The Editor's Desk

These days, most speeches from gay activist organization leaders tend to inspire eye rolls from me. I’m not that interested in identity-based politics, and it frequently feels impossible to connect with gay political movements unless you’ve purchased the entire liberal identity package and think the government can make everybody get along. You also have to be willing to act like a victim, and I can’t stand doing that.

However, as a libertarian, my belief in the bedrock foundation of civil liberties is no different from theirs (the difference is where the foundation ends). I believe, and I have said before, that marriage is a right. We treat marriage as a right. As such I believe the U.S. Constitution already endorses gay marriage in the Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Essentially, just because a right isn’t laid out specifically in the Constitution does not mean said right doesn’t exist. But that’s considered a radical argument in today’s era of nanny government. The government gives you rights now, when it once existed to make sure your rights weren’t taken away.

I’m getting a little too far ahead, actually, as yesterday’s gay marriage decision was based on California’s Constitution, not the United States’. The judges determined denying marriage to same-sex couples violated the state’s constitution.

The responses from gay marriage opponents have been predictable, but no less frustrating. Apparently the definition of an activist judge is one that makes decisions you don’t like. Consider the response from our own county supervisor, Brad Mitzelfelt: “In 2000, the people of this state overwhelmingly supported Proposition 22, defining marriage in state law as a union between a man and a woman. With this decision, the Court has chosen to overrule the will of millions of California voters.”

Well, yes, Mr. Mitzelfelt, when millions of California voters approve a proposition that violates the state’s constitution, the court is supposed to strike it down. Determining the constitutionality of legislation is what the state Supreme Court is for.

Our congressional representative, Howard “Buck” McKeon, is also either dense or cynically manipulating the matter to get votes: “[U]nder no circumstance should the courts be allowed to show such utter disregard for the democratic process. In this case, it appears partisan politics and personal opinions are taking precedence over the rule of law; and that’s an alarming turn of events.”

Yes, actually, the court is supposed to overrule the democratic process if the democratic process produces an outcome that violates the state constitution. That’s how the “rule of law” works. Now, if you want to debate whether the judges have misinterpreted the wording of the constitution, that’s one thing, but a legislator who doesn’t understand the role of the court is a legislator who isn’t fit for office.

Let’s try changing the parties involved here to see if I can’t get my point across. According to a 2007 report from the California Secretary of State, registered Democrats make up 42.5 percent of all voters and Republicans account for 34.2 percent in this state.

So let’s say a group of Democrats got together a petition that said the State of California would not recognize marriages between registered Republicans. In theory, such a petition could pass, given the Democrats have the Republicans outnumbered. Would Mitzelfelt and McKeon accept the will of the people under such circumstances?

No, of course not, because, and I’m sure they’d agree, the state doesn’t have the right to deny the marriages of Republicans. So what makes this case different?

The state has no business deciding the legitimacy of a family, nor does it have any business validating relationships between consenting adults. I will not vote for candidates who believe that the government is the hammer to help them beat people into submission so that they may build their fantasy utopia. If private individuals choose to believe my marriage wouldn’t be valid with another man, or if churches decline to perform them, then that’s certainly their right. But I won’t have the government making that decision for me — or them.

Don’t expect my vote in June, Mitzelfelt. I don’t vote for those with no respect for basic civil liberties.

I’m very happy about today’s California Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage, though I know there are many people in our area who are probably not.

I’m leaving myself out of the decision-making process in the newsroom (a very rare occurrence) as I have absolutely no objectivity on the matter, letting the staff decide how to run the coverage of the decision.

I will be out of town next week for a business conference, but I’ll try to put something together as an editorial comment for Monday’s Desert Dispatch. My editorial will be one of my less formal ventures in order to account for my personal stake in the debate.

We’ll be running The Orange County Register’s editorial about Propositions 98 and 99, the competing eminent domain measures on the ballot in June, in Wednesday’s Desert Dispatch.

I know some folks tend to ignore the editorials we run from other newspapers, but OCR’s editorial writers are experts when it comes to eminent domain issues, and they’ve certainly taught me a thing or two. I consulted with one of their editorial writers, Steven Greenhut, before taking my position in support of Proposition 90 back in 2006. I will ultimately write my own editorial prior to the June vote, but OCR’s editorial writers are saying what I plan to say anyway.

Whenever there’s a state proposition on the ballot, I get inundated with press releases and phone calls from folks hoping to bend my ear and influence our editorial stance for the vote. Yesterday I took a call from a polite woman who wanted to encourage us to take the exact opposite stand that we’re taking. I don’t argue with these folks, because there’s no point in it. It’s not like I’m going to convince this paid shill to change sides. But it did amuse me that she clearly had no understanding of our libertarian editorial position (not that I blame her; at times I feel Freedom Communications is pretty much alone in the mass media wilderness in our worldview). She attempted the “bandwagon” argument by pointing out all the government agencies and organizations that oppose Proposition 98 and support Proposition 99, unaware that this actually makes me more skeptical of her claims.

