Steve Benson (Arizona Republic)

Saudi Women Can Now Vote. But Their Plight Remains a Human Rights Calamity

New Republic
Editorial
September 30, 2011

Sunday’s announcement that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had granted Saudi women the right to vote and stand for office in municipal elections was big news around the world. At a glance, it certainly sounded like terrific news—what, after all, is a more direct emblem of the march of progress than the right to vote? But while the announcement may represent some very marginal progress, Saudi Arabia remains one of the worst places on earth to be a woman. Because the country’s ruling regime is, nominally at least, an American ally, the plight of Saudi women doesn’t receive nearly as much attention in Washington as it should. But it is truly one of the human rights catastrophes of our time.

Despite the king’s announcement, the women of Saudi Arabia remain second-class citizens. They are forbidden from driving, and the religious police—the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice—oversees their public behavior, enforcing public segregation between the sexes. This means that employment opportunities for women are extremely limited. Women are considered legal minors, under the control of their closest male relative. In court, the testimony of one man is equal to that of two women. The World Economic Forum Gender and Development Index ranks Saudi Arabia 129 out of 134 countries.

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A test case for Europe's creaking asylum system

by Cian Murphy

Guardian
September 27, 2011

The state of Greece's economy is not the only issue that is causing a problem for other European states. In late 2008, Saeedi, an Afghan asylum seeker, arrived in the EU via Greece before making his way to the UK to seek refuge. Under the Dublin regulation it is for the EU country of first entry to consider the asylum claim, so the UK sought to return Saeedi to Greece. Saeedi challenged his transfer by claiming that Greece was unable to process his case and that return would violate his fundamental rights. If he is successful, no asylum seeker could be returned to Greece under current conditions.

Given the human rights claim, Saeedi's case also affords the European court of justice the opportunity to decide on the legal status of the EU charter of fundamental rights in the UK. If the ECJ follows the lead of its advocate general, Verica Trstenjak, whose opinion was handed down last week, Europe's creaking asylum system will be put under critical pressure.

The legal dispute turns on how a member state may exercise its discretion under EU law. While the Dublin Regulation dictates which state must process an asylum claim, EU law allows a state to take it upon itself to process any particular application should it decide to do so. Saeedi argued that the UK was obliged to consider his application because Greece would be unable to. The advocate general considered the position of the Greek asylum system, and concluded that transfer to Greece would give rise to a real risk of violation of Saeedi's fundamental rights. Though the UK was ordinarily free to assume other member states would comply with human rights requirements, it was open to an asylum seeker to rebut that presumption – as Saeedi had. As a result the UK should be obliged to protect him against that risk by processing his asylum claim.

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An Indefensible Punishment

New York Times
Editorial
September 25, 2011

When the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty 35 years ago, it did so provisionally. Since then, it has sought to articulate legal standards for states to follow that would ensure the fair administration of capital punishment and avoid the arbitrariness and discrimination that had led it to strike down all state death penalty statutes in 1972.

As the unconscionable execution of Troy Davis in Georgia last week underscores, the court has failed because it is impossible to succeed at this task. The death penalty is grotesque and immoral and should be repealed.

The court’s 1976 framework for administering the death penalty, balancing aggravating factors like the cruelty of the crime against mitigating ones like the defendant’s lack of a prior criminal record, came from the American Law Institute, the nonpartisan group of judges, lawyers and law professors. In 2009, after a review of decades of executions, the group concluded that the system could not be fixed and abandoned trying.

Sentencing people to death without taking account of aggravating and mitigating circumstances leads to arbitrary results. Yet, the review found, so does considering such circumstances because it requires jurors to weigh competing factors and makes sentencing vulnerable to their biases.

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The World's Top Executioners

by Joshua E. Keating
Foreign Policy
September 22, 2011

This week's execution of Troy Davis has provoked an international outcry and renewed debate in the United States over the death penalty. With the fifth-most executions per year of any country, America finds itself on a list with some of the world's worst human rights abusers.

CHINA: Number of executions: Thousands -- reliable statistics are hard to come by.

IRAN: Number of executions: 252 in 2010

NORTH KOREA: Number of executions: 60 in 2010

YEMEN: Number of executions: 53 in 2010

UNITED STATES: Number of executions: 46 in 2010, 35 so far in 2011

All figures from Amnesty International unless otherwise noted.

