By Ann Rostow–
Tough Times!
I am so nervous and anxious these days. Do you know those chambers in science fiction movies that people use for lengthy space flights? I’d like to get into one for the next three or four weeks. When I emerge, I want a thoughtful clinician to be waiting for me to regain consciousness. He or she will either give me the good news. We won! Or provide me with a powerful fun narcotic of some sort. What are the kids using these days? Special K? Or was that last decade?
I’ve stopped trying to understand what half my fellow Americans are seeing in this unhinged wannabe tyrant. As I write this morning, I am learning about the half-hour Trump spent swaying and “bopping” to music instead of answering questions at a so-called town hall last night. The audience loved it. Meanwhile, Harris can give a five-minute rundown of some intricate middle class tax incentive and she’ll still be accused of avoiding policy details.
Anyway, I can’t stand it. I was praying for Harris to develop a huge comforting lead in the polls by this point in time, securing the Blue Wall and challenging in those other swing states. Instead, we’re faced with a dead heat, and the definite possibility of a disastrous Trump restoration. I feel as if I’m in a rickety bus on a mountain road being driven by a chimpanzee. The good news is that the chimp has made the drive many times, we don’t have far to go, and we are headed for a scenic lodge with beautiful views and a cellar full of champagne. The bad news is that the right side of the road falls off a five-hundred-foot cliff and one of the passengers is distracting the chimp with a beach ball while he drives.
I must also tell you that I feel somewhat derelict as a human being to have blown off the many problems of our violent world as I focus a) on the election and b) on my own personal whims. That seems to be the extent of my bandwidth, which leaves no room to worry about horrible violence in the Middle East and war in Ukraine. With that in mind, I was almost reluctant to read Nicholas Kristof’s recent piece in The New York Times, which I understood from the headline was about ongoing murder and famine in the South Sudan.
It’s not simply that I didn’t have the mental space to worry about Darfur. It’s that I didn’t have the mental space to feel guilty about not worrying about Darfur. And by “worrying,” I don’t mean taking action. The only thing I do about any of these tragedies is shake my head ruefully and make comments to my friends. As for Darfur, I thought that was a showdown between warlords from years ago, but the situation (I learn from Kristof) is more of a disaster now than ever—a toxic stew of political chaos and cruelty.
I guess my own problems are First World, as they say. And I’m not even mentioning my worrisome concerns over college football and the Chiefs.
Ad Hoc
Before I go further, can I ask what the story is with “Blue Chew,” an erectile disfunction gummy that has flooded the airwaves with commercials over the last month or so? The product, as you may have seen for yourself, is pitched by the type of buxom young women we used to see in the Playboy centerfold back in the day. The girls give us a knowing wink and tell us to let our guys know the secret, or something like that, which makes me wonder: Why would the young men who presumably are hooking up with these traditionally attractive women have erectile disfunction?
I imagine ED can hit guys of all ages, but still. Wouldn’t it be difficult to seduce someone of this ilk if you can’t sustain an erection? Perhaps these spokeswomen are all going out with aging Sugar Daddies.
And who decided, not just to advertise, but to mount a zillion dollar nonstop promotional campaign on every football game on every channel in every time slot? I, for one, am getting sick of Blue Chew and suspicious of its sexpot cheerleaders. So, ad guys? You can tell your corporate bosses that the Baby Boomer lesbians are not buying what you’re selling.
Speaking of ads, the Million Moms from the American Family Association are annoyed with the Keebler elves, who were riding along when a parent missed her child’s school bus. “Awww … ,” the mother is about to use the “f word” when an elf asks, “Fudge?”
That, the Moms say, is “insinuated profanity,” by implication a bad thing, particularly when the kids are watching! “Everyone knows children repeat what they hear, particularly when a young person is the one speaking in the ad. Typically, young actors attract young viewers,” the Moms warned.
But doesn’t that mean the kids will all be saying “fudge?” I just don’t get these people, and I also thought that a “profanity” was by implication sacrilegious. I checked, and although “profane” means secular and is tied to religion, a “profanity” is apparently any old bad word. I don’t believe this, because I think the roots of words matter a great deal, as do their true definitions.
“Bombastic,” for example, means pretentious or verbose, not loud. “Enormity” is a gross evil, not a large thing. “Mano a mano” means “hand to hand,” not “man to man.” And a profanity should refer to a religious curse, not a swear word, and certainly not a cookie variety recommended by a cartoon elf. That said, the point of language is to convey meaning, so if 90 percent of people think “bombast” is loud obnoxious ranting, there’s an argument to be made that using the word in that context is not a mistake.
I think I disagree, but I can see both sides.
