Ahmed Marcouch, 41, is on a self-appointed mission to end homophobia in Slotervaart, just a stones’ throw from the capital but light-years away from its anything-goes mentality.

To make his point, Mayor Marcouch recently invited Amsterdam’s annual Gay Pride parade to pass through his constituency when it takes place in August.

“It is necessary to confront this issue, to say that homosexuals are normal people like all of us and that we require them to be respected,” Marcouch told AFP.

“For cultural or religious reasons, some people reject homosexuals and compare them to animals,” said Marcouch

“They don’t see homosexuals as humans. These people can be orthodox Christians, Muslims or immigrants,” he said.

Atef Salib, who owns an Arab-themed gay bar in the centre of Amsterdam, says he is encouraged by the mayor’s efforts and is looking for a spot in Slotervaart to open a dance bar. “It would be a great step forward.”

But Slotervaart teenager Said retorted: “If a homo bar opens here, it will soon burn down.”

As Plato and Aristotle understand it, equity is a kind of correction to the written law administered by real live judges.

In The Statesman, Plato writes against the idea of the law as some of kind of system of rules that can be applied like a logical proof:

“The differences of men and actions, and the endless irregular movements of human things, do not admit of any universal and simple rule. No art can lay down any rule which will last forever….”

Equity, then, is an art (or more accurately, the practical wisdom) of learning how to take into account certain details of a particular case and consider them relevant in deciding how a law applies. It is an art in the sense that it is not a codified science, but more like a knack, a practice, that seasoned practitioners know how to do.

Aristotle calls equity “justice that goes beyond the written law” and offers an example: Imagine a law that prohibits the infliction of wounds with iron weapons. X strikes Y while X is wearing an iron ring. In addition to the general assault, shouldn’t X face of charge of inflicting a wound with an iron weapon? Aristotle says this is a case for equity–learning to see the case in a wider perspective that takes into account: “not to the action itself, but to the moral purpose; not to the part, but to the whole; not to what a man is now, but to what he has been, always or generally.” Clearly, justice, according to Aristotle, can only occur if we have some sense of the people we are dealing with.

An oath is not necessarily a job description (even though federal officials can be charged with treason or high crimes for violating their oaths). But it seems that, in the case of the Supreme Court oath of office, we ought to reconsider whether we are committing judges to an unsophisticated kind of jurisprudence. We should recall Cicero who said that only “the crowd” identified law and justice with the written decree; true law has to do with reason and the wisdom that comes from experience interacting with persons in the real world.

Your Thoughts?

But then the argument goes: surely for the women who choose to wear the burqa, the garment is a choice not a tool for suppression. This argument obscures the fact that there is a pervasive, sexist propaganda in many Muslim communities in favor of the burqa. Many women are vulnerable to this propaganda and so their so-called choice to wear a burqa may not be the result of independent, informed decision-making. Moreover, even an independent decision to wear a burqa is not carried out in a vacuum. It is important to understand the effect of this choice on other Muslim women, many of whom may be trying to resist the pressure of their relatives, their community or their governments to wear the burqa. Their resistance is undermined when the burqa becomes increasingly common in public places, and becomes more closely associated with the religion of Islam.

The ban might encourage them to resist the pressure to wear the burqa. It might also encourage the Muslim community to think critically about the garment and whether it is compatible with modern, secular society in which women and men are equals.

But doesn’t the burqa counter sexual-objectification?

In the public place a woman wearing a burqa does not have an identity. When she walks down the street, you know you see a woman, but you know nothing more about her: what she looks like, whether she is smiling or frowning, does she seem kind or unfriendly. If you see the same woman the next day, you will not be able to tell it is her. In some sense, a burqa leads to the most perverse kind of sexual objectification – a woman wearing it is identified by absolutely nothing other than her sex: she is a nameless, faceless, shapeless “woman” and nothing more.

When Orwell used the phrase “objectively fascist” during WWII to criticize pacifists, he at least had the advantage of talking about a situation in which there were actual fascists involved. Roger Simon, on the other hand, is complaining about Obama’s differing responses to the Iranian election and the Honduran coup/deposition and uses the differing responses to conclude that Obama is somehow “objectively fascist.” The abuse of the term fascist in a lot of the commentary on Iran has been extensive and annoying, but now it’s really getting out of hand. Let’s be clear about one thing: no matter what your view of events in Iran and Honduras and Obama’s responses to them may be, fascism has nothing to do with any of these things. Authoritarian regimes and ideologies today are not fascist. Authoritarian states using their coercive apparatus to repress dissidents do not thereby become fascist–they remain merely authoritarian. One would think that this is bad enough, but we in the West apparently need to misuse the word fascist to convey how upset we are. Chavismo and its derivatives are unattractive left-populist and socialist movements centered around authoritarian demagogues, but they are not therefore fascist movements. Even if it were true that Obama’s response to the Honduras coup is “objectively Chavista,” it would have nothing to do with fascism. As badly as I think he has handled the Honduras matter, I don’t think that he is “objectively Chavista,” either, but then I have little time for arguments that immediately resort to this sort of vilification and use of demon-words to smear a target.