Two Women Fined for Covering Faces

Spiegel
September 22, 2011

The new "burqa ban" in France has produced its first trial and convictions: Two women who staged a protest in May will have to pay fines. One defendant on Thursday promised to bring her case before the European Court of Human Rights.

A court in suburban Paris on Thursday handed out fines to the first two women tried in France for violating a ban on wearing face-covering garments in public.

Hind Ahmas, 32, and Najate Naitali, 36, were both cited in May for wearing niqabs, traditional Muslim face veils, while trying to enter the Meaux town hall with a birthday cake for the mayor. Meaux is a suburb of Paris, and its mayor, Jean-Francois Cope, helped push the "burqa ban" through France's parliament last year. He also leads President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP party.

Ahmas received a €120 ($161) fine on Thursday and vowed to bring her case up before the European Court of Human Rights. Naitali received an €80 fine in absentia -- after having been denied entry for refusing to take off her niqab.

"(This) violates European laws," Ahmas told reporters after the hearing in Meaux. "For us, the question isn't the amount of the fine but the principle. We can't accept that women are sentenced because they are freely expressing their religious beliefs."

They reportedly carried an almond cake for Mayor Cope as part of a symbolic protest, as the French words for both "almonds" and "fines" sound similar.

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Βίαια καθεστώτα κι εμείς

του Κωστή Παπαϊωάννου

Τα Νέα
22 Σεπτεμβρίου 2011

Όποτε μετανάστες διαπράττουν κάποιο αποτρόπαιο έγκλημα, πολλοί σπεύδουν να μιλήσουν για λαούς συνηθισμένους στην άμετρη βία, για ανθρώπους που αψηφούν την αξία της ζωής. Μερικοί πάνε επικίνδυνα πέρα από αυτή την εν γένει εύλογη διαπίστωση. Υποστηρίζουν πως στα «συγκριτικά τεστ των πολιτισμών» μερικοί (ανατολικοί) λαοί αποδεικνύονται ντε φάκτο ανθρωπιστικά λειψοί.

Το θυμήθηκα αναλογιζόμενος τη δική μας στάση απέναντι στο αίμα που συνεχίζει να χύνεται στη Συρία και στην Υεμένη. Με τον τρόπο μας επιβεβαιώνουμε κι εμείς τη σχετικότητα της αξίας της ζωής. Κρίνουμε αλλιώς την εκεί βία σε σχέση με μια πραγματική ή υποθετική έκρηξη βίαιης καταστολής σε μια δυτική χώρα. Οι 3.000 χαμένες ζωές αντικυβερνητικών διαδηλωτών στη Συρία έχουν βάρος αμελητέο. Σε ό,τι αφορά ειδικά την Ελλάδα, έχει ενδιαφέρον η ανοχή στην αναίσχυντη υποστήριξη Κίνας και Ρωσίας προς το καθεστώς Ασαντ. Θα κάναμε το ίδιο αν ήταν οι ΗΠΑ που εμπόδιζαν κάθε αντίδραση του Συμβουλίου Ασφαλείας του ΟΗΕ; Εμείς, οι οποίοι αγανακτούμε δικαιολογημένα και γενναιόδωρα με την ισραηλινή πολιτική που οδηγεί τη Γάζα στην εξαθλίωση, γιατί τώρα αγανακτούμε με φειδώ; Πολιτικοί φορείς με πληθωρική ευαισθησία σε άλλα θέματα δεν έχουν ζητήσει εν προκειμένω ούτε τα στοιχειώδη: παραπομπή της Συρίας στο Διεθνές Ποινικό Δικαστήριο, εμπάργκο όπλων και δέσμευση περιουσιακών στοιχείων του προέδρου Ασαντ και των ανώτερων συνεργατών του.

