Rightank

Shortly after this summer’s London bombings, The Financial Times created an interactive map showing the Muslim population levels within Europe. If you click on France, you’ll find a fascinating bit on France writen by John Thornhill:

Nobody knows for sure how many Muslims there are in France. Because of a strict insistence on the secular nature of the republic, state officials are not allowed to ask a citizen’s faith when conducting a census.

But Islam is estimated to be the second-biggest religion in France with about 5m followers, out of a total population of 60m.

. . .

In theory, French insistence on secularism makes state institutions blind to race or religion and eases integration of immigrant communities. In practice, many Muslims feel subject to unofficial discrimination. The unemployment rate in many Muslim communities is far higher than the national average, while their level of representation at the top of political, legal, business and media professions is disproportionately low.

Yazid Sabeg, a French Algerian businessman who has championed positive discrimination as a means of redressing these imbalances, has warned that without radical change France is in danger of creating a “social and political atom bomb.”

Alarmed at the influence of radical imams, who came from abroad and did not speak French, the government created the French Council of the Muslim Religion in 2002 as an intermediary between the state and Muslim communities.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who has twice served as interior minister, has even advocated state support for mainstream Muslim associations and mosques to deter the extremist fringe. However, this argument is still bitterly resisted by secularists.

Two points. First, the social and political atomic bomb has exploded in France. Second and more significant, the secularist predilections of the French elite have prevented their government from exterminating the terrorist rant of Wahabbi clerics and immams from their borders who have provided the needed bile and jihadist rhetoric that propels young, easily malleable Muslims to violence and self-destruction.

Indirectly, France’s secularist handicap is a lesson of the danger in maintaining the First Amendment falsity of a separation of church and state. Taken to an extreme, religious separationism would not only prevent the United States from providing support to (e.g., tax-exempt status) or procuring assistance from (e.g., faith-based initiatives) religious organizations but would bar any attempt by federal, state, or local governments to expel–based upon their religious expression–the terrorist spite that froths from the radical elements of Islam.

The French elite may value their secularity greatly but their immigrant Muslim population does not–which is why the Parisian suburbs are burning red accompanied the arabic battlecry “God is Great” instead of the peaceful greeting of “Bonjour, can I have another pastry?”

As predicted, Texans voted overwhelmingly (3-1) to pass a constitutional amendment protecting marriage between one man and one woman. A 75% passage indicates that the inertia toward constitutionally protecting marriage is strong and robust. Hopefully, a Federal Marriage Amendment (”FMA”) can again garner steam in Washington. A helpful push by President Bush (who promised to support a FMA during his re-election and 2005 State of the Union speech) would be a prudent course of action. Are you listening, Mr. President?

The CIA Prison Leak Story Goes to the Justice Department. Good. If the DOJ discovers that indeed there was a criminal leak of classified information, then I hope the malfeasants pay a hefty price. It’s despicable that some government employees and their liberal confidants in the press would rather see our Nation kicked and its reputation savaged rather than protected from harm or the heroic actions of our soldiers and generals praised.

Today, Texans are voting on a constitutional amendment protecting marriage’s definition as “the union of one man and one woman.” The vote, despite attempts by opponents to mischaracterize the amendment’s meaning, will continue America’s movement toward protecting marriage from judicial threat.

Check out this slanted coverage of the amendment:

Supporters and opponents of Proposition 2, the same-sex marriage ban, waged a heated campaign battle that escalated until Election Day.

The pro-Prop 2 group Texans for Marriage launched a television ad over the weekend in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Austin markets called “For God’s Design.” Its message was that the Bible states God intended for marriage to be between one man and one woman.

On Monday, amendment supporters arranged for recorded calls from Catholic Bishop John Yanta of Amarillo to go out to more than 800,000 Texas households, many of them Hispanic, urging a vote for the proposition.

No Nonsense in November, a leading anti-Prop 2 organization, has held almost daily events and on Saturday led a protest of some 3,000 people in Austin against a small Ku Klux Klan group that had gathered to support the amendment.

Why should a “small” rally of the KKK in support of the marriage amendment garner any space in the article? Only to insidiously insinuate that if you support the marriage amendment, you agree with the KKK. What garbage. After all, if you want to highlight any commendable aspect of the marriage amendment opposition against the tyranny of marriage proponents, it’d have to their stance against 12 Racist White Robes, right?

Polipundit showcases the citizen majorities who have voted to grant constitutional protection to marriage. Bank on the Texas amendment passing overwhelmingly.

Theodore Dalrymple has an excellent editorial in the Wall Street Journal about the burnt car collection of the French rioters/thugs and why the reaction is the fruit of the wretched socialism of France:

When it comes to rioting, there’s no 35-hour week in France.

It may be difficult nowadays to get people in what the French call the Hexagon to work on Friday afternoons, but not to riot, at least not in the “sensitive” quartiers that surround most towns and cities. The productivity of the rioters has been increasing rapidly of late, and France looks like it will be breaking its record for burnt-out cars: 1,295 on Saturday night alone and 750 on Friday night, 500 the night before, and 300 the night before that. This year so far, the tally is 29,000. If the trend of the last few days continues, geometric progression being what it is, it won’t be long before the rioters will have to go to Germany or the Low Countries to express their social conscience in a practical way.