Lost in Litigation
I’ve somewhat lost track of many lawsuits weaving through the appellate courts, but then again, we’ve just finished the summer months when the High Court was formally out of session. Now, it’s back and several of these lawsuits will be finding their way to the nine justices, either in the form of petitions or as actual cases under review.
The one actual case we are bracing for this session is the Equal Protection challenge to Tennessee’s ban on health care for transgender youth, called United States v Skyrmetti. Skyrmetti was accepted for review as the Court ended its last session, but we do not have any scheduled arguments as yet.
Complicating the situation is the rise of the “shadow docket,” decisions that the Court makes year-round without full briefs, arguments, or significant thought (so it seems), on a preliminary basis. Often, these emergency motions are handed down without comment so you don’t even know what the justices were thinking. A typical example is an antigay law or a gay-friendly policy that is contested in lower court. If the law or policy is put on hold for the duration of what could be years of litigation, the other party can ask a higher court to quickly review that decision before the case continues. If that quick review winds up at the High Court, their quick reply can leave everyone scratching their heads.
In one example last August, the Court said Louisiana was not obliged to enforce the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX while the administration rules were under court challenge. That was a three-page “decision,” which was followed by a nine-page objection from four justices who thought the majority went too far. I won’t go into this (the Court essentially blocked aspects of the Biden rules that were not even challenged) because my point is that these mini-decisions have a large impact on our lives without creating a precedent or enjoying a full examination of the issues.
Then there are petitions for review that are set aside on the Court’s list of things to discuss for months and months, leaving a major case in limbo along with all its implications.
Then there are the cases that are rejected, where we sometimes see a dissent but where usually we have no idea which six justices refused to hear the matter.
Unlike the days of the marriage equality cases, which were all pretty much alike, these days we are contesting a dozen issues, most of which concern transgender citizens—their civil rights, their health, their humanity. But we are also battling harsh red state laws that target GLBT students, business owners, and entertainers.
Just the other day, on October 9, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit heard arguments about whether or not Florida can enforce its ban on drag performances while a lawsuit continues through the process. According to legal analyst Chris Geidner, it looks as if the panel will say no, which is nice. But then again, we can assume that refusal will head to the High Court and by the time it crosses my path again I will have totally forgotten the details.
Look, I’ll just do the best I can. Bring on the Prevagen.
Oh, but before we go, I just read about a workplace discrimination case brought by an Ohio woman who claims she was passed over for promotion because she was straight, in violation of Title VII’s ban on discrimination because of sex—and by implication sexual orientation. I see contrarian cases like this often enough, but usually ignore them. But astonishingly, this time the U.S. Supreme Court has just accepted review of this oddity and will hear the matter this session. I will have to look it up and find out exactly what happened to this woman and why she thinks being straight has anything to do with her woes. She lost in lower courts, so it’s not at all obvious why the justices would jump in here. I’ll be in touch next time!
Colorado Dismisses Case Against Masterpiece Guy
Remember Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who won the right to discriminate against GLBT clientele thanks to a technical ruling from the High Court in 2018? Alert readers may also recall that a transgender activist, Autumn Scardina, jumped on the bandwagon at the time by setting up a lawsuit of her own against Phillips. In 2017, as the first case was reaching its very public conclusion, Scardina asked the unpleasant cakester to make her a transition cake that was pink on the inside and blue on the exterior. Of course, Phillips refused, and Scardina sued him.
I confess I thought Scardina and her deliberately litigious cake request was self-promotional. The issue was already being contested under a much more straightforward set of facts, so to speak, in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. Eventually, the High Court majority found that a Colorado commission had discriminated against Phillips by not respecting his religious views (or something like that) but then fecklessly declined to rule on the main question of whether or not Phillips violated the state law against GLBT discrimination when he refused even to sell a premade cake to two gay men.
(May I digress and say that this was one of the more cowardly and regressive “decisions” by a generally pro-gay Court, written by the weirdly weaselly champion of GLBT rights, Anthony Kennedy? It was useless and I hated it.)
At any rate, the notion that the same Court that had dithered around this exact issue for years would now take Scardina’s transition cake business seriously was nonsense. In March 2019, the AP reports, the state came to a deal with Phillips and dropped both the original discrimination complaint and the one that stemmed from Scardina’s suit. But that deal didn’t stop Scardina, who pursued Phillips for another five years. Now, the Colorado Supreme Court has dismissed her case, ruling that Scardina had not exhausted her options in the lower courts (God, help us).
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Drop this! If we couldn’t win Masterpiece Cakeshop with Ginsburg and Kennedy, we’re not going to win it with Kavanaugh and Barrett. And let’s not give Jack Phillips any more time in the limelight.
arostow@aol.com
Recent Comments