Επί δεκαετίες Λιβύη σήμαινε «ηγέτης Καντάφι» (δεν τον λέγαμε δικτάτορα, ελέω διεθνισμού πρωτοπασοκικής κοπής). Αίγυπτος σήμαινε Μουμπάρακ και Συρία σήμαινε Ασαντ. Οι μακροχρόνιες δεσποτείες διεκδικούσαν την ακλόνητη μονιμότητα φυσικού φαινομένου. Τώρα που ανατρέπονται, νιώθω πως πολλοί δεν συμμερίζονται τη χαρά της μεγάλης εν εξελίξει αλλαγής. Εύκολα το πιάνει κανείς στην ατμόσφαιρα, δεν είναι καθολική η ανακούφιση για τους δικτάτορες που έφυγαν και ο θυμός για εκείνους που ακόμα φονεύουν κρυπτόμενοι. Αρκετοί, όταν προσεγγίζουν το θέμα, προτάσσουν στις τοποθετήσεις τους τα δυτικά συμφέροντα, τα πετρέλαια και τον ιμπεριαλισμό. Σωστά όλα αυτά, όμως η μονότροπη ανάδειξή τους εντέλει σχετικοποιεί την αξία της αραβικής εξέγερσης. Για να το πούμε σχηματικά, ούτε οι αποικιοκρατικές βλέψεις ούτε η δίψα για πετρέλαιο, ούτε η επί δεκαετίες λυκοφιλία των Δυτικών με τα καθεστώτα της ευρύτερης περιοχής μπορούν να επισκιάσουν την κρίση μας αναφορικά με ισόβιους μονάρχες που φλερτάρουν με την παράνοια. Βεβαίως και πρέπει να δούμε με ειλικρίνεια τις συνολικές ευθύνες της Δύσης για την κατάσταση στον αραβικό κόσμο. Αλλά, παράλληλα, να κοιτάμε τις αραβικές χώρες και κοινωνίες χωρίς εθελοτυφλίες και ωραιοποιήσεις.

Περισσότερα

EU border police 'turning blind eye' to abuse of migrants in Greece

Guardian
September 21, 2011

Europe's fledgling border police force has been knowingly aiding and abetting the serial abuse of migrants during its first major deployment on EU frontiers, Human Rights Watch said.

In a 62-page report on conditions in Greek asylum and detention centres, widely known to be disastrously dysfunctional, the organisation on Wednesday accused Frontex, the EU's external borders agency, of turning a blind eye to the torture, beating, and systematic degradation of illegal migrants detained after crossing the border from Turkey.

"Frontex has become a partner in exposing migrants to treatment that it knows is absolutely prohibited under human rights law," said Bill Frelick, Human Rights Watch's refugee programme director.

The report highlighted appalling conditions in five detention centres in north-east Greece close to the border with Turkey, with males and females herded together in overcrowded cells, allegations of rape, unaccompanied minors also dumped in packed "cages" with adult males.

Beds were scarce, toilet and washing facilities almost nonexistent, medical help rare, and beatings common for protesters.

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Read the Report

Making Tyrants Do Time

by Kathryn Sikkink

New York Times
September 15, 2011

Time is running out for former government officials accused of murder, genocide and crimes against humanity. In the past few months, the final Serbian war-crimes fugitives were extradited to The Hague, the trial of the former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, began in Cairo, and the International Criminal Court opened hearings on the post-election violence that plagued Kenya in 2007-8.

These events have provoked a chorus of trial skeptics, who contend that the threat of prosecution undermines democracy, exacerbates conflict and could lead to greater human rights violations.

Critics argue that the threat of prosecution leads dictators like Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan to entrench themselves in power rather than negotiate a transition to democracy. In El Salvador, where domestic courts have refused to extradite officers accused of murdering Jesuit priests 22 years ago, critics claim that such a prosecution would undermine stability and sovereignty.

But we do not know whether extraditions would destabilize El Salvador, or whether Sudan and Libya would have been better off than they are today if the I.C.C. had not indicted Mr. Bashir or Colonel Qaddafi.

Indeed, those arguments rest on proving or disproving a counterfactual. While the I.C.C. indictment may have prompted Colonel Qaddafi’s desire to hide once he left power, we do not know whether it shortened his last days in power or prolonged them.

Historical and statistical evidence gives us reason to question criticisms of human rights trials. My research shows that transitional countries — those moving from authoritarian governments to democracy or from civil war to peace — where human rights prosecutions have taken place subsequently become less repressive than transitional countries without prosecutions, holding other factors constant.

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Το σωστό και το εύκολο

του Αριστείδη Χατζή

Τα Νέα
13 Σεπτεμβρίου 2011

Η απόφαση για την ανέγερση τζαμιού στην Αθήνα αποτελεί ένα καλό παράδειγμα της ελληνικής θεσμικής ανεπάρκειας: συγκεντρωτική λογική και περιφρόνηση βασικών ανθρώπινων δικαιωμάτων σε συνδυασμό με αδιαφορία για την αποτελεσματική εφαρμογή των αποφάσεων.