Three House Republicans on the subcommittee overseeing the 2010 Census are asking Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to reverse her decision to boycott the national population count, fearing others will follow her lead.

“Boycotting the constitutionally mandated Census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country,” Reps. Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Achieves, said in a statement Wednesday.

“[A] boycott opens the door for partisans to statistically adjust Census results,” the trio’s statement said. “The partisan manipulation of census data would irreparably transform the Census from being the baseline of our entire statistical system into a tool used to wield political power in Washington.”

Bachmann has said she would not fill out her 2010 Census form, a violation of federal law, because of the involvement of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The nonprofit came under fire during the 2008 elections over allegations of voter fraud; Republicans have asked President Barack Obama to prohibit ACORN from helping gather 2010 Census data.

“I’m not encouraging Americans not to fill out the Census,” Bachmann told FOX News last month. “I’m saying, for myself and my family, our comfort level is we will comply with the Constitution Article I Section II. We will give the number of people in our home, and that’s where we’re going to draw the line.”

Bachmann is creeped out that the government will know our phone numbers but thinks if only they were asked our resident status we might catch illegal immigrants.

Stephen Colbert’s coverage of the story from Monday night:

“”The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States”

Why?  Because only then will we defend America “violently” enough.

See, we won’t defend ourselves adequately enough unless we are attacked.  Paradoxically, if we’re not attacked, we’re not safe.

Asked if he has plans to run for public office, he replied, “I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, ‘No.’”

“I believe he’s gotten me on this grassroots movement. If I can encourage leaders to step up, that’s what I would like to do. That’s a heavy role. That’s something I don’t know if I am prepared to do yet.”

But Wurzelbacher said he will keep that door open if God ever calls him to be that leader.

Warner (1991) and Warner and Steel (1999) study American and Canadian mothers and fathers. The authors’ key finding is that support for policies designed to address gender equity is greater among parents with daughters. This result emerges particularly strongly for fathers. Because parents invest a significant amount of themselves in their children, the authors argue, the anticipated and actual struggles that offspring face, and the public policies that tackle those, matter to those parents. . . The authors demonstrate that people who parent only daughters are more likely to hold feminist views (for example, to favor affirmative action).

By collecting data on the voting records of US congressmen, Washington (2004) is able to go beyond this. She provides persuasive evidence that congressmen with female children tend to vote liberally on reproductive rights issues such as teen access to contraceptives. In a revision, Washington (2008) argues for a wider result, namely, that the congressmen vote more liberally on a range of issues such as working families flexibility and tax-free education.

Giving birth to sons, by contrast, seems to make people more likely to vote for a right-wing party.

Nate Silver asks for a little more detail:

one thing that I didn’t see graphed is what I would think is the most natural and important thing to graph: the estimated change in the probability of voting for the conservative party, comparing a parent of a boy compared to the parent of a girl. That is, the estimated effect on the vote of having a boy, compared to a girl. I assume this effect varies by sex and age of parent and also by age, number of previous children, past voting patterns, and other factors.

the key question is the effect of the sex of the child on parents’ attitudes and behavior, and I’d like a graph that would really show this.

Lou Dobbs and Christopher Hitchens with invaluable report on UN Resolution

And for more about the issue of the Orwellian UN resolution against “defamation of religion,” these two articles by Johann Hari from the time of its consideration are absolutely necessary:

Hari’s first excellent piece on the topic:

The UN’s Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he seeks out and condemns “abuses of free expression” including “defamation of religions and prophets”. The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who tried to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself.

Anything which can be deemed “religious” is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN – and almost everything is deemed religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to announce discussion of shariah “will not happen” and “Islam will not be crucified in this council” – and Brown was ordered to be silent.

Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims. Here is a random smattering of events that have taken place in the past week in countries that demanded this change. In Nigeria, divorced women are routinely thrown out of their homes and left destitute, unable to see their children, so a large group of them wanted to stage a protest – but the Shariah police declared it was “un-Islamic” and the marchers would be beaten and whipped. In Saudi Arabia, the country’s most senior government-approved cleric said it was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry ten year old girls, and those who disagree should be silenced. In Egypt, a 27-year old Muslim blogger Abdel Rahman was seized, jailed and tortured for arguing for a reformed Islam that does not enforce shariah.

