Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Morning Roundup Morning Roundup: St. Patrick's Day Edition
Posted by Tracy Moore on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 10:28 AM
From the Dept. of Baffling Quotes comes this gem: In opposition to three councilmembers trying to get Nashville's human rights agencies to look into private companies who discriminate based on gender identity, councilman Jim Hodges said: "It doesn't surprise me. That is part of the national homosexual agenda. They can't eat the whole elephant so they'll just nibble away at it a little bit at a time." Someone -- anyone -- please explain. ... Fortune names Belmont one of the top 5 schools in the country for entrepreneurs for its music biz program and major in social entrepreneurship. ... Want Tennessee to amend its constitution and ban a state income tax forever? So does this guy. ... Look out, lead foot: So-called "super speeders" might get hit with a $200 fine for going 15 mph over the limit to collect dough for trauma centers. (Another proposal suggests making it 25 mph over the limit.) The vote's been rescheduled for March 23. ... Remember college textbook prices? The price keeps going up, and some folks are arguing that certain professors who update certain textbooks and then require their students to purchase those textbooks -- which they receive royalties for -- are profiting unfairly. But is the solution to ban royalties? ... Whether you're actually allergic or merely insensitive, gluten sufferers now find more options around town for g-free eating. ... And last but not least, the Franklin po-po are on Twitter, making the micro-blogging site now officially dead.
Comments (1)
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While Councilman Hodge's paranoid fantasy about a "national homosexual agenda" is silly beyond belief, his description of how ANY civil right gets extended is entirely apt. Whether you describe it inelegantly as nibbling away an an elephant a bit at a time, or as incrementalism, civil rights in this country do tend to be extended or retracted a step at a time.
The First Amendment was applied to state and local governments in a series of Supreme Court decisions.
Second Amendment principals appear to be now being extended to individuals by a similar series of incremental decisions.
Fourth Amendment protections were extended incrementally by liberal justices, and then eroded, one decision at a time, by crime-conscious conservatives justices.
It took the Gideon, Escobedo, and Miranda decisions and others to extend the reach of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to their current state.
Pro-lifers like to point to the Roe decision as a sudden extension of a hitherto unknown civil right. But Roe would not have been possible without previous decisions like Griswold v. Connecticut, and others.
Councilman Hodge may be deluded if he truly believes in the existence of a "national homosexual agenda," but he is tactically wise to oppose the extension of equal rights to homosexuals at every step in the process, just as Barry, Steine, and Cole are astute to push their extension one step at a time.
What we're witnessing in Nashville is a textbook illustration of how rights get extended (or not) in this society. Both sides obviously have a clear understanding of how this game is played.
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