Καταρχήν θα πρέπει να σας θυμίσω ότι η Αθήνα έχει το θλιβερό προνόμιο να είναι η μοναδική πρωτεύουσα στην Ευρώπη χωρίς τζαμί. Η απόφαση για την οικοδόμηση του τζαμιού πέρασε ως τροπολογία στο νομοσχέδιο για τα αυθαίρετα και ευτυχώς ψηφίστηκε σχεδόν ομόφωνα. Δεν μπορώ όμως να καταλάβω γιατί χρειάζεται νόμος για να κτιστεί ένα τζαμί και όχι απλή απόφαση των αρμόδιων διοικητικών υπηρεσιών που θα ελέγχει αν έχουν τηρηθεί κάποιες βασικές προϋποθέσεις.

Επιπλέον το περιεχόμενο της ρύθμισης που ψηφίστηκε από τη Βουλή είναι απαράδεκτο για δύο κυρίως λόγους:

(α) Το τζαμί κρατικοποιήθηκε πριν καν κτιστεί.

(β) Ως κρατικό τζαμί είναι αυτομάτως προβληματικό ενώ ο τρόπος λειτουργίας του παραβιάζει ήδη τα δικαιώματα των μουσουλμάνων συμπολιτών μας.

Το τζαμί θα ανεγερθεί από το ελληνικό κράτος στον Βοτανικό, σε οικόπεδο του Πολεμικού Ναυτικού και θα κοστίσει περίπου 12 εκατομμύρια ευρώ. Για την ακρίβεια θα χρησιμοποιηθούν υπάρχοντα οικοδομήματα στον χώρο για να διαμορφωθεί το νέο τζαμί, το οποίο θα έχει εμβαδό μόνο 850 τ.μ. και θα χωράει το πολύ 350 άτομα.

Γιατί να αναλάβει το ελληνικό κράτος να κτίσει το τζαμί; Γιατί θα κοστίσει τόσο πολύ όταν δεν θα κτιστεί νέο κτίριο; Γιατί να κτιστεί σε δημόσιο οικόπεδο; Γιατί να είναι τόσο μικρό όταν οι μουσουλμάνοι είναι εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες; Τι θα γίνει με το εξίσου σοβαρό πρόβλημα του μουσουλμανικού νεκροταφείου; Γιατί να μην κτιστούν από τους ίδιους τους μουσουλμάνους τζαμιά και νεκροταφεία σε ιδιωτικά οικόπεδα και με τις προδιαγραφές που αυτοί επιθυμούν; Γιατί αντί να επιδιωχθεί ο απόλυτος διαχωρισμός της Εκκλησίας από το Κράτος τώρα θα κρατικοποιήσουμε και τη μουσουλμανική θρησκεία;

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Δείτε επίσης εδώ

9/11 (Marshall Ramsey, The Clarion Ledger)

Athens is the only European capital without a mosque

Islamophobia Watch
September 3, 2011

Muslims performed Eid al Fitr prayers outside in Greece, in the gathering "permitted by authorities" in the only European capital without an official mosque.

The Greek government has repeatedly set aside plans for the construction of a mosque and Muslim cemetery in the city of five million people.

Greece has a growing Muslim community and Athens' Muslim community is without an official mosque and prayers are usually held at cultural centers or community halls or private apartments around the city.

The Muslim community in Greece is estimated at about 1 million, in a country where the only mosques are in the northeastern region of Xanthi near the Turkish border, home to a large Muslim Turk minority.

No mosque has operated in the Greek capital since the country left from the Ottoman rule in 1832 and Muslims in Greece have to pray at stadiums in Athens as a proper mosque still remains a dream after more than two decades of campaigning.

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The Gay Marriage Debate: Why the state should stay out

by John Stossel

Reason
September 1, 2011

Six states and the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage. Most so-called liberals are happy about that. Most conservatives are not. As a libertarian, I think all consenting adults who want to commit to a life partner ought to be treated the same way.

To air this issue on my Fox Business show, I invited Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage and David Harsanyi, libertarian columnist at The Blaze.

Brown says gay marriage threatens marriage between a man and a woman. I asked him to explain.

"Marriage is a public good," he said. "When you redefine marriage, you redefine it for everyone. In states that have redefined marriage, we've seen serious consequences, ranging from what is taught in schools—kids in first grade in Massachusetts are taught that it's the same thing to grow up and marry a boy or a girl—to what happens to religious organizations or organizations that just believe marriage is the union of a man and a woman. ... You see Catholic Charities' adoption agency essentially being forced out of being able to adopt kids because the state said it is discriminating."