. . .

A Martian observing France dispassionately, without ideological preconceptions, would come to the conclusion that the French had accepted with equanimity a kind of social settlement in which all those with jobs would enjoy various legally sanctioned perks and protections, while those without jobs would remain unemployed forever, though they would be tossed enough state charity to keep body and cellphone together. And since there are many more employed people than unemployed people in France, this is a settlement that suits most people, who will vote for it forever. It is therefore politically unassailable, either by the left or the right, which explains the paralysis of the French state in the present impasse.

The only fly in the ointment (apart from the fact that the rest of the economies of the world won’t leave the French economy in peace) is that the portion of the population whom the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, so tactlessly, but in the secret opinion of most Frenchmen so accurately, referred to as the “racaille” — scum — is not very happy with the settlement as it stands. It wants to be left alone to commit crimes uninterrupted by the police, as is its inalienable right.

Read the whole thing.

The riots in France are disgusting. The French share alot of the blame for their refusal to assimulate the immigrants who have entered their country. Appeasement doesn’t work against terrorists and dictators and it certainly doesn’t work in dealing with massive immigration sans acculturation.

The French reaction has been slow, but at least they have finally decided to arrest some of the thugs. Unfortunately, the jihadists aren’t settling for the burning of cars and businesses:

In a particularly gruesome incident, attackers doused a 50-year-old woman on crutches with a flammable liquid and set her afire as she tried to get off a bus in the suburb of Sevran, judicial officials said.
The bus had been forced to stop because of burning objects in its path. She was rescued by the driver and hospitalized with severe burns.

What kind of monstrousity is raging within these youth that would cause them to do such a thing to a defenseless woman? The same type of monstrousity that fuels suicide bombers and spit-filled hatred that spews from the sewers of many terror-inciting mosques around the globe.

Today some 2,000 French have marched for peace near where the rioting took place. Alot of good that’s going to do. March and they’ll stop the violence. Yeah right. Bullets and blood are the armaments of peace when you are fighting an enemy with a terrorist mindset. The French better start shooting before it’s too late.

Yesterday, in his continued offensive against traditional marriage, Dale Carpenter cleverly moves the procreation argument away from its intended mooring. Let me explain.

Carpenter argues that if procreation is the only reason why marriage should be restricted to the conjugal relationship of one man and one woman, then gays are not prohibited from marriage because some married couples are sterile, some choose not to have children, and some marry later on in life without the ability to father or mother children. However, procreation is not the only reason why marriage should remain heterosexual but it is the main reason.

For example, would a business continue to invest its resources (financial, human, material) to a project or product if there was no benefit to the company? Of course not, unless the business’s goal was to declare bankruptcy. Similarly, why would a Nation which needs to sustain its population and familial culture protect and provide benefits to a relationship where there can be no reciprocation? In other words, how can a Nation who wants to survive indefinitely support gay marriage when no sustainable offspring can come from their union?

Carpenter, like most if not all same-sex marriage supporters, blur and confuse society’s interest in marriage with individual interests in marriage:

Culturally, . . . [a] procreation-only view of marriage is even more questionable. Even couples who have children do not view their marriage as being only or even primarily about procreation. Their marriages are about children, yes, but also love, religious faith, commitment, and caretaking. For those couples who can’t or won’t have children, their marriages are obviously also not justified by procreation.

It is not the couple’s interest in procreating (and definitely not their love or level of commitment) that justifies state support of marriage. Rather, it is the state’s interest in a procreative couple–and the optimal, unique environment that a male/female coupling provide–that controls. As such, the marriages of infertile couples or couples who could procreate but choose not to are justified by procreation. Infertile couples are justified because when they took their vows, they intended raise children which aligns perfectly with the state’s interest in protecting procreative couples. Furthermore, the more selfish, childless couples who choose not to have children are infertile by choice–not by genetic or other circumstances beyond their control. The state’s interest in marriage–a union with independent procreative potential–is still achieved. The individualistic interests of that couple occur after the fact.

One final retort: Carpenter more than once has fawned that 49 states permit gay adoption (except Florida). That might be useful for his argument–if it were true. Here’s Utah’s adoption law which does not permit same-sex couples to adopt:

78-30-1. Who may adopt — Adoption of minor — Adoption of adult.
(1) Any minor child may be adopted by an adult person, in accordance with the provisions and requirements of this section and this chapter.
(2) Any adult may be adopted by another adult. However, all provisions of this chapter apply to the adoption of an adult just as though the person being adopted were a minor, except that consent of the parents of an adult person being adopted is not required.
(3) (a) A child may be adopted by:
(i) adults who are legally married to each other in accordance with the laws of this state, including adoption by a stepparent; or
(ii) any single adult, except as provided in Subsection (3)(b).
(b) A child may not be adopted by a person who is cohabiting in a relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage under the laws of this state. For purposes of this Subsection (3)(b), “cohabiting” means residing with another person and being involved in a sexual relationship with that person.

