it’s something few non-lawyers would know. But she gave enough hints to show that she could go all-out should it get to that point. Miss that signal at your peril. Surely the reason Dr. Regnerus is an academic whore has much to do with his willingness to enter an impossible situation long after he should have resigned the cause.
A lot of people at my job don’t know this. It’s very important to lose some battles. I respect people who believe in their cause enough to try to win a losing one. It usually ends up showing something worthwhile about the lost cause. But if you push ahead in those tough cases simply for the sake of winning, that’s ego. You cannot put ego ahead of what may be right. There’s people who smell that very easily. Maybe not everyone, but enough of the deciders do.