Whoa. Those are three separate points. I don't see a problem with the first: If they redefine marriage to include gays, that doesn't diminish my marriage. And if kids are taught that gay marriage is OK, so what?

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Jacob T. Levy, "Rationalism, Pluralism, and Hayek's History of Liberal Thought"

Centre for Independent Studies
August 29, 2011

The classical liberal economist F.A. Hayek frequently wrote on the history of liberal ideas, trying both to recover half-forgotten truths and to find the sources of what he viewed as pernicious intellectual errors. He believed that understanding past ideas was important for the correct diagnosis of contemporary ills, since those had so often come from theoretical and philosophical mistakes. He went so far as to propose naming what became the Mont Pelerin Society, the preeminent postwar grouping of free-market economists, the 'Acton-Tocqueville Society,' after two nineteenth century liberal political theorists whose writings on economics were cursory at best.

In this talk, Jacob T. Levy describes and assesses Hayek's history of liberal thought, suggesting that he correctly identified key issues in liberal constitutionalism but was too quick to jump from constitutional to economic questions. He wrote histories of rationalism and pluralism in liberal thought, but mistook them for histories of economic planning and free markets. Clarifying this can help us see the often-uneasy relationship between pluralism and markets, and to recognise trade-offs that classical liberal political economy sometimes has to make.

For the following audience Q&A

One Big, Happy Polygamous Family

by Jonathan Turley

New York Times
July 20, 2011

Since the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, Americans have enjoyed unprecedented freedom in their lifestyles and private relationships. The decision held that states could no longer use the criminal code for social engineering, dictating the most intimate decisions of citizens in their choice of partners and relations. But even as states have abandoned laws criminalizing homosexual and adulterous relations, they have continued to prosecute one group of consenting adults: polygamists.

Last week in Utah, one such family filed a challenge to the state’s criminal law. That family — a man, Kody Brown, and his four wives and 16 children — is the focus of a reality program on the cable channel TLC called “Sister Wives.” One of the marriages is legal and the others are what the family calls “spiritual.” They are not asking for the state to recognize their marriages. They are simply asking for the state to leave them alone.

Utah and eight other states make polygamy a crime, while 49 states have bigamy statutes that can be used to prosecute plural families. And they’re not a small population: the number of fundamentalist Mormon or Christian polygamists alone has been estimated to be as high as 50,000. When Muslim as well as nonreligious plural families are considered, the real number is likely many times greater.

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The Revolution Is Not Over Yet

by Hamadi Redissi

New York Times
July 15, 2011

Six months ago, after weeks of protests, the Tunisian people gathered in front of the Interior Ministry to demand that their longtime president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, leave the country. He fled for Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14.

But the country’s future remains uncertain. Giant sit-ins by opposition groups plagued the interim government that replaced Mr. Ben Ali. As in the French Revolution, they came armed with “Lists of Grievances.” The standoff ended when an interim prime minister, Béji Caïd Essebsi, an old hand in Tunisian politics, took office at the end of February. He managed the trick of both placating the impatient and not alarming those who want nothing to change.

The key to establishing a new democracy will be how the interim government deals with members of the old regime. Unfortunately, it has been reluctant to bring them to justice immediately, opting instead to leave this pivotal responsibility to the government that will take power after elections in October.

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What is classical liberalism?

LearnLiberty
February 11, 2011

Dr. Nigel Ashford explains the 10 core principles of the classical liberal & libertarian view of society and the proper role of government:

1) Liberty as the primary political value
2) Individualism
3) Skepticism about power
4) Rule of Law
5) Civil Society
6) Spontaneous Order
7) Free Markets
8) Toleration
9) Peace
10) Limited Government

Dr. Ashford is Senior Program Officer at the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University.

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Letters to Castro: Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa Rejects Socialism

Atlas Network
July 6, 2011

Nobel Laureate and Atlas Templeton Leadership Fellow, Mario Vargas Llosa, tells the story of his conversion from Marxism to free market capitalism after visiting Cuba and the Soviet Union.

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David Fitzsimmons (Arizona Daily Star)

Free Speech and the Internet

New York Times
Editorial
July 3, 2011

As the United Nations has said, access to the Internet is a human right. A report by the U.N.’s special rapporteur presented last month to the Human Rights Council in Geneva warns that this right is being threatened by governments around the world — democracies included.

The main concern is about oppressive regimes trying to squash political dissent — like China, which jails bloggers, blocks Web sites and filters the Internet to eradicate words, including “democracy,” from the conversation.

