Tag Archives: law

Gays Cannot Be Excluded From Juries Just Because They Are Gay

Gay and lesbian dignity and equality in the United States continues its historic progress. This is in The Wall Street Journal today: The Constitution prohibits excluding someone from a jury based on sexual orientation, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, … Continue reading

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“I Don’t Consent To Searches”: Calm Constitutional Pushback To The Security State

One step toward not being a sheep.

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Kansas City Bishop Robert W. Finn Knew of the Child Pornography Photographs Taken by Father Shawn Ratigan

Father Robert W. Finn is bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph archdiocese. He is also, according to today’s New York Times, an outspoken theological conservative. And he’s a protector of at least one child abuser. That child abuser’s name is Father Shawn Ratigan. Here’s the … Continue reading

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Proposal Fail

This guy is clearly not a lawyer (as in “Never ask a question that you don’t already know what the answer will be”).

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Mental Health Break

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Richard Rorty on Making Ethical Choices in a Godless Universe

I think that Richard Rorty is right about this, but it’s a bit jarring to read it stated so directly and matter-of-factly. The quote comes from Rorty’s essay, “Kant vs. Dewey” (in the last collection of his papers, Philosophy as Cultural … Continue reading

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Martin Luther King

“Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality …” – Martin Luther King

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If the Israelis Could Publicly Try Adolf Eichmann in 1961, Why Can’t the United States Publicly Try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in 2009?

Yesterday Salon’s Glenn Greenwald succinctly countered the American Right’s fear-stoking with regard to trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in New York: People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system.  They … Continue reading

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Alien Abductions, Epistemology, and Eyewitness Testimony

If you believe in, say, the resurrection of Jesus or the historic existence of Cleopatra based on eyewitness testimony, why don’t you believe what these apparently sincere folks are saying as well? What makes some forms of eyewitness testimony more credible … Continue reading

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Blogging UFOs: The UFO Hypothesis (and Tom Cruise) on Trial

These past few weeks, as I’ve thought about UFOs as a phenomenon, I’ve found myself confused, going back and forth between the value of testimony v. the value of expert scientific opinion, and then it occurred to me: Juries frequently encounter the exact same dilemma. In … Continue reading

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Blogging UFOs: Second Hand Testimony

In my ongoing attempt to get up to speed concerning UFOs, I’m discovering not just intriguing first hand testimony of flying saucers, but also interesting second hand testimony. How much weight should such second hand testimony be given? I don’t know, … Continue reading

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Unjust State Laws Directed Towards a Faith-Based Minority: Atheists

Pete Soderman, at his blog, calls attention to numerous unjust state laws on the books that discriminate against atheists. Here’s one from North Carolina: Sec. 8. Disqualifications of office. The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who … Continue reading

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Quote for the Day

G.K. Chesterton: The madman is not someone who has lost his reason. The madman is someone who has lost everything except his reason.

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Philosopher David Sosa on Free Will v. Determinism

As portrayed in the critically acclaimed documentary, Waking Life:

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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Jurist?

Dramatist Bryony Lavery has a new play running in London this month. New Stateman interviewed her, and asked her about her creative process: Lavery’s latest play, staged at the Young Vic, is based on the horrific sinking of the Russian … Continue reading

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Debating Torture and the Law at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB)

Scott Horton v. Stu Taylor:

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Rush Limbaugh Defends Bush Era Torture

Unsurprisingly, Rush Limbaugh offers a full throated authoritarian’s defense of torture. And please recall that the torture he condones is being done upon people who have been denied any due process. In other words, they may well be innocent of what the … Continue reading

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State of New Mexico Tells a Religious Photographer: You Have to Take Pictures at a Gay Commitment Ceremony!

I am a strong supporter of gay marriage, but I think that the below story is an outrageous violation, by authorities in New Mexico, of conscientious religious objection. According to the Associated Press this weekend: A professional photographer who refused … Continue reading

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Christopher Hitchens on Bishop Rowan Williams

I didn’t know this about Anglican Bishop Rowan Williams, but Christopher Hitchens asserts that Williams believes (presumably in the name of multiculturalism) that Islamic law should supersede, for British Muslims, the courts in England. If so, anything I’ve ever said … Continue reading

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Countdown to January 20th, 2009: Our Long National Nightmare is Almost Over, and We’ll Have Our Democracy Back Very Soon

If you haven’t seen the disorienting public television documentary, Torturing Democracy, it’s here. Putting an end to George Bush’s Pinochet-style torture regime is yet one more reason why Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency was so important this year.

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