A Little Good News
Wednesday October 4, 2006
Category: Abortion and Birth Control | Gender and Sexuality | War on Terror
Last week's Military Commissions Act was terrible news, undoing much of the good that was done with the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling back in June.
But it was really an astonishingly good week for civil liberties otherwise--and I say this realizing that it may remind you of the bit of dark humor that goes "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?," but it really was. Before I return to my talk of torture, enemy combatants, and the Geneva Conventions--and thanks so much for brightening up my weekend writing schedule, Mr. President--I'd like to go over three events from last week that may also be of considerable long-term importance:
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But it was really an astonishingly good week for civil liberties otherwise--and I say this realizing that it may remind you of the bit of dark humor that goes "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?," but it really was. Before I return to my talk of torture, enemy combatants, and the Geneva Conventions--and thanks so much for brightening up my weekend writing schedule, Mr. President--I'd like to go over three events from last week that may also be of considerable long-term importance:
- Gay marriage in Rhode Island. Sort of. As Amy Hess reports, Rhode Island residents--and residents of any other states that have not banned same-sex marriage--can now legally marry in Massachusetts.
- Aunts and grandmothers of the world, rejoice! When I wrote about the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act back in July (see item #7), I expressed my horror at a bill that would punish good samaritans for helping pregnant teenagers in abusive or uncooperative families access abortion clinics out of state. I have always found it ironic that opponents of abortion are willing to allow it in cases of rape or incest, and then turn around and propose legislation seemingly designed to criminalize abortion in cases of incest--but never mind. The bill is toast.
- The Senate failed to pass legislation authorizing President Bush's top-secret wiretapping program. It is no secret that President Bush wanted to put this legislation in place before the election, so that he could be assured of working with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, but he encountered resistance in the Senate and the bill stalled out.
Comments
I keep seeing the term gay marriage pop up on this site (and elsewhere), while not every same sex couple consists of gays. E.g. many lesbians and bisexuals would never call themselves gay. Same sex marriage may never win a prize as being the world most aesthetic term, but it’s more accurate than the term gay marriage.
That’s a really good point, Dani; thanks for this. I actually prefer the term “same-sex marriage” myself, but most people who search for information on same-sex marriage use the phrase “gay marriage” in the search engines, which is where my site crops up. So I have this very uneasy tension where I’m choosing between two terms, one more widely used and one more accurate, and what I try to do is use both while subtly encouraging use of the latter. Maybe I should be a little less subtle about it!
I run into a similar but much more unpleasant situation with the immigration issue, where “illegal immigrants” is by far the most searched-for phrase but the term “undocumented immigrants” is preferred by immigration attorneys and others who work with the undocumented population (there is such a thing as illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrants; human beings can’t be illegal). What I do there is take a stand and use the “undocumented” language, but stick “illegal immigrants” in the metakeywords so that folks using that search phrase have a fighting chance of finding the site.
Maybe I should be doing something similar with “gay marriage” vs. “same-sex marriage” on my new articles. I dunno. I’ll have to think about this…
And early on, I had an even tougher conundrum vis-a-vis the phrase “war on terror,” which I always thought was a really weird and misleading way of describing counterterrorism efforts, because you can’t by definition declare “war” on terrorism, drugs, poverty, etc. etc. etc. Beating terrorism is about good intel and security, beating the drug trade is about treating drug addicts to reduce demand, beating poverty is about creating sustainable local economies. None of that is really helped by military occupation. “Sorry about the 4% unemployment rate–we’ll send the 101st Airborne!” But “war on terror” is the only phrase that is used to describe these efforts, so I shrug and use it but then try to find subtle ways of indicating that I don’t really agree with that terminology.
Anyway, thanks for giving me something else to think about. It’s always nice to run into someone else who recognizes how powerful words, and word choices, are!
Cheers,
TH
Thank you, Tom, for your explanation on why and how you use certain terms and for taking my comment seriously.
It’s sad when inaccurate terms like gay marriage, illegal immigrants and war on terror become the most popular ones.
I’m sorry about the late response.
Take care,
Dani