The report also warned against overzealous attempts by democratic states to control or censor online communications. Stopping infringement of intellectual property or the distribution of child pornography is legitimate. But governments must protect citizens’ rights to speak freely — anonymously when necessary.

In Italy, a court convicted Google executives because a user uploaded a video on YouTube depicting cruelty to a disabled teenager, even though Google quickly removed the offending content. Brazil’s Congress is debating legislation that would require Internet service providers to keep a log of customers’ online activity for three years, which authorities could access without a court order to pursue crimes such as calumny.

The French and British parliaments have passed draconian laws that would ban users from the Internet for illegally downloading copyrighted material. The United States Senate is considering an intellectual property bill that would allow the government or private businesses to take action against a potentially large array of Web sites for “facilitating” piracy, an excessively broad definition.

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China’s Political Prisoners: True Confessions?

by Jonathan Mirsky

New York Review of Books
June 30, 2011

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s ankle-deep heap of porcelain sunflower seeds bewitched recent visitors to London’s Tate Modern. But in early April Ai’s strong criticisms of the regime led to his disappearance somewhere in Beijing. On June 22, eighty-one days later, he reappeared at home. Not freed: reappeared, which can mean something closer to house arrest. A lifeguard at my local pool in London announced to me that Ai had been freed, and I fear that is what the “Sinologists”—as the China specialists in the Foreign Office like to be called—may have told Prime Minister David Cameron before his meeting on June 27 with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in London. They may also have mentioned that, according to the government’s official press agency, Ai “confessed his crimes”—though it should be noted no formal charge was ever brought against him.

“Admitting guilt” (renzui) is a well-established ritual, in which the alleged criminal is forced to sign a written statement about his supposed crimes. As the China correspondent for The Observer in the 1980s and 90s, I, too , was forced to “confess” on two occasions when I ran into trouble with the authorities, once in Lhasa, once in Beijing.

Perhaps Ai’s “freeing” and “confession” made it possible for Mr. Cameron to avoid saying anything unpleasant to his Chinese visitor. Another dissident, Hu Jia, was also released just before the Cameron-Wen press conference. Unnamed diplomats claimed that Hu’s release, like Ai’s, was a gesture of goodwill to Britain, though in fact Hu was let out on the final day of his sentence. In my experience, the British government’s “Sinologists” advise that Beijing dislikes public disagreement and prefers differences to be expressed genteelly, behind the screen. My first experience of this was in 1991 in Beijing when Prime Minister John Major assured me he had pressed Premier Li Peng hard about political prisoners. But I soon found out from another official who had been present that nothing of the sort had occurred. Not for China that thunderclap “inappropriate” proclaimed by Foreign Secretaries when a misbehaving country’s relationship with Britain is not as important, as with Syria and Bahrain, and of course, Libya.

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I was wrong about same-sex marriage

by David Frum

CNN
June 27, 2011

Editor's note: David Frum writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002, he is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," and is the editor of FrumForum.

I was a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. Fourteen years ago, Andrew Sullivan and I forcefully debated the issue at length online (at a time when online debate was a brand new thing).

Yet I find myself strangely untroubled by New York state's vote to authorize same-sex marriage -- a vote that probably signals that most of "blue" states will follow within the next 10 years.

I don't think I'm alone in my reaction either. Most conservatives have reacted with calm -- if not outright approval -- to New York's dramatic decision.

Why?

The short answer is that the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test.

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To Know Us Is to Let Us Love

by Frank Bruni

New York Times
June 25, 2011

In the mid-1980s, when I was in college, what concerned and frustrated my peers and me was how few states had basic statutes forbidding discrimination against gay men and lesbians: laws that merely prevented someone from being denied a job or apartment on the basis of whom he or she loved. At that point only Wisconsin and the District of Columbia provided such protection. The decade would end with just one addition, Massachusetts, to that meager list.

Same-sex marriage? I don’t recall our talking — or dreaming — much about that. We considered ourselves realists. Sometimes idealists. But never fantasists.

As it happens, we were pessimists, and underestimated our country’s capacity for change. That was my thought all week, even as it remained unclear what the endlessly dithering New York State Legislature would decide and even as President Obama, speaking at a gay gala in Manhattan, stayed the closeted pro-gay course, giving coy signals of solidarity without tying the knot. The fact that same-sex marriage was drawing such serious attention at such high levels was public proof of what I could see in my private life — in my own family. Where we are is a long way from where we were.