Her big misstep, which they keep repeating in their e-mailed press releases, is try to convince me to oppose Proposition 98 on the grounds that it harms rent control laws. I don’t support rent control laws (and I say this as somebody who rents a house), so this argument has the exact opposite effect of their intentions. And they’re not convincing me otherwise with such arguments as “Proposition 98 hurts real people,” somehow suggesting that people who rent property are not real people and don’t have rights.

The United Way in Barstow is in the middle of determining the allocation of its donations to its local member agencies for the year.

I was invited to participate in one of United Way’s allocation subcommittees, which visits the agencies to see what they do and serves as a form of oversight to make sure United Way donors’ money doesn’t go to waste.

One of the agencies I visited was New Hope Village, a transitional housing complex for homeless adults and families that works to make them self-sufficient members of our community. I met a couple of the complex’s residents, recovering addicts who are working to put their lives back together. According to Executive Director Angela Pasco, many of them have destroyed their credit ratings, making it difficult for them to overcome their problems even after fighting back their addictions.

New Hope Village struggles as well, trying to secure enough funding to keep their modest efforts going. Pasco said they’d like to expand to offer more apartments for needy families. They rely a lot on donations to furnish the apartments they offer. They do a lot with a little.

A couple of weeks ago a wrote an editorial chiding State Sen. George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner for trying to compound the failures of the drug war by increasing penalties for meth use and sales. Their “Safe Neighborhoods Act” is a costly waste of time that attempts to garner support for their own ambitions by appealing to people’s fears.

And so you may ask, “Well then, what’s the alternative?” Places like New Hope Village are the alternative. Residents get assistance with meeting basic needs, training and help with their problems so that they learn to overcome them, and most importantly, they’re also held accountable for their actions. They are neither discarded, nor coddled. They are treated like adults, not wards of the state — but also not like helpless children.

We need more places like New Hope Village, not more prison cells.

Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, died Tuesday morning at 69.

I was a big Dungeons and Dragons nerd up until I graduated college and became a journalist. I have no regrets and am not at all embarrassed by saying so. The game fostered the kind of creative activity that was unmatched by the card and board game culture it preceded to the point that some adults felt threatened by the concept. I still remember laughing at certain religious critics who believed that gamers were actually trying to cast magic spells in the real world as though they would actually work. As there were no reported increases in school bullies evaporating in a beam of green light, we now know that’s simply not true.

Dungeons and Dragons’ influence on the future of fantasy culture is obvious. It pushed forward a revival in the fantasy genre, in books first, but eventually on film as well. Its influence on the gaming culture that exists today cannot be understated.

But there’s more. Any psychologist can explain the importance of “play” on the development of a child — developing physical and mental abilities that will eventually help him or her overcome barriers in life. So how does Dungeons and Dragons fit in?

Well, consider that when us Generation X gamer nerds reached adulthood, the job market didn’t quite know what to do with us. There was a lot of press in the late ‘80s and ‘90s about Gen Xers having to work a succession of horrible, dead-end jobs to make ends meet.

A lot of that has changed, now, but why? The answer is that there is an entire business and commercial culture based around computer and communication systems that didn’t exist back then. And this culture was built largely by those former Generation X youths. The experience of creating new worlds and challenging our intellect and creativity helped foster a generation comfortable with creating new systems and changing dynamics in the real world.

Gary Gygax’s influence spread much further than even he probably realized. So much technological innovation in the world has come at the hands of those who spent hours, days, weeks, even years, crafting entire imaginary systems, cultures, and worlds. It should not have come as a surprise that ultimately such creativity would push out into the world of business and commerce as we grew older.

So rest in peace, Gary Gygax. By influencing a generation to create worlds of their own, you have ultimately contributed to significant, invaluable creations in the world we actually live.

After mulling over the possibility of no recommendation at all, I barely endorsed the passage of the four casino initiatives on the primary ballot for next Tuesday.

This is probably one of the situations where advertising did make a difference, but in a negative way. The anti-compact commercials’ constant invocations about the state not getting enough money and how the “taxpayers” were somehow getting a bad deal because the state bribe from the gaming tribes wasn’t big enough just filled me with contempt — that we’re owed some of somebody else’s money just because they have a lot of it.

As I explain, though, this doesn’t mean I’m happy with the existing relationship between the casinos in the state. I just think the culture of entitlement has gotten so bad that it’s a much bigger problem than the monopoly system we’ve got with the tribes. I, of course, would be much happier if gambling were legalized and treated like any other business, which I hope would avoid some of this nonsense in the future.