Underpinning these “reforms” is a notion seeping even into democratic societies – that atheism and doubt are akin to racism. Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately claim they are the victims of “prejudice” – and their outrage is increasingly being backed by laws.

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don’t respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water, and rose from the dead. I don’t respect the idea that we should follow a ‘Prophet’ who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn’t follow him. I don’t respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don’t respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of “prejudice” or “ignorance”, but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.

When you demand “respect”, you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade.

But why are religious sensitivities so much more likely to provoke demands for censorship than, say, political sensitivities? The answer lies in the nature of faith. If my views are challenged I can, in the end, check them against reality. If you deregulate markets, will they collapse? If you increase carbon dioxide emissions, does the climate become destabilised? If my views are wrong, I can correct them; if they are right, I am soothed.

But when the religious are challenged, there is no evidence for them to consult.

After he posted the article from which I took those excerpts there were, sure enough, “riots, death threats, and the arrest of an editor who published the article.”  Hari’s must-read reply includes the following remarks:

An Indian newspaper called The Statesman – one of the oldest and most venerable dailies in the country – thought this accorded with the rich Indian tradition of secularism, and reprinted the article. That night, four thousand Islamic fundamentalists began to riot outside their offices, calling for me, the editor, and the publisher to be arrested – or worse. They brought Central Calcutta to a standstill. A typical supporter of the riots, Abdus Subhan, said he was “prepared to lay down his life, if necessary, to protect the honour of the Prophet” and I should be sent “to hell if he chooses not to respect any religion or religious symbol… He has no liberty to vilify or blaspheme any religion or its icons on grounds of freedom of speech.”

Then, two days ago, the editor and publisher were indeed arrested. They have been charged – in the world’s largest democracy, with a constitution supposedly guaranteeing a right to free speech – with “deliberately acting with malicious intent to outrage religious feelings”. I am told I too will be arrested if I go to Calcutta.

What should an honest defender of free speech say in this position? Every word I wrote was true. I believe the right to openly discuss religion, and follow the facts wherever they lead us, is one of the most precious on earth – especially in a democracy of a billion people rivven with streaks of fanaticism from a minority of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. So I cannot and will not apologize.

I did not write a sectarian attack on any particular religion of the kind that could lead to a rerun of India’s hellish anti-Muslim or anti-Sikh pogroms, but rather a principled critique of all religions who try to forcibly silence their critics. The right to free speech I am defending protects Muslims as much as everyone else. I passionately support their right to say anything they want – as long as I too have the right to respond.

It’s worth going through the arguments put forward by the rioting fundamentalists, because they will keep recurring in the twenty-first century as secularism is assaulted again and again. They said I had upset “the harmony” of India, and it could only be restored by my arrest. But this is a lop-sided vision of “harmony”. It would mean that religious fundamentalists are free to say whatever they want – and the rest of us have to shut up and agree.

Nothing worth saying is inoffensive to everyone.

You do not have a right to be ring-fenced from offence. Every day, I am offended – not least by ancient religious texts filled with hate-speech. But I am glad, because I know that the price of taking offence is that I can give it too, if that is where the facts lead me. But again, the protesters propose a lop-sided world. They do not propose to stop voicing their own heinously offensive views about women’s rights or homosexuality, but we have to shut up and take it – or we are the ones being “insulting.”

The argument that I was “asking for it” seems a little like saying a woman wearing a short skirt is “asking” to be raped. Or, as Salman Rushdie wrote when he received far, far worse threats simply for writing a novel (and a masterpiece at that): “When Osip Mandelstam wrote his poem against Stalin, did he ‘know what he was doing’ and so deserve his death? When the students filled Tiananmen Square to ask for freedom, were they not also, and knowingly, asking for the murderous repression that resulted? When Terry Waite was taken hostage, hadn’t he been ‘asking for it’?” When fanatics threaten violence against people who simply use words, you should not blame the victim.

And Hari recommends reading in reply to his articles:

Here are some of the most interesting: from the Hindustan Times, Katha Pollitt in The Nation, Index on Censorship, Shoayib Daniyal, The Daily Telegraph, Ophelia Benson, Stephen Poole, Andrew Sullivan, the Indian blogger Dance With Shadows, Salil Tripathi , the International Humanist and Ethical Union, Austin’s Atheism Blog, Puny Mishra, the Indian blog Communalism Blog, Satya Brat and Russell Blackford.

There was an exceptionally stupid response from The Middle East Times

Finally, the resolution passed in March.