Outside New York, five states, along with Washington, D.C., already permit same-sex marriages. Twenty-one states, along with D.C., outlaw anti-gay discrimination. And both numbers will grow. That’s what recent polls telegraph, and that’s what the shape and flavor of the campaign for same-sex marriage in New York irrevocably demonstrated. This issue will increasingly transcend partisan politics and hinge less on party affiliation or archaic religious doctrine than on the intimate, everyday dynamics of family and friendship.

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Marriage Equality and the Catholic Bishops

by Geoffrey R. Stone

Huffington Post
June 25, 2011

New York State has taken an important step forward in our nation's never-ending quest to remake ourselves as a more decent, more inclusive, more just, and more moral society. Looking back from the future, our grandchildren will surely see the legal recognition of same-sex marriage as an inspiring chapter in America's story, a story in which we have progressively abolished slavery, ended state-sponsored racial segregation, prohibited laws against inter-racial marriage, protected equal rights for women, promoted religious diversity and tolerance, and outlawed discrimination on the basis of disability. There is no doubt that, in the long run, the United States will follow the lead of New York State. The challenge, though, is to make the long run short.

The most vehement opponent of marriage equality in New York was the Catholic Church. Indeed, in the heat of the debate in the state legislature, the New York State Catholic Conference issued a ringing proclamation: "The Bishops of New York State oppose in the strongest possible terms any attempt to redefine the sacred institution of marriage. Marriage has always been, is now, and always will be the union of one man and one woman. Government does not have the authority to change this most basic of truths."

That the leaders of the Catholic Church take this position is certainly their right, but it is a sorry testament to their understanding of their Church's own history in this nation. If anything, one would expect those leaders to be leaders in the fight against bigotry and intolerance, rather than voices in support of prejudice and discrimination. After all, as the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. once observed, prejudice against Catholics has been one of "the deepest bias[es] in the history of the American people."

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Gay marriage vote a milestone in New York

Washington Post
Editorial
June 25, 2011

NEW YORK HAS become the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Not by court order, but by a vote of 33 to 29 of the state Senate. With leadership from the highest reaches of state government, gay and lesbian couples who longed for the rights and responsibilities, the dignity and respect, that come with marriage will soon be able to do so legally in the Empire State.

New York joins Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia in allowing gays to wed. A court challenge to a 2008 amendment to the California state constitution that banned gay marriage after a state Supreme Court ruling made it legal there is wending its way through the federal appeals court process. If marriage-equality proponents succeed in the Golden State, 23.3 percent of Americans will live in states where gay couples can legally wed.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who took office in January, was a vocal proponent of legalizing same-sex marriage in New York and made passage a priority. He used the bully pulpit to garner public support around the state. He backed that up by using the power and prestige of the governor’s office behind the scenes. Cuomo was personally involved in securing votes until the very end. And a coalition of organizations also conducted the largest grass-roots effort the state had ever seen.

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NYC celebrates gay marriage vote

Associated Press/Washington Post
June 25, 2011

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New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law

New York Times
June 25, 2011

Lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born.

The marriage bill, whose fate was uncertain until moments before the vote, was approved 33 to 29 in a packed but hushed Senate chamber. Four members of the Republican majority joined all but one Democrat in the Senate in supporting the measure after an intense and emotional campaign aimed at the handful of lawmakers wrestling with a decision that divided their friends, their constituents and sometimes their own homes.

With his position still undeclared, Senator Mark J. Grisanti, a Republican from Buffalo who had sought office promising to oppose same-sex marriage, told his colleagues he had agonized for months before concluding he had been wrong.

“I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.”

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Why Free Trade Matters

by Jagdish Bhagwati

Project Syndicate
June 23, 2011

Contrary to what skeptics often assert, the case for free trade is robust. It extends not just to overall prosperity (or “aggregate GNP”), but also to distributional outcomes, which makes the free-trade argument morally compelling as well.

The link between trade openness and economic prosperity is strong and suggestive. For example, Arvind Panagariya of Columbia University divided developing countries into two groups: “miracle” countries that had annual per capita GDP growth rates of 3% or higher, and “debacle” countries that had negative or zero growth rates. Panagariya found commensurate corresponding growth rates of trade for both groups in the period 1961-1999.

Of course, it could be argued that GDP growth causes trade growth, rather than vice versa – that is, until one examines the countries in depth. Nor can one argue that trade growth has little to do with trade policy: while lower transport costs have increased trade volumes, so has steady reduction of trade barriers.