I succumbed to the mistake I’m most neurotic about in a recent editorial.

I wrote on Wednesday speculating that the CHP’s latest speeding enforcement drive coinciding with the governor’s budget cuts announcement was more of a show that they are a source of revenue of the state

A reader politely e-mailed me to inform me that the money from speeding tickets given by the CHP doesn’t go to the state — the money goes to county or city in which the driver is cited.

I’ve written here that one of my biggest concerns about writing editorials is presenting an opinion based on a factual foundation that proves to be incorrect, which is exactly what happened here. It should have occurred to me to think about the complex relationship between the state and county funding in California, but it did not.

I’ll have to make this right in an editorial next week. I do stand behind the rest of the editorial though, that a two-day publicized crackdown on speeders in the middle of the week is going to be unlikely to result in any sort of change in driver behavior on our stretch of Interstate 15.

What happens when a political organization forgets that its job is to represent its constituents and instead assumes that its the job of its constituents to represent them? Loyalty oaths.

Apparently, according to The Roanoke Times, the Virginia GOP is requiring those who wish to vote in the Republican primary there to sign an oath that they’ll vote for the Republican candidate for president in 2008, regardless of whom it might be.

What an insult to the Republican voter in that state — and to the very idea of freedom and liberty.

Right now the Republican candidates for president are noteworthy for the diversity of their positions in a number of areas. They all stand on different places on the Republican platform. It is extremely insulting and unbelievably inappropriate for a political party to attempt to demand its members vote for somebody for whom they do not ultimately support.

Last week I mentioned in a commentary to coincide with the birthday of Freedom Communications founder R.C. Hoiles that I would never vote for a presidential candidate who would permit the use of torture to interrogate prisoners. So if I were a Republican in Virginia, I may want to vote for Ron Paul or John McCain in the primary and express my concern that the GOP return to its commitment to the rule of law. But what if Rudy Giuliani landed the ultimate nomination? I will not vote for that man. He doesn’t even understand the concept of “limited government.”

I don’t know what to say. I’ve never been a Republican, so I don’t know what it’s like, but I’ve read a number of traditional conservatives who have stated that they feel the party is abandoning them and its principles. This is a good example. I can’t imagine any political organization that purports to uphold liberty and freedom demanding loyalty oaths from its members. It’s like something that would be required at a worker’s meeting in the old Soviet Union.

It looks like I spent too much time thinking about what the Supreme Court might say about rental inspections and didn’t bother to look to see if lower courts had already addressed the matter.

They have. Attempts to implement rental inspections in Illinois and Texas have been successfully fought off as Fourth Amendment violations. The description of how the inspections bore out in Garland, Texas, is especially eye-opening. Those who voluntarily participated ended up having to deal with improvement demands that went far above and beyond the safety of the tenant. And of course, the landlords who were actually the cause of the problems didn’t even bother to register.

This rental inspection proposal is doomed. I know that a number of folks are planning to come forward to speak out against it. We can only hope the city listens before it brings an ordinance into play that will likely cost the city a lot of money when it’s inevitably challenged in court.

Incidentally, I rent my home, and I already warned a city staffer that I’m not going to agree to an inspection unless my landlord wants it.

I hate this case in so many ways — I hate the leader of the defendants probably more than is necessary, and unfortunately, I hate the verdict:

“The brokenhearted father of a Marine killed in Iraq won a long-shot legal fight today after a federal jury in Baltimore awarded him nearly $11 million in a verdict against members of a Kansas church who hoisted anti-gay placards at his son’s Westminster funeral.” — The Baltimore Sun (read the whole story here)

The Westboro Baptist Church family is a crew of loathsome people with a seeming collective persecution complex and apparently thrive on the fact that they repulse so many people. In fact, I have no doubt that they moved on from picketing gay events and AIDS victim funerals to military funerals exactly because of the negative attention it would give them. They probably believe deep in their hearts that the abuse they receive by so many people for what they do brings them closer to what Jesus went through.

I personally encountered these picketers about eight years ago while covering a story and made the decision to mention them, but not interview any of them, for the very reason that all they wanted was publicity and to feed off being loathed. I wanted to deny them of what they most craved.

But this verdict is wrong. There’s no way to get around it. The First Amendment should not have an exception: “unless it causes emotional distress.”

The can of worms this opens is absolutely unbelievable. Somebody could claim emotional distress over just about any comment. How do you argue that somebody hasn’t been caused emotional distress?

No doubt the horror of having this family show up to picket your dead son’s funeral is indeed a source of emotional distress, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but it’s not the role of the government to protect us from cruelty, only threats to our safety and livelihood.

I suspect the judgment will be tossed on appeal, as it should be. I hate that I have to say that. As much as I would love to be rid of Phelps and his ilk, the potential consequences of letting this decision stand are far worse.