Oops.

Robert Bork makes his case why conservatives should support Judge Alito for the Supreme Court:

We may be confident, I think, that a Justice Alito, like Chief Justice John Roberts, will not vote to create new and hitherto unsuspected constitutional rights. He will not share the extreme liberationist philosophy, one of the hangovers from the 1960s, that characterizes the current Court majority. But, also like Roberts, we do not know whether he will vote to overturn the worst constitutional travesties of the past.

. . .

[Having Alito and Roberts] would in itself be a vast improvement over the imperialistic Court majority’s drive to remake American culture and morality.

I agree.

RedState contributor Erick highlights yet another distressing decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In Fields v. Palmdale School Dist., a three judge panel unanimously held that parents do not have a fundamental constitutional right to serve as

the exclusive provider of information regarding the sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. (court’s emphasis)

What prompted such a ruling? Well, a graduate student convinced an elementary school to give out a questionaire to kids regarding their mental health. A disclosure and permission letter was sent to parents, but that letter omitted any reference to questions of a sexual nature. For example Question #22 asked students ages 7 to 10 to rate how often they are “Thinking about touching other people’s parts” and Question #47 “Can’t stop thinking about sex.” Disgusting.

The school’s decision to blindside the parents bothers me more than the 9th Circuit decision. I would agree that parents do not have a constitutional fundamental right to direct what their children learn inside the school. Prudentially, that would clog the courts with lawsuits and frankly, the local level is where parents need to attack the rampant liberalism that pervades the public schools. Moreover, such a right would only be found using in the made-up jurisprudence called substantive due process, which is not in the Constitution.

However, I am bothered by this statement by Judge Reinhardt regarding education’s purpose:

[E]ducation is not merely about teaching the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Education serves higher civic and social functions, including the rearing of children into healthy, productive, and responsible adults and the cultivation of talented and qualified leaders of diverse backgrounds.

What? Isn’t education about teachers teaching and students learning about english, American history, and mathematics? Note how Judge Reinhardt kidnaps children from their parents and grants schools the parental responsibility of child rearing. Reinhardt’s revisionist definition permits a school to teach whatever they want because they are raising the children, not the parents. A little quiz on mental health lumped with sexual references is no exception.

Fields illustrates what liberals think schools are designed to accomplish and why the public education system seems more and more an indoctrinating day-time prison instead of an place where “reading, writing, and arithmetic” are taught.

UPDATE: More 9th Circuit reaction at Raging Right Wing Republican and Independent Conservative.

Dale Carpenter’s defense of same-sex marriage over at Volokh has been interesting and informative articulation of that side of the debate. Today, Professor Carpenter attempts to challenge the definitional argument of marriage, i.e., that marriage is the exclusive union of one man and one woman. Frankly, Carpenter’s argument is ensconced in unfavorable realities that one must ignore in defending gay marriage.

Initially, Carpenter obscures the definitional argument:

One of the most common arguments against gay marriage is definitional. This definitional argument against gay marriage generally takes the following form: “Marriage just is the union of one man and one woman. What same-sex couples are asking for is not marriage. So same-sex couples cannot be married.” It offers no normative defense of the definition; it stops there.

Clearly, marriage’s definition limits marriage between one man and one woman. Based on defintion alone, same-sex couples are prohibited from marrying (except in Massachusetts where four black robes wrested marriage’s defintion for the benefit of gays). Carpenter argues that defintionally, there is no normative defense. I disagree. The definition of marriage between one man and one woman is a normative expression. It might not offer an explicit defense within its grammatical constructs, but marriage’s definition implicitly evinces a normative uniqueness (male-female coupling) that merits protection. Moreover, marriage’s definition is an institutional and political defense of traditional marriage. Simply stated, if traditional marriage were not defined within the law, then it could not be protected.

Carpenter slyly insists that because gays and lesbians are challenging marriage’s definition, proponents of traditional marriage cannot hold-up that definition as validating their position or a reason why gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Carpenter’s insistence is incorrect and alludes (unintentionally?) why in his conclusion:

Given how logically weak the bare definitional argument is, why does it persist?

The answer, I think, is that behind it is a powerful, unstated intuition that important social institutions ought to have stable attributes (meanings) over time. This is a deeply conservative instinct and I share it to a very large degree.

The “conservative instinct” Carpenter mentions is actually historical fact. Marriage’s definition has been consistent over centuries. That historical consistency is built into marriage’s definition and is one of the reasons why legislators from all 50 States specifically sought to protect and support it by codifying its definition. This historical aspect of marriage is undermined by loosening or casting aside pro-traditional marriage arguments based upon marriage’s definition as conclusory or without normative meaning. American history (including marital history) is something same-sex marriage advocates (and liberals in general) would like the American people to forget.

Carpenter’s definitional disenchantment belies the societal value of traditional marriage and its definition.