More compelling is the dramatic upturn in GDP growth rates in India and China after they turned strongly towards dismantling trade barriers in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In both countries, the decision to reverse protectionist policies was not the only reform undertaken, but it was an important component.

In the developed countries, too, trade liberalization, which started earlier in the postwar period, was accompanied by other forms of economic opening (for example, a return to currency convertibility), resulting in rapid GDP growth. Economic expansion was interrupted in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but the cause was the macroeconomic crises triggered by the success of the OPEC cartel and the ensuing deflationary policies pursued by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

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Jimmy Margulies (The Record)

Yemen’s Unfinished Revolution

by Tawakkol Karman

New York Times
June 18, 2011

After more than five months of continuous protests, I stand today in Change Square with thousands of young people united by a lofty dream. I have spent days and nights camped out in tents with fellow protesters; I have led demonstrations in the streets facing the threat of mortars, missiles and gunfire; I have struggled to build a movement for democratic change — all while caring for my three young children.

We have reached this historic moment because we chose to march in the streets demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, an end to his corrupt and failed regime and the establishment of a modern democratic state. On June 4, our wish for Mr. Saleh’s departure was granted, but our demand for democracy remains unfulfilled.

Following months of peaceful protests that reached every village, neighborhood and street, Yemen is now facing a complete vacuum of authority; we are without a president or parliament. Mr. Saleh may be gone, but authority has not yet been transferred to a transitional presidential council endorsed by the people.

This is because the United States and Saudi Arabia, which have the power to ensure a peaceful transition to democracy in Yemen, have instead used their influence to ensure that members of the old regime remain in power and the status quo is maintained. American counterterrorism agencies and the Saudi government have a firm grip on Yemen at the moment. It is they, not the Yemeni people and their constitutional institutions, that control the country.

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Tim Eagan (Deep Cover)

Saudi Arabia’s Freedom Riders

by Farzaneh Milani

New York Times
June 12, 2011

The Arab Spring is inching its way into Saudi Arabia — in the cars of fully veiled drivers.

On the surface, when a group of Saudi women used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to organize a mass mobile protest defying the kingdom’s ban on women driving, it may have seemed less dramatic than demonstrators facing bullets and batons while demanding regime change in nearby countries. But underneath, the same core principles — self-determination and freedom of movement — have motivated both groups. The Saudi regime understands the gravity of the situation, and it is moving decisively to contain it by stopping the protest scheduled for June 17.

The driving ban stems from universal anxiety over women’s unrestrained mobility. In Saudi Arabia that anxiety is acute: the streets — and the right to enter and leave them at will — belong to men. A woman who trespasses is either regarded as a sinful “street-walker” or expected to cover herself in her abaya, a portable house. Should she need to get around town, she can do so in a taxi, with a chauffeur (there are 750,000 of them) or with a man related to her by marriage or blood behind the wheel.

Although the Islamic Republic of Iran could not implement similarly draconian driving laws after the 1979 revolution, given that women had driven cars there for decades, the theocratic regime did denounce women riding bikes or motorcycles as un-Islamic and sexually provocative. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, proclaimed in 1999 that “women must avoid anything that attracts strangers, so riding bicycles or motorcycles by women in public places involves corruption and is forbidden.”

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Planet Burma

by Jesse Walker

Reason
June 3, 2011

"Around the globe, it is democratic meltdowns, not democratic revolutions, that are now the norm." Or so claims Joshua Kurlantzick, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations writing in the June 9 New Republic. From Venezuela to Russia, he argues, regimes are sliding toward autocratic rule. Polls show public opinion turning against self-government. Freedom House, which issues annual reports on the worldwide state of democracy, says we've been heading in the wrong direction for half a decade. "The other countries were supposed to change Burma," one activist tells Kurlantzick. "Now it seems like they are becoming like Burma."

It's a dramatic story, but it isn't really accurate. We aren't on the road to Planet Burma. More likely, we're witnessing freedom's growing pains.

Kurlantzick does make some valid points. Some countries have suffered setbacks in the last few years. Surveys in several places do show a middle-class disillusionment with democracy, and such results do complicate the common assumption that popular wealth inevitably leads to louder demands for popular power. Above all, he's right that we shouldn't assume increases in freedom are irreversible and unstoppable. No social trend is inevitable. You gain liberty by winning it, not by waiting for it to fall into place.

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